Hypoxic brain injury struggles

[Bellabear12]

Two and a half years after hypoxic brain injury and I feel our marriage is struggling as husband is at me all the time. He argues with our teenage daughter and I just get so stressed with it all. I miss how he used to be as he can’t drive or work anymore and is at home with me most of the time

[RecoveringH]

Bellabear,

I can imagine how he is taking his frustration out on those closest to him. Perhaps see if he will call Headway to explore what activities he could be doing to focus his emotions? Or consider an online family counselling session. Or have a quiet chat with the Samaritans about your personal frustrations to allow the fumes to disperse, sometimes pent up unexpressed emotion is destructive to ourselves and day to day activity.

It can not be easy living with a person with an on going recovery from a BI, let alone the loss you feel for the person that was and is now something different. Now that you have posted this, don't drop it and hope it will go away. Honour your feelings and allow them to be heard.

As for teenage daughters arguing, that sounds like any normal household where teens start to become independent in their emotional bodies and feel like the earth is there for them only and that the world is their oyster, and they are invincible. Know that is their hormones doing what hormones do in the normal teen way.

A fun thing to do if you are open to it, is to have a family talking stick pow wow where the family sit in a quiet room in a circle with all distractions out of the way and switched off. A talking stick is passed to a person in the circle. That person starts talking, stating how they feel, what they like, what they don't like, how they want things to be. Then the stick gets handed to the next person and so on. Once all have shared their wishes, then the responses can begin, but only if holding the talking stick. It means that each person gets to be heard fully and only one person speaks at any one time. When passing the talking stick, it should not be thrown but handed with respect to the next person as if to say, I want to hear what you have to say.

Best wishes.

[DTBI]

Hi,

That’s like I was with my wife & daughters after my TBI six years ago. It is hard to do it but he needs to accept he can never be exactly the same person again. He also needs to remember he’s lucky, as every day there are millions of people around the world every day who are worse off than him, and he has a wife and daughter(s) who love and look after him if he is pleasant.

It is tough, but good luck with it👍🏻

[charlie5540]

Being at home most of the time is frustrating for most men and to have your work and ability and right to drive makes it even worse. I was watching the channel 55 programme on Henry vi i i . He had endocrinal neural injury after falling off a horse and becoming unconscious and following this underwent a total character change becoming far more aggressive and paranoid after wards. That's what happened to me after i had brain surgery 30 years ago a pioneering process at the time so probably more cobbled together than it is now.....there was never any "support/follow up" in terms of long term counselling only a few sessions with a clinical psychologist who probably had no awareness of the changes in character such things being on like your husband's brain injury. Help him to get out and get along at first to headway then try the local positive mental health "mind " group.

[charlie5540]

I have alot of time for you bellabear