Brain Injury Support Group

This sounds very similar to my findings. I think people can't believe that this happened to someone they care about and don't know how to deal with it. I have lost almost everyone,it like I died or something. But it does make you a stronger person and realize what and who is really important in your life. I have only been in this BI support group about a week and it is so nice in a bad kindaway to know that there is someone else who understands. What a great group to have found. Best wishes and good luck.

All of you who say you "lost" friends, are partially right...People come and go from everyones' lives, no matter if one has a TBI or not.

With TBI, my husband's (age 36)personality, likes and dislikes shifted so much, his friends no longer had anything in common with him. I called them and encouraged them to take him out and do things with him that they used to, and they did for awhile. But they found they didn't like him much anymore for the things he said to them and did that were just plain inappropriate.

The research shows that people with head injuries are CAPABLE of relationships, they just have a lot of trouble maintaining relationships with people that they knew before their injury.

People without the injury (like me) have trouble reconciling the way a person behaves now with how they behaved before their accident. While the person with the TBI has no choice that they HAVE the TBI, the people that were friends can and often do choose to walk away, because it is easier to be around people that they can predict behavior based on past experiences.

So I think that rather than lament friends that lapse and say that they weren't TRUE friends, you should encourage your loved ones to make new friends, a good first step to join this site. My husband became a sociopath. It was VERY hard to get him to do anything with people... and even harder to get him to be nice and appropriate with me or other people, even in public.

The new friends your loved one will make don't know how he/she "used to be" so it is easier for them to accept them for who they are now.

I was wondering why many of the people dropped off communication when my husband came home and I thought maybe the rawness of injury comes too close. Or maybe they think everything is back to normal now and we don't need any kind of support. Could be they are scared of what they might see. Some people have said to me in a distressed way that it is hard for them to see him like that. What? It is HARD for me. They don't know what hard is. It's just the way it is with human nature. Something like survival of the fittest. The sick and the injured get left by the wayside. Nobody misses him the way I do.

I didn't have many friends before the TBI and it is worse now. It is only a minor TBI, yet it RUNS my life. I wake up and need to take medication. By the time I am dressed, more medication. If pain sets in, more medication. Then the rest of the day just goes into the Crapper. Oh, before I go to sleep more medication.

I live alone and when I do go grocery shopping, the cart is usually filled. Recently I started to by the health shakes like Ensure or Boost because I have days where food doesn't even cross my mind. I never know when I will have a multiple day run of pain. The longest torment I had to deal with was 6 days straight. The pain or headaches that come with some cases of TBI are not fun. I think that is why I am on SSDI at 38 years old. I would love to go back to work. I loved my job. I was a truck driver for a milk company. I have about 1 year 2 months left to see if I can get behind the wheel again.

If it wasn't for this site, we couldn't get together and share our thoughts and feelings.

Minimally...Of course no one misses your husband the way you do. Help him find new friends. People the new "him" have something in common with.

People come and go from everyone's lives, friendship is a fluid situation. For everyone.

Don't judge the friends who have "left", this will cause you resentment and unhappiness. Move on to the future...make new friends.