My Life With The Invisible Disability Of Traumatic Brain Injury
By Saigon Flowr
It’s impossible to really understand what it’s like to have a brain injury until you actually have one yourself.
During a trip to Vegas, a close friend and I had a meaningless disagreement about upcoming plans for the next day. Sleep deprived after a late night out partying, hungry and easily irritable, I blew up at him, throwing some money he had given me in his face, yelling about how I didn’t need him or his money or anybody for that matter. He was so hurt that he got up immediately, packed all his belongings, and left for the airport while my guy (his best friend since childhood) went after him to convince him to stay.
In their conversations, my guy tried to explain to him that what had happened that night wasn’t really me, that I didn’t mean it and my actions were a result of things I quite literally could not control. My friend responded with something that keeps coming up from the closest people in my life: He told my guy that he doesn’t “buy it,” because even though he knows what happened to me, he’s seen me go back to doing all sorts of things a “normal person” is able to do — like drive, go to school, work, and travel — since my initial injury. He asked how is it that I could do all…
