Relationships and TBI: Tips for Survivors

After my traumatic brain injury, I felt like my relationships with friends, family, and coworkers changed dramatically. My biggest challenges after my TBI were short term memory loss and a short temper. Both of these challenges affected my relationships with others.

My memory problems most affected me at work. I dealt with contracts, numbers, verbal agreements, client relations, and lots of follow up with everyone. As you can imagine, many things fell through the cracks. I forgot conversations with coworkers, outside companies, and clients. I forgot strategic conversations with my boss that almost cost our company thousands of dollars. I forgot about meeting appointments. It was really bad.

I was causing lots of stress and worry to everyone around me. It affected my relationship with them in noticeable ways. I could tell they no longer trusted me. I felt a lot of friction all the time at work. To my boss’s credit, he allowed me to continue to work and overall was very supportive. But I could tell that some days I tested his patience.

As I felt the stress and frustration at work, it inevitably carried over into my personal life. I was often extremely irritable at home (I lived with roommates at the time). Whenever I talked to my parents I would be so angry and frustrated about things that I would go off on them and shout long phrases of profanity at them. I almost never swear, so this was really out of character for me. When I finished, I would apologize through tears.

What can you do?

Maybe some of my challenges sound familiar to you. Or maybe you are facing other ones. What are somethings you can do?

Work

Let’s start with work relationships. We spend half of our waking hours there, so these relationships are very important. First, be honest with your supervisors. You may need to face a temporary skill deficit (topic for another post). You may need to ask for help. You may need to ask for lighter duty. At the beginning it was hard to accept my limitations. Once I did I found that honest communication about them was most important.

Family and Friends

Now on to family/friend relationships.

• Friends: I think part of the challenge of TBI’s (especially severe ones) is that some people just may not want to spend as much time with you. Is it cool? No. Is it fun? Definitely not. Is there anything you can do about it? Unfortunately not. Other people will make their decisions. But there will be those who will want to stay by your side. What can you do to strengthen your relationships with them?
• 1. Let them know that you know things aren’t the same. It can take a lot of pressure off your mind by laying it out there. Accept where you’re at (good or bad) and own it. It will also help your friends to relax and be able to talk to you about what’s going on. Another benefit of this is that they can help point out when they notice improvements. This would happen for me occasionally. I would be having a rough day, and a friend would comment on a certain skill that I hadn’t been able to do for awhile.
  2. Let them know how much you value them. Recovering from a TBI is a very unique experience. Not everyone will want to listen as you go through it. Show appreciation to the people who are there to walk with you, listen to you, and put up with you as your brain heals.
• Family: In addition to my suggestions for friends, these ideas can help with family members:
• • Relationships with spouses: Spouses are often the caregivers of people with TBI’s. The cognitive and personality changes that can come with a  TBI are especially trying for these relationships. Owning your challenges and changes can be very helpful. Just as you want them to listen to you on a hard day, they may want you to listen to them. Try not to take their complaints personally. You are both experiencing different sides of the same coin: TBI recovery.
  • Something else you could consider is re-imagining your relationship. If things have changed dramatically, it may benefit both of you to talk about what your relationship is going to be. In coaching we call this reframing. We are not saying that changes have not happened. But we are trying to find a way that the changes can be beneficial. This may take time, but with some creativity and persistence, you can usually find another view point: Here are some questions to start with: What do we want to enjoy in our “new” relationship? Who is responsible for what in the “new” relationship? What can we each do to help each other? What has changed from our “old” relationship to our “new” one? How do we need to change, so we can embrace the new situation?
  • Relationships with children: This varies a lot depending on the age of the child. My grandmother told me a story from when she was a little girl and my great grandfather had a skull fracture & brain injury. During his recovery, someone told her not to make him mad. Somehow her mind turned that into “don’t make him mad, or he could die.” Fortunately medicine has changed a lot since then, but it goes to show you that we need to be careful how we talk to our kids.
  • 1. We can talk to them and explain the changes that mommy or daddy is facing because of the accident. We can talk to them about ways they can help the injured parent. You could also have a frank conversation about how Mommy or Daddy has an invisible injury, even though they may look just fine.
    2. Be aware that the innocence of younger children may lead them to say something hurtful. However it’s just their way of processing the changes they’re experiencing.
  • Relationships with parents: Depending on the situation, you may live with your parents for a period of time while you recover. If you’ve been on your own, this can feel like a double punch to the gut: you lose some cognitive function AND some independence. With these two big changes, this might make you want to dig into your parents. This is normal. You’ve been on your own, cruising along, then WHAM, you need help from others.
  • 1. Express your appreciation as often as you can. Let them know how much they help you. Fill their emotional tank as much as you can in preparation for the hard times when you might deplete it.
    2. Openly discuss how much independence you want/need. Once their protective instincts kick in, It can be difficult for parents to back off and let you have your independence back.

Relationships post-TBI can be very tricky and difficult. However, once you make some adjustments, you can look back and find that they deepen and improve over time. There are some things to look forward to. Try to be patient with others, and most importantly, be patient with yourself.

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