www.creedthoughts.gov.wwwcreedthoughts
www.creedthoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts
If you already are familiar from The Office, Creed is perhaps relatable to TBI blogging. Ryan has set up this ‘blog’ on a word document to “protect” the internet and world from his thoughts. If you haven’t seen The Office - there are nine seasons to occupy your time, but this quick clip below gives the gist for this blog:
Having a TBI often feels to me like this scene. I would have never identified with Creed before but now, with my injury there are many things I can relate to.
From the onset - Ryan has to make Creed the blog. Starting a blog like Fog of Hope would have been something that would have come easily to me prior to my injury. But now, this process took me over a month to get put together how to post something and navigate the many behind the scenes necessary steps to reach this point. Even with the most user friendly tools available to set up and navigate, I found myself unable to do most of the steps with the ease I would have before. But yet, here we finally are. It took longer and more than it would have before but it’s still here now regardless. This isn’t a word document, this is the internet now. Watch out world! Just kidding.
Yet, I’m not kidding.
TBI has another shared element with Creed and that is that as Ryan says, “wanting to protect the world from being exposed to Creed’s brain, I opened up a word document on his computer and put an address on the top. I’ve read some of it, even for the internet it’s pretty shocking” The world of Brain Injury recovery is pretty shocking. There are many people I have met on my journey that have endured some absolutely horrendous days and symptoms in their recovery. There is some relatability to the notion of wanting to protect the world from being exposed to the brain injured person’s brain. It is a scary place at times and a rollercoaster often at best.
Yet, that is also why it is so pertinent to share. The brain injured person often feels so alone in those thoughts and symptoms. I’m still finding my way in this “fog”. I don’t know that my stories are any more helpful than the next person recovering from TBI, ABI, PCS, or any of the other brain injuries that plague so many people around us. But perhaps someday, instead of a story on a word document, the story being shared on this blog will let a little more light shine on the ‘pretty shocking’ exposure to an injured brain. This blog may not always make sense, be coherent, or be enlightening. But it is authentic, genuine, and vulnerable. Whether a word document or blog on the internet, Creed teaches me a lesson that I didn’t see before in this moment from The Office until my brain injury - some stories are worth telling even if they only ever end up in a word document no one else sees. Your story matters. You are not alone. Perhaps like mine, your story right now has just been written in a word document, or not written at all yet. Maybe you have been able to share it in a support group, or writing it down, or perhaps - just telling a family member or friend. Or maybe like many with brain injury you have found you don’t have those people to tell anymore and like Creed it is just a story being written for you right now. It’s your story. Author the best day you can today.