just a question really as I feel like I am two people . I remember the old me confident ,multi tasking, focused , self motivated physical active then I woke up in someone else’s body . The motivated person was still there and did anything I could do to improve my body and brain . With the brain side I remembered from an old job looking after a guy who had a tbi that I wasn’t right and got cognitive therapy books as I had no help when I left hospital ..about 9 months after my accident I saw a OT and neuro pysio ..
now three years on I’m not able to multi task , short term memory , concentration,etc is terrible . I’m making mistakes unable to do things I know well , confused when to much information or noise etc that’s the short version but to me I remember the old me and the new me are a million miles apart and am wondering if anyone feels the same as my mental health ,anxiety is though the roof .. confused sue x
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Teazymaid
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Hi, Me!! I feel like I'm two different people at times, one who is doing what I have to do every day without forgetting somethings, then when it's later in the day I am either more irritable with people, noises, things I have to do that I start forgetting somethings that I want to say or things that happened yhay I need to talk about. The Lisa before would laugh and joke about things but not this Lisa. 16 months after my TBI I am still learning through neuro rehabilitation why I feel certain ways and what I can do to help myself cope. It is difficult though at times as I want to scream or shout to get the frustration out, or stop my emotions. So I totally understand how you are feeling.
Thank you for your reply .. I do laugh it off to the out side world often but inside I am screaming .. I don’t have rehab although I have on and off referral nothing very much happens and they see the motivation I have to get better and not what actually is happening .. and just get put in another waiting list when I contact the Drs again and they only have 10mins so want me to stop trying to explain .. I really on notes .. very strange world remembering who I was and what I am now 🥴 sue
Hi, me too. Though your brain injury seems to have been more severe.
I can clearly recall the me who used to be less confused, less hesitant, less anxious, less tired. It's the tiredness that gets me, so often.
Noise is really hard to bear. Certain kinds of noise feel like torture. Just awareness of volume is something people could do with education on. . . People who manage public places like shops, I mean. Loop headphones, I was told - they have volume control. They're next on my list. Tried my son's noise cancelling headphones - really good. But they are very expensive, and I am so absent minded now that I am scared to leave stuff. So won't be getting them..
Everything you said resonated. You are far from alone . . . This platform is full of people mourning the loss of their former selves.
Keeps me sane to think that I am on a road, which is not new to others. And also, I am practising how to relearn stuff that I can't not know, or can't fail to do.. . like take my meds, and also eat the things I need to eat, and avoid some foods, which make me ill.
Just that seems to take my time.
I try to compensate by writing things down.
But this won't help - you just need to be reminded that we exist and we are on the same page.
hi and thank you for your reply . Yes it is this group that keeps me sain . I had been doing so well but now I’m facing the reality that the old me just says yes and the new me actually messes up as just can’t do like memory , concentration ,speech,anxiety,all go though the roof . If I’m in silence I can function better . Just the old me was happy in my salon with hairdryers blowing lots of other peopl talk while I could colour\cut hair and hold two conversations now I can’t mix up a home colour for a friend that has 1,2,and 3 written on the bottle . I mixed the wrong tubes and knew that the consistency wasn’t right but didn’t enter my head to check . . I found the number 2 tube when I went to tidy the box . So washed it all off and started again .. that’s just a recent example of the new me with 40 years experience as a hairdresser because we were talking 😫😫😫😫😫 . I really don’t like how life changing this has become but everyone on here keeps me going Sue x
Yes, here as well - talking is the thing I cannot do very well, while I am doing something with my hands. I can't chop vegetables properly, while talking. I have got them the wrong size, and they haven't cooked properly with each other.... I started cooking when I was 14. That is more years of experience than I can even remember.
Talking at all just exhausts me. I love to talk to people. I just can't any more.
My work is really a big victim of my accident. I had to think around new rules and regulations, and let the team know what it means now that something has been modified. Well, I hardly know how to start imagining what regulations would apply in what situation now. They have had to get that advice elsewhere.
I am down to just basic admin. Even that I have to schedule, and shut my door, to get silence. Couldn't do something I had done several times before, the other day, and had to get someone else to do it - cost me my week's shopping, with just a friend charging the lowest rate possible.
I don't know where to turn sometimes. This platform makes me realise a) that I didn't get hurt as badly as some - and they are having to cope and b) I am actually hugely supported by my family. Very very lucky. Not that they understand, but most of the time they seem to accept.
That is wonderful.
Hope you find some way of doing what you love doing - or doing a variant of what you used to do. Do you get spells of real clarity in the head ? I do. They have only begun recently - this is two years after the accident. But they are definitely there. I know, because I keep a day log. Just to watch what changes, little by little. I am now my own project - a kind of 'am i recovering?' project.
I think I am.
Rebuilding I guess. Fewer headaches, not lasting as long. Less severe.
Self management. I guess what we have all lost is the old us -and that includes the ability to do things on impulse.
Yeas your words sum up my brain very well and yes I do think like the old me then the new me just can’t do it … It not from relentlessly trying to get it to work it just can’t work with to many things I need to do to achieve that .. quite and my own company is the most comfortable to deal with .. very strange from a very social person … thank you for your reply Sue x
Yep, you sum it up well - after after 26 years I've still no idea or clue what to do about it!
Occasionally when talking to people who are there to support they ask me to remember things. I can't remember or picture anything but I know lots of what happened in my life, some of it was pretty amazing.
I sort of sit here on my perch looking at it all with a kind of detached amusement, I am amused but not really 🤣🤣🤣🤯
I do try to find the funny side but the reality has just hit me of late that I can’t work at all 😢hairdressing that I loved I can only do a few friends who are happy for me to ask for silence when mixing products although messed that up last week as it was a home colour which even has numbers on it 🤪 and my other job a complex needs mental health support worker can’t be done as writing ,remembering , saying the right words and so on is impossible .. I thought the hairdressing would be ok after the second shoulder op but the new me can’t to it and has hi lighted something else that I have to learn to except … I just know that this is the only place that helps me deal with what is so strange is quite normal after a TBI 🤦♀️Sue x
I was just saying to someone yesterday I feel like I have two brains. Sometimes I feel like I have access to the old one but it’s like a slippery bar of soap and the new one soon gets in the way. Especially as the day goes on and the fatigue takes a greater hold I start doing and saying things and behaving in ways I never would have before; I almost feel like I’m watching on thinking who is this strange man .
Having access to this forum is so helpful to keep my feet on the ground. I read about other people’s experiences and for a moment I don’t feel alone (or insane). Maybe today I will try to find a moment where I enjoy being a bit bonkers rather than judging myself, cos sometimes it is quite fun
Keep sharing, and hang in there everyone, it’s comforting knowing you’re there.
Oh thank you 🙏 I do try to find the funny side and I will share some of my very unreliable stories 😊 it is so nice to chat to others who actually understand as I totally agree with you on the two people and triedness change of routine , noise , strange places , and so on all make everything very difficult to understand and that’s when the anger comes in again the new side of me …. Let’s hope today out bonkers bit is fun 🤪 Sue x
Slippery bar of soap.... that made me smile. And I can totally relate to the day going on, and me getting more and more tired. Then my own behaviour changes. I can watch, and sometimes stop myself. But not all the time.
Its a full time job just doing the day.
Stay safe.
As you said, hang in there everyone - and thank goodness you are so honest about your experiences.
I get how you feel, I could have written the same thing myself. What really gets me is when I struggle with something, like finding the right words or how to say something, people say to me that they get that as well which makes me feel that what I'm going through is nothing at all. Does anyone else feel that way? My husband says that only a small part of me is left but he's learning to work with the new person and he's accepting of that which is pretty hard for him. I do often think of what I used to do, my old job which had a lot of managing, organizing and planning. I just couldn't do it now and I loved my job.
Yeah people do say they also do it but it isn’t several times a day .. it doesn’t stop them from working which like you I loved both the jobs I have done … unfortunately this does get me annoyed but I very rarely say anything as they just don’t know ..( lucky them) as for my husband I am amazed he is still living with me as even I hate the difficult side of me … he is doing a lot better then I would if the rolls were reversed 🥴 it has become so difficult remembering the old me and this me is unrecognisable the only but that seems the same is my determination To achieve anything but I just don’t know what I can achieve .. except being happy in this new body so I’m guessing it’s all a part of the transition .. I actually am feeling so much better asking all of you as you are all feeling the same sue❤️
I’m with you totally Teazymaid. No matter how much you think about those who have been affected worse than you and how lucky you are (I feel the same way…), this is still you and your life that you are trying to make sense of, and that’s what’s important here. Not that ‘sense’ is something easy to attain around here! I really feel that pain, every day I wonder how or if I can find my way back to that other me that sailed effortlessly through life before!! Then I remind myself that it wasn’t all roses back then either, I still had other kinds of issues. This new life now just comes with a new set of issues.
I’m sorry that every single one of us are all even in this position but it does make it easier to know others are out there who ‘get it’.
At the risk of sounding... crazy, or glibthere's at least two Me's! And in short (because I struggle with attention) every single aspect of my life is split into two.
have you all watched the crowded room on Apple TV as i found it was showing signs of me … although as very less version than the guy in the series .. can’t say no more as it’s an amazing watch and I don’t normally like series …..
Think that this is a pretty common situation for probably the majority. I had my TBI at 17 & I am now retired at 63 & have spent a lifetime trying to recover that 17 year old me (as you described of yourself) and am still trying today. It's never going to happen but I've never met anyone else who gets it or can help (well a couple of managers at work did get close but they moved on too early). Medically, the psychological and emotional effects for me have just been managed over the years and I basically battle alone on a daily basis.
Wow you have has a life time of this .. it is so difficult to explain to others and for me I think the more I have been trying to do the more it has become obvious to me .. you have had a life time of this dos ot get any easier .. Sue 😊
It worked in reverse for me really. In the first 25 years I muddled through (didn't work for first 10 years) living in my own world, avoiding people and socialising for most of the time. I was sure that I'd wake up one day! From then on it started to be a problem and has left me where I am today, still waiting to wake up without that social support network that one should build over the years. As difficult as it may be (I never did), you have to let the old you go - this is an example reuters.com/article/idUSBRE...
I think I maybe in the transition stage of being to except .. I thought I had but that was me dealing with the physical injuries which has worked very well until my hips now hurt from the leg weakness .. but the effort from the brain injuries has very much become more of an issue the more I try to do what the old me would have done … so I think the beginning to except is now beginning and I do want to find a way to achieve this . Have booked a private neurologist as another long waiting list is impossible to deal with .. what this space 😊 sue x
I hope this isn't too graphic but I feel like the body of the person I was at the moment to be honest. Like the body's still there and looks the same but I've actually died and nothing inside it works. I can't even walk the same as I do could before, let alone think and receive sensory input. It sucks I'm afraid. I don't have solutions. I do have solidarity.
I mean I do worry that this place - meaning no offence to anyone - sometimes doesn't help as it assumes the worst case outcome (I'm pretty early in).
But it's also been absolutely wonderful having some people who do get it and I've really valued that camaraderie.
Having PMDD tonight as well as TBI (and UTI pain.. do we need any more acronyms?!) and good god it feels lonely and pointless. Just had to leave a party of good friends because they chose to play a board game I just couldn't cope with. Hard not to feel like they're all still having fun. But PMDD does that to you.
Tell you what, I hope the other me is off somewhere climbing mountains, swimming in lakes, surrounded by at least five suitors reminiscent of Mr Darcy, drinking beer and coffee and having an absolute riot! 😆
Hi I definitely don’t feel like this place see the worse in everything . What is does is offer help. , explanation, understanding and support and over the last 3 years I’ve found this the most helpful place to be .. you do sound like your having a tough time of it at the mo but please keep talking on here as there is an amazing amount of knowledge in here .😊sue
hi Teazymaid, yes, yes, yes! I am still fighting for the old me who loved socialising, travelling, working… and then mourn my old self because the new me doesn’t dare invite friends round because I don’t know if I’ll be in bed… I do have family but they just don’t get it… they don’t believe I’ve had a brain injury and they’re very you’ll stop having migraines if you think positive… 🤣 that and the lack of social life feels hard, and the loneliness. So glad to have found this group!
yeah it’s very strange and am now trying to work my way through this bit … the physical injuries sort of took over me attempting to be ok and now I’m realising that I actually can’t do what I want to do, thought pattern ,cognitive issues , short term memory.. etc are as far away from the old me as you can get … part of the process I guess but extremely difficult to adjust to ..Sue 😊
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