Today is our wedding anniversary 16 years
Hoover gets blocked (major meltdown )
Toilet seat is loose (2nd major meltdown )
Everything is a massive thing to mark.
I've had to come upstairs so he calms down 😢
Happy sodding anniversary! !!!!!!
Feet are sore walking on these eggshells
Hate all this
Oh Debbie, its so terribly unfair. I understand completely and am sending you a massive hug; I think you are amazing and a hero xxxx
I need a hug today thank you
It's a lonely road I'm on..
Marks sleeping now so no special meal out. We'll get a takeaway. Just glad my daughters are here x
Hi Debbie
I don't. Think you've ever told us the whereabouts of Marks injury.
Brain injury can be, in some ways, harder for men. Even in this modern age many men have a lot of their identity tied up in being the provider and household handyman.
A brain injury is an assault on your identity so when something happens like a blocked hoover that you would have been able to deal with without thinking there is often a sudden rush of blood/red mist that descends and the frustration.
Unfortunately it is our nearest and dearest who get the brunt of it.
I suppose it was inevitable but I might as well be the one to do it so here goes a paraphrase of "THE GODFATHER" "its not personal: its brain injury."
Hold on to that and when you understand why Mark flips out and develop strategies like going upstairs it will become more manageable.
Lovenhugs
Xoxo
Hi Debbie
How were you and Mark before his BI? Was your relationship a struggle then.
The reason I'm asking is my son will say his emotions are different since his SAH. He lacks empathy, he doesn't look forward to or miss things in the same way. He finds lots of things just too much. He doesn't do this on purpose but it's how he is now and that can be hurtful at times but i know he doesn't mean to hurt or be short.
He can be like 2 different people, one a real laugh and childlike, great fun to be with and hilarious! The other can be snappy, short and won't let issues go.
He can laugh and joke but if the tables turned he doesn't like it and can snap and be unreasonable.
He now recognises what he can be like but can't always stop how he acts.
I'm wondering what your relationship was like before and how much the BI has affected his emotions.
You take care and have a good rant on here, I do and it helps so much xx
Debbie, I was thinking about you again today and dug out this old blog I wrote a couple of years ago (hopegoesupanddown.blogspot.... when I was feeling just as you are right now.
All I can tell you is how completely different life is now and how much more empathetic and caring Jake gets by the day.
Don't give up lovely. I'm here if you need me.
Charlie x
Thank you i can relate to this
We've a long way to go i knowthat.
I won't give up xx
Oh, love!
We genuinely don't mean to be horrible, and it's not our intent to hurt people, or make life difficult.
My background, and possibly the fact that I'm female means that I deal with the rage differently, the fact that I DIDN'T take the empty shampoo and conditioner bottles my son had left on the bathroom floor, instead of putting them in the bin, and shove them in his bed didn't mean I didn't think about doing it.
I'm horrible, since the surgery, I was always a bit horrible before, but now, most of my first-impulses are really nasty, and it's really tiring pushing them down all the time. The way I look at it, the re-wiring in my brain makes me want to behave like a toddler at times, no emotional regulation at all. I know I CAN'T crawl under my desk at work, and just scream until people go away, and I know I CAN'T punch the husband in the face when he makes those monkey-noises when he eats, but the impulse is there.
Is there any way Mark could access some CBT? I know that my impulses are irrational, and, so far, I haven't acted on them, because I know that when I get one of the 'toddler' impulses, I have to step back, and re-evaluate. My GP suggested CBT to me, but I'm not acting out the 'behaviours', as Mark seems to be doing. My impulse-control, thankfully, is really good, but it's incredibly wearing, having to second-guess myself so much, and remove myself from situations that are irritating me, before I 'blow'.
I appreciate that the husband is finding this very difficult, that I'm essentially avoiding him, because he's a major source of irritation, but I won't ask him to change his nauseating behaviours, it's easier for me to just leave the room than it is for me to explain to him, yet again, that the noise he makes when he eats makes me feel sick, or the fact that he's shoved his dirty socks down the side of the sofa instead of putting them in the laundry basket genuinely does make me want to punch him in the face.
I'm in a very different situation to you, my marriage has been 'over' for years, we're just two adults stepping over each other in the same house, it's possible that the husband thinks that my near-death experience might have 'mended' the relationship. It hasn't, and it's not going to.
Mark needs to acknowledge the behaviours that are causing distress, the overload, post-brain-injury is massive, so there won't be as much tolerance, and the first-impulse can quite often be massively disproportionate, and irrational. Mark probably doesn't realise he's being hurtful, I know myself, that I quite often have an urge to throw whatever appliance is playing up out of the window, but I can use my 'adult' brain to over-ride my 'toddler' brain, and, even though the first impulse is sometimes unbearably strong, I can stop/think, and not do it.
Again, we don't mean to be hurtful, we have changed, and we didn't intend to.
Hi. I know just how you feel. My husband's head injury was in 1989 and I'm still walking on egg shells. Sometimes I wish I could just run away but its not that easy. I'm sure he'd like to run away too at times. This is not the man I married but I've changed too. Some days are incredibly hard and some days it's easier but we just keep plugging away. X
Louis Theroux On Brain Injury
Brain injury training for employees
Gym for brain injury survivors?
Brain injury and TV programmes
