I am 30 years old and not really experienced in life in general really. My BI struck when I was only 11, nearly 12. I haven't had a payed job, ever. I have always lived at home, IN THE SAME CARDBOARD BOX-TYPE ROOM! I feel ashamed to say it, and I hope I don't get some laughs, but I haven't really had a girlfriend either. I look around me, see all these people with more experience in their lives, even those who have BI, and then look at myself and think "What a muppet". I do think to what someone at Headway told me years ago and that was that life is different for me because the majority of people there were around the middle-aged mark and were already experienced and had BIs where I had to grow up with a BI before I got to do half of the things most others did. I also think back to ehat a friend said at Headway once and that was when there BI struck, it was like they had a new life. My date of birth is the 2nd May, 1984. My BI life is April the 9th 1996. It kind of feels like my 30yr old soul is watching over my 18yr old BI life.
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Matt2584
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Only one word and that is BIRTH, so this is going to be brief.
"I had a scary dream once that I was giving BIRTH.
The End".
Hi Matt
I'm sorry you are feeling so low. I think having your BI at such a young age is a major factor here, and it is true that most of us on here had ours much later in life. Therefore you didn't have a chance to create an adult life for yourself before BI.
Most of us are struggling to get back the lives we had, or adapt to a new way of life. I have never thought of it this way before but we are the lucky ones. We had a blueprint to work from, you are trying to create a blue print with the difficulties already impacting upon you.
The lack of understanding of affects of BI makes it so much harder for us to fit in within the general society. I think your connections through Headway are very important for that reason.
Take care and don't be so hard on yourself - think of what you would say to someone else from your Headway group if they said this. I am sure you would be there with kind, supportive comments.
I know it is hard but try to be kind to yourself and look at the talents you have eg a wicked sense of humour and amazing artistic talent
I do see myself as a massive loser in one view BUT I look at another view and that is, I don't know many, if not any, that have had to go through life like I have. I do know a guy who was born, or was very young, with a BI but I would still say life for him is a bit different than mine. He would've gone through life with a BI and no interuptions where my life has been interrupted. I liked to consider myself as quite popular when I was little. BI struck and I was nowhere near popular and I missed that and I wished I had never had surgery to begin with. BUT the thing is, if I never had all that surgery then I wouldn't be here today to tell the tale :). So I guess you've just got to look at things in a positive light and I don't normally talk about this kind of thing with my local Headway group Because I am a more quiet, reserved person and many of them are older than I am and haven't gone through ehat I have been through.
I've always said I'm glad my ABI happened when it did and not when I was younger because I recognise how much harder it is for younger people like you to come to terms with your new life and move forward. I salute all of you, you are all doing so well, probably much better than I would have done in the same position.
Don't ever think you are a loser, you have far more insight and empathy than many of these people you envy. Your life has just taken a different path and you will grow and move along that path.
Your drawing is superb, keep on with that, I am sure you are an asset to your Headway group, as you become more settled with yourself, your confidence and belief in yourself will grow.
Take care, Matt, we are all here, behind you xxxx Janet
I sorry you feel low at present but your presense here on the forum is great, since I first saw your posts I've notice a general lightning of mood which I can only put down to your sence of humour and fun.
I like to think I have a pretty good sense of humour and often make people laugh when really inside I want to cry but the sound of their laughter or the responses I get bring me out of the slump fairly quickly.
You shouldn't underestimate the good you do here brightening peoples days up.
As for the girlfriend thing I don't think anyones gonna laugh and some might even be jealous, they're bloody expensive.
Don't compare yourself to others, that's a sure way to feeling down, besides their condition may be far less challenging than yours or they may even be 'bigging' themselves up. Remember the phrasre 'the other mans grass is always greener' hackney'd and over used but no less true. Or 'the other mans ass is always bigger'. Which ever makes you happier.
Instead look at the things you have achieved, making people here laugh at your jokes, pictures and quizzes for one, I've never replid or tried to answer them for fear of showing how thick I am.
Hope you feel better soon and don't forget you can moan here as much as you like and somebody is bound to know exactly what you're going through and won't ever critisize, damb don't know if I spelt that right, still done now.
As for your night mare, I've had kidney stone and the pain that a 4mm stone causes makes the thought of giving birth the WORST nightmare EVER!!!!
About the nightmare giving birth thing. That didn't actually happen I hope you know :). It was a little game I thought of. Underneath each post is a tagged word that shows up in a turquoise rectangle. So I make up a little story including the tagged word or words. I have done it a few times but people don't seem to catch on haha. No problem though, I don't mind playing by myself :).
I think I would hate to have a kidney stone removed.
It's better than child birth through the same route. lol. Oh and the thing about the tag shows what I mean by not taking part cause it shows how thick I am
I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true, plus I've never played the game thing with the tags game, I am, and always have been rubbish at making up stories I'm much better at the puzzles, thank goodness I didn't lose that. Xx Janet
I was a bit tardy replying coz I'd started the bath running before I settled down to post to you, then suddenly remembered and just caught it before it overflowed!
Done that before years ago , set the bath running and thought I'd just got time to take my son to school, but forgot my door keys! You can imagine, panicked race to my mother in laws for the spare set, and got back to a flooded kitchen, it'd come through the ceiling, but I've never gone out without my door keys again, or set the bath running and gone out. hee hee Janet
Matt - I think lots of people feel like a bit of a loser sometimes - but you won't know that because most people don't share it.
There is a phrase remind myself constantly or I fall into "compare and despair" trap - "Don't compare your inside to other people's outside". This is especially dangerous at Christmas when there is a lot of pretending everyone is having a great time and when you get the inside story, many people are having all sorts of difficulties and tensions and struggles but the facade of happy families is misleading.
The statistics of marriage breakdown show that lots of people are not happily married.
I don't mean to belittle your feelings of loss and regret - they are real and valid given the impact of BI at a young age. But please don't be so mean to yourself - you are not a muppet. You are bright, gifted, courageous, and fun too. As the others said, you've brightened up this forum, even for people like me that won't ever be able to do your puzzles (with or without BI in my case)
Thanks Zeb :). And sorry, I just feel like that sometimes. Sometimes I think "I have such a miserable life" but I try to live that as best and as happy as I can.
I do often say to myself though, "What is a 'normal' person?"
That's right, they don't exist, neither do perfect people. It makes me laugh when someone is saying that they are perfect in every way because there is likely another person half way around the world saying the exact same thing about themself. if A is perfect then B can't be perfect to because then that defeats the object of A's perfectness.
I assume this about aspirations, which is no dought why younger folks take Version Two of ones self harder.
For myself I'm 39 and married etc. luckily I'd reached a point where I was relaxed etc. but youngsters can be stressed, i certinaly was mainly over dyslexia which pails in significants now! Though some of that is that I have always been dyslexic but until a year ago I didn't have a TBI
Sorry you're having a bad day Matt. Wonder if you over-did stuff and are tired (i get more down then)? Me too, often feel like I'm stupid, not clever enough and fail at everything then some days later I think no: I know how hard I've worked and you've had to work even harder, like someone else said: we were lucky, already grown up when got ABI.
You're a GREAT artist, creative and a joker - the world needs more people like you. Others will wish they were like you, I do when I see the art and stuff you do.
So try and be proud, easy to say I know, harder to see what you've done and say yes, I done good. I know on bad days it's hard and for us struggling with this crazy busy complicated world, not our fault but we feel it is, well I do anyway.
Sorry can't do your quizzes - maybe more people in other forum areas people can? But hats off and a bow to your art!
Matt, you should be putting a portfolio together and presenting it to greeting card companies and publishers of children's books etc...etc.... You have a special, quirky talent which could bring you enormous satisfaction (& revenue) if you could just have some self-belief.
I believe you could be really successful in the business of illustration ; so much so that it could transform your life. All you need is the confidence, because you have the ability and the tools already at your disposal. xx
Thanks very much, Cat, that is really nice of you to say. For your information, I am getting myself a blog together where I will post a lot of my pictures and I shall post my link on here when done. But thanks for the ideas about presenting to greeting cards or children's books. I did actually think once about maybe illustrating children's books. Maybe some day it could happen :).
I think you've hit the nail on the head ! Although I'm only 22 I had my BI when I was 11 so even though I haven't had quite as long as you experiencing this I can relate to growing up with the effects of a brain injury, it can be AWFUL but sometimes it's actually quite amusing . I also feel like I've lost out on a lot of things growing up but I've actually gained quite a lot aswell, things 'regular people' won't experience until there middle aged. The biggest mistake I ever made was to try and fit in with everybody else, it just causes unwanted stress. There's always time to pick up and learn things you feel missed out on
Thanks rikic and it is good to know somebody else who has had to go through life at a young age. Obviously it isn't at all good you have a BI and the same with me but it's good to know more younger people going through BI life.
For years I thought I was 12 haha. Nah, I'm exaggerating there but it kind of feels like that when I first acquired my BI , time went by very slow and is going by very slow right now. I explained about the 'my train and my friends train' thing before. My friend is the same age as me, I am a couple months older but he has advanced greatly in life when I haven't. I still feel like I am a teen and many would agree that I look like a teen as well. I do have to say though that my mum looks young for her age so maybe I take after her or the boyish looks could be the fact that I eat ham haha, kidding.
Maybe we have drunk from the fountain of youth and did not realise? What exactly is in our tap water? Haha.
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How did I manage that?
Living with TBI and isolation 
