I suffered a mild brain injury After being attacked in 2007 and a period of unconsciousness. I consider myself as high functioning & have a very good engineering job. However ever since my brain injury my mood seems very flat & neutral. I feel joyless and get no great feelings of pleasure. I don’t feel traditionally ‘depressed’ but quite like life is passing me by. I do however feel quick to anger and generally cross. I’m not really sure what support might exist for me.
I attended a CBT course after my attack which was useful- but the feelings of now being ‘different’ & unable to feel happiness persist.
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Chrismc1977
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Yes, the flattening effect can be isolating when others seem to be sharing emotions or jokes and we feel nothingness. And, as you say Chris, it's not a depressive state.
I try to summon up emotions I remember from before the brain injury and respond accordingly, but quite often think 'Perhaps that didn't deserve a second thought' or 'Maybe it wasn't so funny anyway'.
It does create a feeling of something missing in life and doubtless down to a damaged area of the brain ; but feels like a piece of your soul is missing.
It's a problem with everyday stuff for me mostly ; family, animals and injustice issues can usually get through to me. Oh, and music can be surprisingly evocative. Try sitting with earphones and playing tracks which might evoke strong memories of pre-brain injury times.
Hello. Your post really struck a chord. My brain injuries occurred almost the same time and in the same way as yours. I’m now able to function to some extent and in more recent years have a job, albeit not a very good one. I feel it’s all so long ago that it’s too late to get any help yet more and more I feel like I need help. Some things just haven’t improved over time. Like memory, focussing, attention span, logic and so on. My mood is like yours I think, which I’ve never heard anyone else say, definitely not depressed, just flat. And I feel like I’m just drifting aimlessly through life. I still find the whole thing incredibly difficult to talk about, it’s only since finding this community recently that I’ve spoken about it at all.
I was incredibly fortunate in that my injury was mild- (to the outside world) & I appear completely fine. It’s such a trap to just feel somewhat flat & unable to really be happy and joyful. I have 2 children rapidly growing up and feel emotionally distant from them. It also affects my relationship with my wife. She just thinks I’m grumpy & angry.
Not sure a GP can assist- or if medication could help. I’m pretty doubtful being honest
Unfortunately I don’t think GPs have much understanding of brain injury. My previous doctor had little knowledge but was willing to try, and sent me to relevant specialists and consultants and for various aspects of physical care. My current gp seems to be unaware of brain injury and seems to think I should be over that now. It was years ago. The physical effects are still omnipresent, like the paralysis and pain, and the emotional effects never leave me, or the other problems of memory and all the other things. I don’t have children, I can’t imagine how hard it must be to have to present the face of the grown up parent who is in control of emotions and situations. I hope you can find some help you need. It’s so hard. Especially when other people just don’t understand. They think it’s like any other injury you just get over.
Hi, this is a shot in the dark, I had the total opposite, feelings of euphoria and being at one with the world. I had stunning imagery in my mind and never had a days depression or low mood from the brain injury. My cognitive functions though, language, attention, memory and concentration etc were really bad. As I rebuilt these functions the euphoric effects diminished and I did start to get angry with people and the DWP and NHS and legal issues etc.
I've always wondered what the euphoric part was and the fantastical imagery so I searched and eventually found that people get a mixture from one extreme to the other depending on the brain injury. What I found was that it depends on the hemisphere of the brain that most of the damage occurs. For instance people who damage their dominant hemisphere tend to get euphoria and feel good and don't get down or depressed but they have really bad cognitive effects. Whereas people who damage their other hemisphere, the 'undominant' hemisphere tend to keep much of their cognitive abilities and working brain but their euphoric, good feeling, part of the brain reduces in function leaving the person with a lack of feeling and emotion.
This may be worth checking out, see if you can get a neuropsychology appointment. You say you are fine at working etc, the working cognitive hemisphere, whereas you have totally reduced feelings the other hemisphere. The evidence for all this come from strokes. Because the bleeds etc can be scanned they know what areas of the brain were affected and are correlated to the effects.
As I said it's a shot in the dark but worth following up. The CBT course would have dealt with the working brain not the emotional brain. there may be a new avenue for you to follow. Get some info, try the stroke association etc, then go to the GP and ask for the neuropsychology assessment.
• in reply to
Hi Chris. EFT emotional-focused therapy rather than CBT is what you may want to look at.
I've remember reading something similar about frontal lobe damage. I damage to right = euphoria or similar - damage to left = depression or similar. All the best. R
I wrote a post some days ago on the same feeling I have after a whiplash. What you decribe is called anhedonia and it is also a main symptom of depression and even schizophrenia. But people who had a mild TBI are not really depressed or schizophrenic: thety are "simply" affected by the brain problems described in the previous posts. For me the more dramatic aspect is that I saw three neulorologists who told me that, since the CT scan of the head is negative, I cannot absolutely have the symptoms I describe unless I admit that I am "only" depressed and I am ready to take antideprressants. I must now find a new specialist who really understand and possibly treat my problem. Nevertheless, this forum is important because we can at least share our experiences and realize that we are not aliens.
p.s. even music, I was used to love a lot, is giving me less pleasure: this is called musical anhedonia, at least there is a name for this unfortunate experience I hope to overcome.
Te feelings of flatness and lack of emotion perfectly describes my daily experience except that I have something called lability, when uncontrolled laughter or tears spontaneously start. I don't know what triggers it, or even if it has a trigger, but in public it can be very difficult to manage. The damage is to both left and right sides of the brain (accident trauma injury), so not sure where that leaves me. Professionals have consistently asked me if I'm depressed, which is not the case at all, although it does seem rather sad to think your emotions are gone for good. I've come to realise that for all their eminent qualifications and years of experience, many medical practitioners have little or no idea what is like to have brain injury.
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