What happens if one is re-traumatized? If one witnesses something similar to one’s own trauma, especially after acquiring PTSD and/or a brain injury? Like anyone who watches a human bounce off a windshield and fly through the air, you gasp, your heart pounds, you freeze or rush to help. But I did something different in…
Tag: PTSD
Growing Social Media Divide Leads to Bad Advice
I’m not often told it might be good to avoid Twitter or to give it a break, but when I am — and when others with brain injury are — it’s by people not on Twitter or who have a lurking-only account. And who don’t know or understand how I use it. They’re unhelpful. They’re…
How Much Does Social Isolation Slow Down Recovery from Brain Injury? PTSD?
I had a thought (I know, so odd): how much does social isolation, systemic inaccessibility, and opprobrium from family, friends, lawyers, health care professionals, etc. slow down recovery from brain injury and/or PTSD? We’ve read of studies* showing positive effects on the heart of socially cohesive neighbourhoods, lifelong negative effects on children of lack of…
Endless Saturday, the Day Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday
It’s Endless Saturday. I used to call it Waiting Saturday. Like that day when Jesus’s disciples, particularly the women, waited for the Sabbath to be over so that they could visit his grave; like that day, the day after tragedy struck, and no one knew what to do other than wait, my life was one…
PTSD Freezes Reading Homework Out
Relearning how to read comes in fits and starts when you have PTSD in addition to brain injury. Reading is probably more vulnerable to being sidetracked than other aspects of recovery because it is so difficult cognitively and, for me, fraught with issues of loss and identity and being part of mainstream society. One of…
Gamma Brainwave Biofeedback and the Healing of Emotions in PTSD and Brain Injury
Brain injury can lead to emotions turning off, short circuiting, the frontal lobes not mediating the reptilian brain. PTSD can lead to emotions being blocked. Having the two makes mood and feeling emotions like being on a rudderless ship in an unpredictable gale. So where does gamma brainwave biofeedback fit in? If brain biofeedback or…
Reading Ground Zero: Observing my Reading After Brain Injury
My Neurodoc is into the dribs and drabs method the last few months. For most of my post-brain injury years, I’ve roared ahead at top speed, first trying to get back as quickly as possible to my life, then to regain necessary skills as quickly as possible, then to normalize some skills and continue to…
Reading Rehab Take Umpteen After Brain Injury: My Neurodoc and I
A new year, a new blogging direction. 2014 was a shit year, pardon my swearing. But really, I’m heartily glad to see the back of it. Bring on 2015! May it bring hope. My brain biofeedback is continuing as usual, no dramatic changes in me from it; since my neurodoc changed direction right at the…
Christmas Break From Health Care
With the way the Christmas and New Year’s dates fall, I’ll be off from some of my health care appointments three weeks instead of two. Most times I looked forward to a break, some years I even tried to extend it, but it’s a measure of how much my routine sustains me these days that…