Gees! What a ride!

I was buried.

I couldn’t breathe. There was no light. No happiness.

My brain felt overwhelmed, like it had been rewired incorrectly, and my body was constantly reacting—or overreacting—to everything.

Heart racing. Palpitations. Anxiety. Fear. Overwhelming emotions… and then no emotions at all.

I wanted to hide.

But I also knew I needed help.

Thankfully, my GP, who had known me for years, was a godsend. He recognised what was happening almost immediately, and for the first time in a long time, things started to make sense.

He explained that chronic stress—essentially PTSD—was causing my traumatic brain injury symptoms to spiral.

Yes. Finally.

That made sense.

But how do you stop it from progressing?

That was something I couldn’t figure out for a long time.

Medication for anxiety helped, but it also left me exhausted. Eventually I changed the time of day I took it, and that made things a little more manageable.

Then came new side effects.

It became a constant balancing act—trying to decide which was the greater evil: the symptoms, or the medication meant to treat them.

A psychologist’s report explained that I had somatic symptom disorder and persistent depressive disorder as a result of the loss of function caused by my brain injury.

My memory loss, vision problems, balance issues, pain and relentless fatigue were debilitating.

The advice sounded so simple:

“Do things that you enjoy.”

But what if you don’t enjoy anything anymore?

What if happiness has disappeared?

My house was a mess.

My life chaotic.

My savings depleted.

Who would want to employ someone who sometimes walked like they were drunk, whose head wouldn’t stop nodding, who couldn’t remember things and was exhausted every single day?

The only places I truly felt safe were at home, with my daughter and my animals.

So I started there.

I took the things that used to be “fun” and broke them into tiny, achievable pieces.

For someone who had always wanted to do everything, learning to do just a little each day was incredibly difficult.

Chores that once took hours now took days.

But every time I finished one small task, I felt a little better.

With a traumatic brain injury, recovery isn’t one step at a time.

Sometimes it’s one teeny tiny inch at a time. 10 steps back….

And that’s okay.

Once I accepted that progress didn’t have to be fast to be real, something began to change.

Very slowly, I started rebuilding.

My confidence is slowly returning little by little.

My strength beginning to grow.

My energy is more manageable.

Failure hadn’t buried me yet, I finally can see a crack of light….

The first time I laughed out loud after months, actually gave me a fright!!!! It had been so long…. This realisation hit me hard…. I didn’t know that I wasn’t laughing anymore until then, it was both a sad and a happy moment.

My sister made me a sandwich, and for the first time in a longtime, I enjoyed it so much!

Life is getting a little brighter again.

I am still cautious with myself, cautious with my energy and with my wellbeing. Until I can get some definite answers…. But in the meantime, I will wear my socks inside out 😂