Workshop Feedback
This site is accessible to any browser or internet device. It will look much better in a browser that supports web standards. This message is not displayed in browsers that support web standards.
This art piece was created by seven members of the Colorado Head Injury Support Group, Denver Chapter. The composition directly portrays one group's experience of life after sustaining traumatic brain injury (TBI).
The major themes of this piece rest in the center of the composition with the island and the sun. The group feels separateness and isolation living in society after sustaining traumatic brain injury (TBI). The individual keeps at a distance from the rest of society, represented by the distant island. After sustaining TBI and viewing life from a whole new brain, it is difficult to re-join one's culture. The mountainous island represents the climbing that was necessary for group members to get to where they are now. The three mountain peaks support a heart that has been hurt and is flowing blood into a river, symbolizing the deep pain and loss that group members feel since their injuries. The sun represents the contradictive face or mask of reality: looking "fine", yet not feeling totally "whole" within. The mask holds qualities of light/dark, happy/sad, positive/negative and smile/frown. The dark clouds above storm in from the left and pass over the Island. As one begins to pass the peak of isolation, the sky lightens and new doors open to new possibility and the radiance of the sun and lightness of the clouds. In the foreground of the composition is a mainland, symbolizing community and family. A tree with a red woodpecker visually connect the three-dimensional images of the Island and the mainland. The tree represents one person's life since injury, while the woodpecker represents the brain injury. These two images also signify the outreach of the community and family to the isolated person with TBI. The connection is there, yet the experiences of TBI are so shattering that the person with TBI feels s/he must retreat alone to survive. A sand bar is emerging from the depths of the ocean, symbolizing the fact that the gap between is becoming smaller. A figure is reaching up, possibly playing with the ball of the sun, possible communicating to the Island that s/he is there, on the beach.
I am grateful to be alive, after all I have been though...because I know I'm a good person, I like to watch TV, do artwork.
I am frustrated most because people...make me mad.
I am frustrated most because I ...can't walk, and my eye is bad.
Since my injury, my beliefs in spirituality has...I love God, he let me live.
The story of my brain injury....
The story of my acute recovery from my brain injury.......I'm still drawing and painting. I'm living at home now.
Since my injury, I feel that I have a calling to....
My dreams of the future...are a nice house, marriage
The devastating effects of lessened cognitive abilities.......
"It is not so important, what happens in your life, as it is to how you react to it" I believe Rose Kennedy wrote that.
Within any particular set of circumstances, we're dealt, there are opportunities. maybe not readily apparent but as long as theres' LIFE theres' HOPE. I am not particularly speaking in a spiritual sense. One needn't find God to find Peace. I look at my own situation and am surrounded by constant reminders that it could have been much worse. I have been blessed with a unique opportunity to re-evaluate my life, take stockof my prioritys, and act on them in this lifetime. There's a world of good that I'm accomplishing am feel astonishingly lucky to be given the opportunity to do it. My head injury has taken nothing away. Instead, it has given me more than I could have ever hoped for.
Michael Crosse
PQTCWWYTWTBI
I am grateful to be alive, after all I have been though...yes, I'm alive, shit, i'm alive
I am frustrated most because people...alwas ask whats wrong
I am frustrated most because I ...can't walk.
Since my injury, my beliefs in spirituality has...gotten strong.
The story of my brain injury....don't ride in a drunk's car.
The story of my acute recovery from my brain injury.......at least I can talk, read, & write.
Since my injury, I feel that I have a calling to....live a safe, healthy, life.
My dreams of the future...involve walking.
The devastating effects of lessened cognitive abilities....... kinda out in outer space.
To me, head injury means 4 guys ran over me and left. Denver, I wish the police would bust them because I can't. I'm messed up the rest of my life. That's all I think about. I'm a good worker and a good artist and I want to keep doing it. I don't think I should be in a wheelchair- I want to walk. Mom died of cancer before I was well. I was hit by a car before, when I was 5, and I got better. Why don't I get better now? The guys that hit me this time don't know what it's like to be head injured. If they did, they'd be real mad too. What do I do now? I sit here, and be sad and pissed off. thank God I'm home now. everyoe likes my pictures on the walls. That makes me feel better. My hobbies are art and drumming. I had drums, but I don't know where they are. I want Conga drums. I can play with one hand, I think. I'll do it too. I will walk again, too. I need help for now, but I will do it. I'll talk better, too. I will practice, and slow down. I think I can do it. I just don't feel good.
Steve Jenkins
My life with a brain injury is very hard, because people treat me like I am retarded, at school I have to try harder then some of the kids, and most of the kids make in front of me and some of the teachers to. I am mad because some people don't know what I have been to learn how to walk and talk. I would like to see them go through that it would probably kill them. The person that hit me does not even care, my heart stoped three times and she did not even come up to the hosipital to come and see if I was ok, at school she didn't even act like she was upset, I mean she ruined my life forever I was only 15 when she ran me over. I still have my whole life to think of and she does not care. But the good thing is I can walk and I am alive. I can still make friends, I have to be careful though, But I am alive!
Lisa Wynne
At times I'm grateful to be alive, to be a servant to one thing or another but likely everybody equates my acute physical problem that I need to be waited on hand and foot. My physical problem is total blindness. I am greatful to be alive b/c I know I can do things for myself and others if they give me the chance. And I'm very willing to be put to the test to doing things for myself and others.
I do get tired and I get a delayed response of my thought process. I think that goes for anybody, but since there's a head injury involved this is more so. its more of a concentrated effort, b/c I want to now, before I thought I had to. This is in regardsto my spirituality. I want to get in a stage of praise, worship, & prayer. Its more of an effort to pull myself together to pray because my concentration level is not there. I get lost, I get off track easy, I fall asleep easy.
Where should I start, where should I stop. Brain injury. Everything seems normal, just as it was before. So it's very easy for me to deny that anything had ever happened to me. I know therefore, that it did happen. I'm not going to deny it. Because I want to be up front with myself as well as my God.
I know, I feel I have a calling. I feel like I'm going through life w/ no purpose or w/ o calling. I want to get in touch w/ my calling to know where it is. this feels weird.
What I'm trying to say here is that my kids are grown up and I don't have no purpose because I was the main soul provider for them and raised them and they can fair for themselves now. So I feel there's no need for me to be here anymore. But there's got to be a stage of life that I can fit into, a purpose, to help and be a servant, ome bodys or someones. I just don't know where.
Unless a person is to lose, or almost lose something, they don't appreciate it enough. I feel my life was saved so that I could help "educate the public" about the term: Head Injury. It's something that can happen to anyone, no matter what their background.
The love and support of my family & friends has been a very positive help to me. My mom told me that they never tried to smother me by "overloving" me...if I could physically learn to do something, they taught me how to do it, rather than doing it for me. Because of this I was able to develop more self confidence now, than I had before. It is best to think about the positive changes in life and try to focus on them. Having a positive outlook on a life that is loved, can really strengthen a person going through TBI.
My accident occurred August 11, 1983. my bother and I were on his motorcycle, sitting at a red light. We were hit on the side by a car racing to get through the intersection. I saw the car coming, I regained consciousness for a moment as I was coming down through the air and bounced on my head. I had no helmet on. the next thing I knew I was holding my brother as he was screaming hysterically sitting on the road. I had sailed across four lanes of road. My borther's heart stopped in the ambulance-he was resuscitated. I had a basalar skull fracture: my brother had many broken bones, includng a crushed leg that was run over by the car. They were going to cut his leg off in the emergency room, but he was too hysterical to risk surgery. I hel him in disbelief. My brother-my best friend. I got myself into his room on a wheeled doctors chair. I tried to stand but couldn't-so I dragged myself into this chair and pushed myself inot his room. My hip wasn't broken but they didn't know why I couldn't walk. I left I.C.U. four days later, walking with two canes and an undiagnosed closed head injury. My life instantly turned into a nightmare.
It's not as though I was acting normally in the hospital. I had spinal fluid pouring out of my right ear when I woke up. I couldn't stop talking or laughing. My mother came out and took me home where she stayed and we'd visit my brother everyday. Poeple gasped when they saw m ewalk into the hospital. I wasn't black and blue-I was black from head to toe. The first night at my house, my mother insisted on using her travel alarm which she sat by my bed. The noise of it drove me crazy and I took it and threw it and smashed it across the living room wall. A few days later I threw her out. I don't know where she went or how. Everything becomes a blur. I remember the early morning phone calls everyday from creditors wondering how I was going to pay my bills. I had to call the police to get them to stop calling. My brother's insurance refuse to cover anything. After a month or two I tried to work Kelly Girls temporary work, until I collapsed while standing at a job. They all liked me-the employers-but I as faking it. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I had to pay my bills-what was I going to do. Back in the hospital they found out that I had a tumor right in the middle of my head. When they told me what they would have to do to get it out, I had a nervous breakdown.
I was on my own. My brother wouldn't talk to me anymore. My parents- I don't know where they were. I know I had to talk to them about the upcoming surgery and told them that if just my mom was coming out to forget it. I was 6 or 7 years old emotionally then. The doctors told me I had to get a grip on the situation or I would die. So I found help from a spiritual man I once met at a church. And several months later I had the surgery. It was successful but I wasn't well. I told the neurosurgeon that my feet were not on the ground, and he told me to just bite the bullet and go back to work. It would all jsut work itself out.
So I did. I trusted people. I trusted doctors. I had three jobs the next year. faking it all the time. Forgetting eveything. Being exhausted. Freeked out constantly. I could never find my car after work and would walk home and call someone to help me find it. Eventually I quit driving. I quit answering the phone. I quit cooking. I quit cleaning. I had seizures. I lived in my bed. And I tried to work to pay my bills. Everything revolved around needing money. I was gaining weight constantly. I woudl be at a corner store and forget who I was-where I was. I would run out of stores hysterically, find my address and run there, recognizing my stuff when I got inside. And go to bed. I was seeing a very screwed up man then-what a surprise considering my condition. I figured I just must need rest, so I stayed home for a month. Nothing improved. Finally, after this boyfriend saw me go through another seizure he talked me into going back to the doctors. I had learned to hate doctors. I had learned to hate and distrust people. I was constantly scared. But I went back to the doctors and laid all my cards on the table. The response: "Oh-oh!" the diagnosis: brain damage.
So I went through a series of neuro-psycho-metric testings. I was diagnosed. I was also accused of faking results, of being uncooperative, of many negative things. If you knew me, you would know that I was incapable of not trying. So I went into a rehabilitation program which was offered free to me by the hospital. There I was also accused of not trying. My rope-my hanging on was fraying. This was in 1986. I turned my life over to God. I moved across country to where my parents lived. It would be three more years before a significant medical diagnosis was made and my problems would start to mend. Three more years of despair and torture and accusations living in a snake pit. I stopped being able to sleep. I went 14 months without a wink of sleep. the advise I received from a psychiatrist-eventually you will get so tired that you will have to sleep. that didn't happen. Hallucinations did. Inability to function did. My family not wanting to get involved did. I flew back to Denver. Back to my old doctor, and I hated doctors even more. Six months of tests and sent again to a psychiatrist.
But a miracle happened. This time this psychologist figured it out. An endocrine problem. that's all- an endocrine problem. Caused by the doctors after my surgery. They took me off of medicine that I had been on almost all of my life. My brain started to recuperate quickly. This psychologist ranted for an hour-expressing my rage. Intense rage.
So, after a few months I had new neuro-psycho-metric testing. And I wan't seen as uncooperative. I wan't seen as faking it. I started to receive the help I needed. This was 1990. Seven years of torture. Because I wasn't diagnosed with a brain injury. I spent two years with a private tutor-passing out, throwing up-forcing my brain to work again. But I truly didn't mind. I knew that this was my door opening up to possibilities again. My sleep still hasn't fully recovered and I can't work, but I'm hanging on to a stronger rope now. I've moved back to the Rockies. There's still alot of stress-mostly from money problems. I'm trying to trust people-I'm trying to trust doctors. I'm trying.
Heidi Schmitt