My Transmission is Shot
When Your Transmission Goes Out: What Car Trouble Taught Me About Living with a Brain Injury
We had a vehicle with a transmission starting to fail. The vehicle would act strange. The engine was revving, but the power wasn’t reaching the wheels the way it should. Shifting felt delayed and clunky. We made it home, but the warning lights came on, and we knew something was seriously wrong with the transmission.
After a painful diagnostic visit, the mechanic confirmed it: transmission is failing. Not a cheap or simple fix. The part that transfers power from the engine to the drivetrain was damaged, and without it, the vehicle couldn’t do what it was built for—even though the engine itself was still running strong. Sound familiar?
That moment hit me hard because it mirrored exactly what happened to my brain three years ago after my traumatic brain injury (TBI).
I’m Angry, But Why?
I’m Angry… But I Don’t Even Know What I’m Angry At
Some days after my TBI, I wake up with this heavy, restless anger simmering inside me.
There’s no clear target. No single person or event I can point to and say, “This. This is why I’m mad.” It’s just… there. A vague, foggy frustration that makes me irritable, short-tempered, and sometimes even angry at myself for feeling angry.
This is one of the strangest and most exhausting parts of brain injury recovery.
The Spoon Struggle
Why Spoon Theory Is Helpful… But So Hard to Grasp and Even Harder to Accept
If you live with a chronic illness, TBI, or post-concussion syndrome, you’ve probably heard of Spoon Theory.
It was created by Christine Miserandino in 2003 to explain what it’s like to live with invisible illness. The idea is simple: you start each day with a limited number of “spoons” (units of energy). Every single task — getting out of bed, showering, making breakfast, answering a message, working, driving, even having a conversation — costs spoons. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. You can’t just borrow more.
On paper, it’s brilliant. In real life, it can feel both incredibly validating and yet deeply uncomfortable.
Sister’s Silent Engagement
When Your Sister Can’t Handle a Conversation With You – What That Really Says About Her Readiness for Marriage
Today I’m sitting with a truth that hurts more than most of my TBI symptoms combined.
My sister just announced she is engaged and planning her wedding.
And I won’t be there.
Not because I don’t love her. Not because I don’t wish her every happiness. But because she has cut me out of her life completely. No calls. No texts. Years of her not wanting to share in anything real together. She has decided that any real conversation with me is too overwhelming for her mental health, and that I am the problem.
Rebooting Your Brain
The Computer Crash Analogy: Rebooting Your Brain After TBI
Your brain used to run like a lightning-fast, high-end laptop.
Tabs flew open without hesitation. Multitasking felt effortless. Memories loaded instantly. Thoughts moved quickly and clearly. You could juggle work, conversations, plans, and emotions all at once without breaking a sweat.
Then the TBI hit — like a massive power surge during a violent storm.
Suddenly everything changed.
Programs started lagging. The screen froze with thick brain fog. Saved files (your memories) became corrupt or hard to find, impossible to save new ones on demand. Simple tasks that once took seconds now crashed the entire system, leaving you exhausted and staring blankly at the wall, wondering why your own mind felt like a stranger.
Repair Over Exile
Why Cutting Out a Sibling Is Almost Always the Wrong Choice
There’s a quiet epidemic happening in many families today: siblings cutting off siblings, family cutting off family. What often starts as “I just need some space” can slowly harden into permanent estrangement. While the person asking for distance may believe they’re protecting their peace, the reality is far more painful — for both sides.
Pounding Headache, Fading Words
I sat down today with the best of intentions. Laptop open, a glass of lemonade, notes scattered across the table like I actually had a plan. The goal? Write a blog post about life with traumatic brain injury (TBI) recovery. Something honest, maybe a little hopeful, definitely real.
Instead, I got... this.
About fifteen minutes in, the familiar pressure started building behind my eyes. Not the dramatic Hollywood migraine with flashing lights and vomiting—just a slow, stubborn fog that turns simple thoughts into tangled knots. I’d type a sentence, then stare at it wondering if it even made sense. Delete. Rewrite. Delete again. The words that felt clear in my head came out jumbled on the screen, like someone had rearranged the letters while I wasn’t looking.
This is TBI recovery in a nutshell for me right now: the intention is there, the effort is there, but the brain hardware is still rebooting. And when a headache joins the party, even basic thoughts get confusing.
Estrangement Meets Mercy
Divine Mercy Sunday: Finding Forgiveness and Healing in Family Estrangement – Lessons from St. Faustina’s Diary
Every year, the Sunday after Easter brings us Divine Mercy Sunday—a feast day given to the Church through the visions and writings of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska. It’s not just another holy day on the calendar. It’s a profound invitation from Jesus Himself to plunge into the depths of God’s Mercy, especially when life feels shattered by pain, rejection, or loss. For me, this feast hits especially close to home because of a wound that still aches: my sisters cutting me out of their lives after my brain injury, right in the middle of their teenage rebellion.
A Dark Room
Finding Light in the Dark Room: What the Documentary “A Dark Room” Revealed About My Own TBI Recovery
Three years after my traumatic brain injury, I watched the 2016 documentary A Dark Room and felt like someone had finally filmed the inside of my head.
The film follows Max Taylor, a promising young hockey player whose NHL dreams ended when he suffered concussions back-to-back. Afterward, Max spent months literally locked away in a dark room—curtains drawn, lights off, noise intolerable, head pounding, emotions spiraling. He felt isolated, angry at the system that failed him yet still in love with the sport that in some ways made him who he was, and at times was suicidal. The documentary doesn’t sugar-coat it: the “dark room” wasn’t just a recovery recommendation—it became a prison of sensory overload, identity loss, and slow, uncertain healing. Through interviews with other players, doctors, and families, the film exposes hockey’s tough-it-out culture while showing the very real, very human cost of repeated concussions.
Where’s Tommy?
I just finished reading Where's Tommy?: A mother’s journey through her son’s traumatic brain injury by Debbie Lennon – It was a heart-wrenching look at the invisible hell of undiagnosed TBI.
If you've ever wondered why someone’s life can spiral so dramatically after what seems like a “minor” accident, Debbie Lennon’s new memoir Where’s Tommy?: A Mother’s Journey Through Her Son’s Traumatic Brain Injury is required reading.
At 16, Tommy Lennon suffered a surfing accident — a surfboard to the forehead that left him with stitches and what everyone assumed was just a bump on the head. No dramatic coma. No obvious red flags at the ER. Life went on. But there was nothing “minor” about it.
Newborn Tears
Lately, as my recovery inches along, I've noticed that although I often feel like a toddler, the toddler feelings at times feel... even earlier. Some days, it's less like being a feisty two-year-old and more like being a newborn all over again. That raw, brand-new-to-the-world stage where everything is basic, overwhelming, and completely dependent on the gentle people around you. It's humbling. It's exhausting. And weirdly, it's also kind of beautiful when I let myself see it that way.
Those Wide-Eyed, Wondering Stares
Newborns stare at faces, lights, shadows—with those huge, unblinking eyes—like they're downloading the entire universe one pixel at a time. No judgment, no rush, just pure taking-it-in.
Some recovery moments feel like that too. I'll catch myself staring at a wall, a window, my own hand, because my brain is slowly, slowly making sense of the world again. It's not blankness—it's deep processing. Curiosity mixed with caution. "What is this place? What am I in? What is going on?"
I try not to fight it. I let myself stare, let the brain do its newborn work of mapping reality one tiny piece at a time. Those staring sessions often lead to small breakthroughs later.
Circling the Drain
As a child I loved to play with the Coin Vortex Funnel donation stations that would often be found at a museum or zoo that our family would visit. For a penny, I could have minutes of entertainment. Watching the penny shoot down the shoot into a seemingly endless spiral. Around and around the coin would go. Often it would seem the coin was circling the same exact spots. Higher, lower. Around and around. From above, watching the coin circle, I would see the path. I could see what was coming up next.