Life with TBI: Stigma

stig·ma/ˈSocial stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceivable social characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society.

I know, and have met people, who spend a great deal of time on this: ending stigma. Even at the Congressional level, and certainly at the fundraising level, trying to create an air of awareness around long beholden beliefs. In truth, most of it revolves around “addiction” (which is now considered a terms that increases Stigma itself. I’ll cover that in part 2 next week) but I remain convinced that TBI carries with it, it’s own set of misunderstandings, and hugely so.

The next time you are at an airport, grocery store, or other urban location where people move about, make notice of this: if someone is wheelchair bound, on crutches or on a walker- pay attention to the sphere of humanity around them. I think what you may notice is a sphere of, well, other people noticing. Just that action alone may spur additional courtesy of the people around them cutting swaths to allow passage; or probably at minimum an extra glance. To me, it is almost like a fifteen foot radius of accommodation that occurs naturally in nature around the injured, amputated, and and disparate.

I think, simply put, that is because we react to what we see.

I was attending a lecture where someone had taken stock of the obvious, but worded it in a way that seemed profound: the brain is the one organ of the body encased 360 degrees it bone. It loans itself -not at all to visual interpretation- in the traditional sense that I have just mentioned.

Ask any TBI survivor what their road has been like, and if they are being honest I think you may find that they have found as much difficulty in navigating their community as they have with their symptomology. I partake in communities of thousands who feel misunderstood & ignored, and have been very vocal about that as such.

In fact (pot meet kettle) there have been situations years back (before I authored A Life Concussed and started my TBI Coaching) where I was the anchoring person of treatment teams for addiction with someone in the milieu whom I had known had head injury in their history. Even then, their list of complaints somehow failed to register as anything other than petulance; their chief complaint (so to speak) had loaned itself to nothing other than perhaps……. someone who enjoyed complaining. I know now, what that was, and wished I could’ve interpreted those residents better, and been more patient with them. And that, in short, is the Stigma. If I cannot see your problem, I am quick to assume either a) you don’t have one, or b) you are making it up, or amplifying greatly the severity of it.

I have a dear friend involved in a skiing accident that resulted in head injury. He works in public health at a fairly high level, and even he was quick to say that when he had to file for a second round of paid time away from work, he could sense both the impatience and insincerity of those for whom he had dutifully served, who worked in the capacity of managing health. While his brain fog was a shticks as clam chowder, and his endocrine system was so damaged* (I suspected) that his daily palate of emotions was a twisted and harrowing coaster ride, his reception with his executive team was all bit apparent that they felt, well, maybe he was “milking it”.

Human nature- a hard thing to put in check. Next week I’ll add a part two, and take on some of the stigma I see in addiction. Be well, fellow travelers.