Many of you have written to SameYou about your experience of brain injury and told us how you identified with Emilia's story. There was a common feeling of relief about hearing a familiar story from someone young, and speaking out to normalize the injury. People were comforted that Emilia had gone through something similar to them or to a family member or loved one.
The overwhelming emotion was of gratitude that Emilia was breaking her silence and that enabled and emboldened so many others to tell their brain injury story - some for the first time. It was as if people now have permission to speak out about their story.
I get days when I just want to give up. But after hearing your story it has made me realize, I'm not on my own!
You have told us that by sharing your stories, and reading other people's, offers hope, comfort and much needed peer-to-peer support that is often hard to find.
SameYou have created this support resource called Portraits to tell the untold story of brain injury. If you would like to share your story, you can submit your story via our Share your story page.
Many clinicians told Matt that most of the recovery from a TBI occurs within the first one year, and after that point his recovery would plateau such that his faculties would no longer improve. However, Matt has continued to see positive changes well beyond the first two years of recovery and today, over ten years on, still strives for continued improvements.
Chéri Ballinger, former model/actress and now film producer and entrepreneur, suffered a severe Traumatic Brain Injury in 2014 after a fall onto cement in an action scene on the set. Since her TBI on that day, her life has never been the same. Chéri’s four-year recovery was full of challenges related to having female-specific symptoms that threw her doctors off.
I had been experiencing what I would say was a very mild, dull headache for a few days. A bit like a hangover and I couldn’t shift it. I later found out I had suffered a severe ruptured aneurysm.
I read Emilia’s story when she first published it and was touched by how strong she was after going through something so traumatic, but I never thought it would happen to me, until it did. Here’s Julie’s story...
Mel is a paramedic and had just returned home from a sporting event and holiday in Europe when she started to feel unwell. She knew she was having a brain bleed, but nobody took her seriously. Here’s Mel’s story...
When Richard McLean had a stroke, one of the things he found helpful was hearing how other people have responded to having a stroke, to hear their experience. "It’s somehow nice to know that what I’m experiencing, how I’m feeling, others have experienced and felt too" 'Oh yes, that’s quite normal' are some seriously reassuring words right now. Here's Richard's story.....
Tamsyn Wood, mum of 4 and carer to her husband Alex, who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury during a rugby training session, describes the recovery pathway as being 'so complicated, navigating a system that you have no idea about until something like this happens to you - then, riddled with grief and trauma, you have to somehow keep it together enough to manage the fall out, with an unfriendly, unyielding system that seems to be in place only for the financially abled to benefit from.'
She hopes that by speaking out about her experience of wife to carer it may resonate with someone out there feeling just as lonely, fraught and frustrated with the care world as she is.