Sympathetic Reactions to Brain Injury

Commonly, when people unused to brain injury see the effects of a TBI, their reactions fall in to one of two groups: sympathetic and unsympathetic. This post discusses the first group while (somewhat obviously) the post, Unsympathetic Reactions to Brain Injury, discusses the second.

Ok, sympathetic responses. Other recoverers out there will know what I'm talking about; things like: "You think your memory's bad, you should see mine and I don't even have your excuse of a brain injury!" or "Don't worry about it. I'm always forgetting peoples' names, too." Because of all my fatigue problems following my TBI, this one's my personal favourite: "You're tired? Yeah, I found that day/night/event really tiring, too!"

Such things have been said to me by some of the nicest, most kind-hearted people I know. Yet, at times, I've struggled not to find them incredibly condescending and very annoying. How could such kind things possibly be taken that way? Your brain injury could well be the hardest thing you've ever dealt with (mine is and, hopefully, always will be). The problems mine caused were unlike anything I'd come across before.

They were so different and so hard to deal with, it felt like no one could possibly claim to know what it was like. Comments implying otherwise seemed utterly ludicrous. How could any normal person understand how difficult this is? How can they try to make me feel better when they've got no idea what it's like?

My instant reaction was to grit my teeth and take the statement badly. What I needed was to relax! The person saying it certainly doesn't mean it to cause such anger. They are trying to make it a bit easier, to make the recoverer feel better about their troubles. Most important of all, they say it because they're being sympathetic and they're trying to their best to understand. Of good friends or anyone else, it's difficult to ask for more than that.

I realised this early on, but it still required effort to make myself relax when such things were said. Upon hearing them, I had to remember to think first, what does the speaker understand about brain injury, and then, second, how do they intend I take what they've just said. Making that a habit made it a lot easier to deal with overly-sympathetic reactions.

Cheers,
Mike