Episode 21. Does It Even Help If You Can Explain The Unexplainable? Discussion with Moz

Brain injury problems are truly hard to explain, but a person can become aware of, make-sense of, and navigate such problems. Does it even help if you can explain the unexplainable problems? Not if people don't listen and don't believe you.I met Moz in a support group about 2 years ago and felt the need to connect with her. Moz’s inner navigation skills, abilities to classify, characterize and act mentally to compensate for her invisible injures is remarkable. She has had not had support, and many times the opposite of support since her TBI.We recorded this discussion 40 years after her brain injury. Moz has become my friend and I thank for that. She is accurate about the details of her brain injury problems, the ways people judged, misunderstood , and have mistreated her. We need to listen to Moz and others like her to have the right discussion about how to support and help people with brain injury.Moz talks about her brain injury problems in “specific ways”. It’ s those “specific ways” I see as brain injury parallels and describe at the end of the episode and below:- The “moment to moment nature” of brain injury problems - Moz talks about this ‘level’ of how reality shifts and everything is so different, of course you are stunned and altered by this moment to moment shift. It is hard to explain, and not just a matter of hyper- vigilance, but somehow reality is much harder to process at a moment to moment level. I think many brain injured person have this type of issue.- The lack of words for it - Brain injury is not explainable, especially when you do not have the energy to deal with, or ‘grasp’ your problems. Years and decades with the same internal problems helps form an accurate perspective.- The inner monologue/ narrator  - Moz’s inner narrator follows her brain injury problems like the memory issues and others she describes. She is accurate in her inner assessments as I was, but again it is hard to explain and others do not believe what you have to say.- The relearning curve - I have no words for this long process but ‘relearning’ is not the same as learning. It involves developing tolerances for what you need and dealing with brain injury problems plus all the other problems that life throws at you. But the brain injury problems themselves are always around. Relearning at times means regaining capacities, and other times means working within the confines of your core brain injury problems to get things done despite your limitations. In all cases it is difficult and consuming (like it takes internal work in a way that is hard to explain) but the relearning process can improve over time. This discussion captures some ideas about relearning.- Antisupport  -The extreme lack of support or anti-support Moz describes can be summed up as misunderstanding that leads to abuse and trauma. I have met many people with similar stories. Dr. Karen McAvoy, PsyD. spoke about how healthcare providers misunderstand and misjudge brain injured people leading to "punitive" treatment of these individuals, and what perspective change is useful to tackle this form of misunderstanding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSQ2xr-vD3YBelow are 3 seminars with the BIAWA where I lay out how I think about brain injury. Moz and I talk about this stuff all the time and I  hope we can record more discussions to bring people “up to speed” about our interpretations, agreement, and disagreements on these shared characteristics of brain injury. Check out the talks below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3E9C1RUjyg&t=126shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj7WxiSiBWs&t=66shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5-EUBU7HAA&t=64s