Pulling Out My Brain

You know how sometimes people say they want to “pull out their hair”? For brain injury recovery I have felt that so strongly that I want to pull my hair out so strongly it pulls my brain out with it too.

I sat in a brain injury support group recently and listened as someone new to all of this poured out their pain. Their words came out in broken pieces — the exhaustion, the confusion, the rage at their own brain, the way everything that used to be simple now felt impossible. They were raw and honest in a way that only someone still in the thick of it can be. Some sentences didn’t make sense. Words were out of place.

I felt the familiar ache rise in my chest. I had those same issues early on too. I wanted so badly to lean forward and say, “It gets better.”

But the words caught in my throat.

Because even though I know it gets better — I’ve lived it getting better in many ways — I also know how hollow that can sound when you’re still in the worst of it. I know what it feels like to want to grab at your own head and pull your brain out just to make the noise and the fog and the frustration stop. I know that cry. I recognized it the moment I heard it. It was mine, not that long ago.

I’ve made progress. I can do things now that I couldn’t do a year ago, or even six months ago. Some parts of me have grown stronger. But sitting there, watching this person break down, I felt the old brokenness still alive in me too. Not as loud as it once was, but still there. Still tender. Still capable of being triggered by someone else’s fresh pain and seeing some of those elements in the mirror still in my daily struggles.

I wanted to offer hope. I wanted to give them something solid to hold onto. But I also knew that sometimes the last thing a survivor needs is another person telling them it will get better someday. Sometimes what they need most is for someone to simply stay in the pain with them.

They don’t always want the perfect words. They want presence.

They want someone to sit there and not flinch when the tears come or the anger spills out. They want to feel like they’re still wanted — not in spite of their injury, but even in the middle of it. They want to know they’re not alone in this strange, exhausting, often invisible battle.

That night, I didn’t say much. I didn’t try to fix it or offer silver linings. I just stayed. I listened. I told them they are not alone. I let the silence sit between us when the words ran out. And I think that might have been the most honest thing I could offer.

Because the truth is, some days it still feels like too much. Some days I still want to rip my brain out and be done with it. And on those days, what I need most isn’t someone telling me it gets better.

What I need is someone willing to sit with me in the “it still hurts like hell” and not look away.

So that’s what I tried to give that night.

Not advice. Not false hope. Just presence. You are not alone.