TBI Victim vs TBI Survivor. Which one are you?

I use to belong to a Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI survivor's support group on Facebook.  It is a place where people can share their stories, ask and give advice or where you can simply go to cry on someone's shoulder when you need to.

However, I started noticing that most of the posts were negative in nature. People complaining about what their TBI’s took from them, what they could no longer do, how their lives were now terrible.

Finally, a member of the group named Brian, posted an interesting question. He asked (and I am paraphrasing) if  having a survivor mentality holds you back from your full potential and prohibits you from actions, not conducive to being a "survivor."

It caused a lot of debate, even infuriating several members to the point where the post was eventually removed by the group administrator.  

I found myself pondering Brian’s question all day.  I remembered that I had read an article in the Huffington Post by David Wood titled,  When Giving Up 'Wounded Warrior' Status Helps Vets Heal, so I returned to the Huffington Post website, found the article and read it once again.  

In the article, Mr. Wood brings up a similar sort of question to Brian's.  He asks, "When does one stop being a wounded warrior?"  

Mr. Wood interviewed several veterans, including Jason Gladney, an infantry platoon leader in Iraq, who suffered a TBI when an IED exploded near him. Because of the injuries he sustained from the blast, the Army forced him into medical retirement. 

Jason became depressed, angry and insecure.  His fiance' eventually left him.  It wasn't until Jason decided that he no longer wanted to continue to live his life as a "wounded warrior," and took control over his disabilities that his life turned around and he became fulfilled and happy.

That brought me back to Brian's question and I started to think about how I perceived myself as a “TBI survivor.”

TBI was not as widely known back in 1997 as it is today, so really the only concerns that I, as well as those around me had after my traumatic event was how to heal the physical injuries.  My broken bones, nerve damage, double vision, hearing loss, facial paralysis, inability to walk and even talk properly in addition to some cognitive deficiencies such as short term memory problems. The mental and emotional healing took a back seat.

Depression, anger, fear, impulsiveness, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder were all left untreated.  I became stuck in this continuous cycle of emotional instability, going from a manic state one day to being crippled with depression the next.

My way of dealing with this uncontrollable emotional roller coaster was by self-medicating myself with food and alcohol.  I became overweight and even more miserable.  I spent nearly 15 years living this way.

It wasn't until I decided that I no longer wanted to be viewed as a TBI victim any more, but as a TBI survivor that my life completely turned around for the better.

 

Traumatic Brain Injury is a nasty beast.  If you are not willing to fight, it will destroy you.  But no one is going to slay the dragon except for you.  If you sit around wallowing in self-pity, waiting for your hero to rescue you, your life will eventually come to a miserable end.

I am not saying that you cannot mourn your loss.  It is alright to cry, to scream, to be with others who understand and share your suffering, but it is not alright to simply give-up, lay-down and quit.  When all you do is talk about how bad your life is now because of your TBI and focus on what you no longer can do, you are letting your disability dictate how you live your life.

When facing adversity you have two options.  You can become your own hero, pick yourself up and decide that you are not going to let it rule the rest of your life or, you can become the victim, lie down, hand over the controls and let it lead you down a path of misery.

Two of the most common regrets nurses say people express on their deathbed are "I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me," and, "I wish that I had let myself be happier."

So what are you going to do?  Are you going to give your disability control over your life and live it as a victim or are you going to take control and be happy?  It's your call.