Overcoming Loneliness After Traumatic Brain Injury
Common Signs of Loneliness
Traumatic Brain Injury may have physical and medical components. However, it can also change the way you feel about yourself and those around you. This is especially true in cases of mild and moderate brain injury. People often view you as “healed” or “well” and do not relate your change in feelings to a traumatic event. Understanding how brain injury has affected the way you feel and act is an important first step. Next you can learn how to improve old relationships, develop new relationships, and feel better about life.
Do you hear yourself saying…
- "Nobody cares about me.”
- “Why won’t my boyfriend return my calls.”
- “Seems like no one wants to talk to me.”
- “Everyone avoids me.”
- ”I just do not feel like going out.”
Are you saying or doing things that cause other people to be uncomfortable? Are you pushing others away by…
- focusing on what is wrong with your life and the world?
- not listening when others speak, interrupting, or talking too much?
- talking about yourself only?
- asking people very personal questions?
- hurting other people’s feelings?
- not going out
Common Feelings After Brain Injury
You may feel very lonely even around family and friends. Loneliness is a normal experience for most people at one time or another. It is when we feel disconnected and feel like something is missing in our lives. After a traumatic brain injury, those feelings can be intensified. Understanding how brain injury has affected the way you feel and act is an important first step.
The following are common feelings experienced by victims of traumatic brain injury…
- Difficulty communicating or relating to others
- Fear of Rejection
- Irritability
- Fatigue
- Anxiety
- Frustration relating to inability to drive or work
Additionally, some survivors find that they lose contact with friends and co-workers because they do not see them as much, especially if they have not returned to work or school.
Ways to Overcome Loneliness
These simple steps will help you overcome loneliness…
●Identify and develop interests in hobbies and activities you can do alone
Being alone and loneliness do not have to be the same. Find some alone time and use it to do things you enjoy like drawing, crafts, gardening, crossword puzzles, reading, listening to or playing music, researching your family tree, writing in a journal or any number of thousands of things. A side benefit is that you will more interesting to talk with since you have positive things to talk about.
●Exercise
We all know that exercise is the great healer. It will increase your strength and help you feel better about yourself. Consider joining a gym, health club, YMCA or YWCA, a mall walker’s club or other physical activity.
●Reduce television time
●Smile more
Greeting people with a smile will likely result in getting one in return which makes the moment positive. Eye contact says you are confident. It makes people like to be around you.
●Eat healthy and eliminate alcohol
Along with exercise, this self improvement suggestion will add energy to your regime. Buy a good diet book and commit to its program.
●Take your medication
Never stop taking prescribed medication if you do not like the way it makes you feel. Everyone has a unique reaction to different medicine. Advise you doctor and she will suggest alternate medicine for you to try until you find one that works best for you.
●Do not let challenges overwhelm you
This is easier than it sounds. Meditation helps produce certain brain activity that becomes a familiar and accessible place during times of stress. Do not let your depression overwhelm you. Talk to your doctor if you feel the need.
For more information on services in your areas, contact your state mental health agency. You can find a psychologist in your area at www.apa.org; a licensed social worker at www.naswdc.org; or a local psychiatrist at www.psych.org.
●Do something for others without expecting something in return
The whole “pay it forward” mentality is a good place to begin. Carry someone’s groceries, walk their dog, visit a nursing home.
●Ask others for help when you need it
Victims often lack insight. Therefore they fail to appreciate that others who may want to help simply do not know what they can do. Tell them. You will be surprised at the response.
●Understand that to meet new people you have to be around other people
●Keep an open mind
It is hard for most people to try new things. But commit yourself to doing that at least once each week. Find community events in your local paper. It may be hard at first but if you put in the effort you will be pleasantly rewarded.
You can find support groups by contacting the Brain Injury Association of America at www.BIAA.org. You can attend community events like theater productions, music productions, art shows, book clubs, sport events, political meetings, adult education, Rotary Clubs www.rotary.org, Lions club International www.lionsclubs.org, Kiwanis International www.kiwanis.org, Soup kitchens, day care centers, nursing homes and animal shelters, to name a few.
●Make a list of things you would like to do
It is true that by writing goals down you are more likely to achieve them.
●Adopt a pet
For information on adopting a pet you can visit your local Humane Society at www.hsus.org or the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at www.aspca.org.
●Write, email or call family and friends
●Volunteer
You can support religious groups, schools, hospitals, and libraries that need volunteer work. You can find such organizations and others in your local newspaper. You can also research at www.volunteermatch.org.
●Join a church
●Learn about brain injury
Go to www.biaa.org or www.nabis.org to learn about traumatic brain injury and related issues.
●Limit the time you spend on the computer and the internet
Plan on developing and interacting personally rather than in virtual terms like chat rooms and the internet provide.
Building Strong Relationships
Consider these ideas to build strong relationships…
●Learn to like who you are
We have all heard this before, “if you can’t like yourself, how can you like someone else?” Well start liking yourself. You are a good person and worthy of good friends.
●If you believe that others will like you they are more likely to
A Positive attitude about yourself will rub off on those around you.
●Write down your goals about making new and keeping new friends
It is true that by writing goals down you are more likely to achieve them.
●Make new friends
Resolve to not be afraid. Accept the invitation to the party, dinner, movie or whatever the opportunity provides. View meeting new people as an opportunity. Think about the possibilities of new things that can be had through making new and exciting friends.
●Take care of your physical appearance
Co0mmonly, when people become discouraged about themselves it shows in how they care for their outward appearance. Do not neglect yourself.
●Allow friendships to build slowly
Remember good friends are hard to find. Do not become discouraged if everyone you reach out to does not become more than an acquaintance.
●Try to listen more and talk less
Be a good listener. Hear the conversation, do not completely occupy it.
●Ask questions
A good way to show you are listening is to ask questions about what is being said.
●Show interest in what is being said
Participate in the conversation by occasionally nodding or making other sounds indicating you understand what is being said such as “Uh huh.”
●Remove distractions
It is difficult for anyone to focus on a speaker all the time. Trying to do so with extraneous noise like a T.V. or radio just makes it more difficult.
●Be a good friend that others will like to be around
Similar to people liking you for who you are, you should accept people for who they are. This may not make them a friend, but it will make you more pleasant to be around.
●Communicate positively
Some Traumatic brain injury survivors stay very negative about things. You need to focus and tell others about good things in your life or the world around you.
●Understand that relationships have good and bad moments
●Fight fair
Conflict is likely in any relationship. Be aware of that. Be ready and willing to forgive others as well as to be forgiven.
●Be polite, considerate and kind
Language can be sharper than the sword. Be very careful when you disagree to do so politely, respectfully and with a vision that the disagreement does not mean the end of the friendship.
●Think of others as much as you think about yourself
Thinking about others is a skill. The more you practice the better at it you become.
●Think about what you say before you say it
Along with being polite and respectful of what others have to say, be careful in what you say to others. Brain Injury makes people naturally less patient which can lead to unintended outbursts. Again practice makes perfect.
●Prepare yourself to work at building relationships
Building relationships takes time. Be ready and do not give up. Give it time. Accept that it may not have the same priority for the other person that it does at this moment for you.
I hope these basic tips will help you or a loved one cope better and ultimately overcome the tedium and strain of loneliness.
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Chief Justice Bill Maupin and and Tim Titolo at Caesar's in Las Vegas
Inadequate Security claims arise when a hotel does not provide proper protection and injury results. How do you determine if security is proper. The Hotel will always argue that an injury causing event happened so fast (usually in less than a minute) that "no amount of security could have prevented it." However this is not so in many cases.
