#brain injury

[thetragicallynerdy]

Reminder from someone with actual literal brain damage from a brain injury to stop fucking using "brain damage" and "brain injuries" as a means of describing someone whose opinions you don't like or deem as stupid.

It's ableist and offensive as fuck, and for some reason a lot of leftist people think it's okay to use. I've seen posts replying to right wing racists calling them "brain damaged if you believe this" and "do you have a brain injury? do you not understand X?". Just now I saw a beautiful post about fat people throughout history that was absolutely ruined by opening with "How do we break it to boomers with actual brain damage and nostalgic brainrot..." before continuing to say that fat people existed throughout history.

Brain damage does not make you racist. A brain injury doesn't make you stupid, or fatphobic, or unaware of history and politics. Stop fucking using my disability as a catch all to describe people you think are shitty. Y'all use it like it's a replacement for how people used to use the R-slur, which shows you learned absolutely nothing about why the R-slur was wrong to use and decided to throw in other disabilities instead. Fuck off and stop doing it.

(And don't do it with other disabilities either, because I know y'all do.)

I know a lot of people with brain injuries. They're smart, and funny, and compassionate. They learn about the world and care about social issues and wish they could go to protests if their disability won't allow them to. Are there right wing people with brain injuries? Sure, absolutely. But they are not right wing because they have a brain injury, and using any disability as an insult is still fucking ableist.

Tldr - stop using brain damage and brain injury as an insult. It's ableist and incredibly offensive.

Love, your local brain injured/brain damaged pal

[caintooth]

seeing people my age talk about how scared they are of memory loss, which they only associate with old age, is so surreal to see as a 24 year old who has actively experienced memory loss for a long time now

there are causes for memory loss besides dementia and alzheimer’s, i hope y’all know that. dissociative disorders, trauma, brain injuries, thyroid problems, even just stress and lack of sleep can fuck up your ability to store, process, and access memory. and that’s just a few of the many causes i can think of off the top of my head right now.

please stop treating disabled people like some scary “other” that you might become only in the distant, decades-away future. we are your age, too. you may become one of us sooner than you know. stop acting like memory loss marks the end of a life, when so many of us have so much living left to do!

[longreads]

A severe car crash left Anne Lagamayo with a traumatic brain injury. It was the height of the pandemic, and she was thousands of miles away from home. In her new Longreads essay, she reflects on how her world has changed—and her slow path to recovery—in 10 steps.

"You’re doomed forever to live in your parents’ home, sucking their money and time like a parasite when they’re this close to retirement, all of you sitting in your wheelchairs together in front of the TV in the evenings."

Read Anne’s essay, “How to Survive a Car Crash in 10 Easy Steps,” on Longreads.

[watercolourcritters]

thirty-four

bday comics: thirty-three

AN: I have an acquired brain injury, and always have a lot of feels about it on my birthday! so, disability bday comics are now a thing :)

[ID: a ten panel comic drawn in simple black ink with messily drawn borders.

One - I sit cross-legged on a sofa with an open laptop in front of me. Text reads: "And what do you do for work?" "I'm on disability." "Oh. And is it permanent?" "I mean. It's been over four years since my mTBI."

Two - Frame zooms in showing just my torso and chin. Text: "So yeah, probably."

Three - I sit forward on the couch with elbows on knees and chin resting on folded hands and sigh. It shows my whole body. I am a white non-binary person with a curly mullet, glasses, and wearing a t-shirt and ripped jeans. Text: The doctor calls me "dear" as she ends the call. It's been a long year."

Four - I stand and walk away. The image shows just my legs and the couch behind me. Text: When I first got injured, permanency was the scariest possibility. The idea of a lifetime of pain and fatigue made survival feel impossible.

Five - I stand holding a cupboard open, my back to the viewer. The open cupboard shows that it's very full of mugs and tea supplies. Text: It's not so scary, anymore. And it no longer feels just like surviving.

Six - A close up shot of a kettle steaming. Text: There's still grief, trapped under my ribcage. But I think there always will be. I've had to put away so many dreams, said goodbye to who I once was.

Seven - Close up shot showing hot water being poured from the kettle into a handmade mug. Text reads: But in the space left empty, new things have grown. New hopes. New dreams. New understandings of myself.

Eight - Close up shot of my hands holding a steaming mug of tea. Text: This injury might be permanent - but it might not be. No one really knows for sure. I love my life. I love my body, and my brain, all the messy disabled parts of it.

Nine - A full shot showing me sitting on my sofa again, and holding a large blanket out in front of me, as if getting ready to wrap it over my legs. Text: If this is the rest of my life, then what a gift to live it. I'm not done growing, hoping, grieving, healing. Still trying, and trying, and trying.

Ten - I sit on my sofa with the blanket wrapped over my legs, leaning against a cushion. I am sketching in a ringed book held on my lap, and my tea mug rests on the blanket beside the book. I am smiling slightly and look content. On the wall behind me is a quilted progress pride flag. Text: It's messy, complicated, and beautiful. But isn't that what life is?

The comic is signed h. graves '23. End ID.]

[unstablemotions]

Help Save My Cousin's Life 💜

My 25 y/o cousin Line, known as @nebulow online, needs for surgery for Craniocervical Instability (CCI). This is her last resort as she's been deteriorating fast. She's also diagnosed with Congenital Muscular Dystrophy (CMD), which will kill her if her CCI isn't treated.

Here's her Fundraiser

Any amount helps!! If you can't donate, just reblogging/liking this is a help 💜

[nightmaretour]

Ableism is my phone constantly reminding me to hold it still when I'm trying to take a photo

[1whump-dump1]

Home and Away - Josh's brain injury

(btw, in the second last gif he tells his brother that he is scared 🥺)

...

You can find all the episodes that are shown in these gifs+more by searching the following titles on Dailymotion:

Home and Away 6319 5th November 2015 Home and Away 6320 5th November 2015 Home and Away 6321 9th November 2015 Home and Away 6324-6325 12th November 2015 Home and Away 6326 16th November 2015 Home and Away 6330 19th November 2015

[cy-cyborg]

Looking back, people were so weird about my non-physical disabilities.

Oh no, we can't tell the obviously queer kid with no legs that they're also autistic with an intellectual disability due to a brain injury, then they might know they're different!

[lifewithchronicpain]

Apparently rest is actively harmful for healing from a concussion. You actually heal better with targeted therapy. But many doctors have not updated the advice they give and continue to just recommend rest.

[thetragicallynerdy]

So my favourite part of Spotify wrapped (other than getting lovingly dragged by Spotify each and every year) is that it's a really neat little way to keep track of my increasing ability to listen to music again post-brain injury!

The first few years of my injury I basically did not listen to music because I was too noise sensitive (and then it was only really simple acoustic stuff, because complex music was harder on my brain), but over the past three years I've been gradually been able to increase my hours. In 2021 I managed 2,500 minutes of music. In 2022 I was able to increase it to 17,500, and in 2023 it increased again to 29,000 minutes.

It's really hard to track brain injury progress, but this is a really neat little metric to see grow each year as I'm able to listen to more music each year! It might not seem like much, but it's really exciting to me. And it's just so nice to be able to listen to a lot more music overall again.

[spooniestrongart]

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Rereading the series and just got to The Underground with the crazy Yeerk. Wondering if they ever cover what happens to Yeerk if their host has a stroke or seizure?

My guess is that yeerks do emergency exit drills or training for exactly that kind of scenario. Because we sometimes see a yeerk successfully get out of a host after a severe injury but before the host dies (e.g. Hork-Bajir Chronicles, #8), and sometimes see the yeerk try and fail to exit in time (e.g. #41, #17).

So my guess would be that if the host gets a brain injury (even an internal-origin one) then the yeerk drops all its pseudopodia and starts zooming for the nearest exit. If it proves to be a false alarm, then hopefully there are other controllers nearby to help put the yeerk back into kandrona and/or brain. If it 's not, then at least that yeerk being somewhat stranded on an alien planet is better than being dead. Because we know that what kills a host kills a yeerk who can't get out in time, and both stroke and seizure have uncertain odds of being deadly.

[watercolourcritters]

the little things

Today is the 5 year anniversary of my brain injury - so I wrote this about some of the most cherished small moments of healing. Five years ago, and for a long time after I got injured, I couldn't do any of these things. Car noises were too loud, music was too overwhelming and hurt my head, and the sun coming in through an open window was too bright to face. I still have times when all three are too much - but I also have moments where I can sit with them, bask in them, for a little while.

Healing from a brain injury is a long, slow process. There have been big steps forward, and big steps back, and still so far to go. It's measuring progress in inches, rather than miles. But every inch is still worth celebrating <3

(for the few other brain injury comics i've done, my tag is here)

Instagram | Etsy

[ID copied from alt text: An eight panel comic, featuring hand-written text only panels beside art only panels. The art is simple black lineart. The panels read as follows:

1 - it's the little things.

2 - it's the way i can put ear plugs in and drive with my windows down in summer, feel the wind on my face.

3 - art panel showing the driver's view from a car driving down a highway, with the window down, wind blowing in.

4 - art panel showing a cell phone with the lock screen showing a music player app, which is playing "The Omen" by Camp Cope. Headphones lay across the phone.

5 - it's the music i can now listen to for hours, rather than minutes.

6 - it's the open window i can now sit facing, watching the light stream in.

7 - art panel showing a large window with plants along the windowsill, light streaming in through them.

8 - it's the way the world keeps opening up, inch by inch by inch.

The comic is signed hank graves, 2024, january 30th. End ID.]

[mandrillkills]

random post but… any memory loss havers here…. i don’t know anyone else with memory loss nor see it talked about often i wanna find some fellow memory loss havers of all kinds (adhd, amnesia, dissociation, anything) (maybe add what else can cause memory loss?? id love to know!!)

maybe talk about your struggles in comments/reblogs and what you wish more people knew about memory loss ? go crazy

[nightmaretour]

So sick of going into tags relating to my disabilities and finding nothing but fanfic and whump. Can you just fucking not

[klaineccfanficlibrary]

hi, i’m looking for a specific fic!

blaine has some sort of brain injury and there’s one scene where the mckinley jocks are beating him up outside and threaten to slam his head into a wall, which makes blaine panic at the thought of the brain injury getting worse. i think sue (or maybe beiste) eventually breaks up the fight

Hi - i can't recall the fic that has Blaine with a brain injury at high school, most start when he is in New York. Perhaps fandom can help identify it? ~Jen

Here are two, which i think are mainly post school.

Yes, Life Had Been Good by MsTwoBits

Kurt and Blaine had a nasty breakup seven years ago. When Burt finds himself needing Blaine of all people, Kurt and Blaine find themselves thrust back into each other’s lives. What happens when they confront their past? And what will happen in their future?

Headway ‘Verse by BlaineyDevon

“The accident took a lot of things from Blaine, but it never touched his ability to love.”

Snapshots of Kurt and Blaine’s life together, unconditionally loving each other despite dealing with lifelong consequences of a traumatic brain injury.

~~~~~

I will add this one, i've just found:

Sadie Hawkins Dance (or the reason Blaine is a year behind) by jetsfanforlyfe

Three parts

Forget and Not slow - The real reason Blaine's a junior? He spent his freshman year recovering from a traumatic brain injury suffered in his post-Sadie Hawkins assault. He tells a very confused Glee Club his story after Tina asks why he's in her English III Honors class.