When to Let Go

I have no magic answer to how I got through the head injury. And I don’t think you ever really completely do, because that kind of injury, which is called a diffuse axonal injury, injures the entire brain because you’re having all these sort of sheered axons among different areas of the brain.

It changes you in just about every way so you are a different person and one of the hardest things for people with that type of injury to accept is that very first thing, which is you are a different person. And people will tell you that. And it’s really unsettling because you can’t quite remember who you are; you don’t understand how you’re different.

So for me, a big part of it was letting go of this – it was like a wet ball of sand that was drying. To try to hold on to my previous self-concept, it was just slipping through my fingers. I had to just let go of it. 

It’s almost like leaving a bad relationship that’s not terrible, not knowing there’s somebody else out there for you but you have to take that leap of faith because this is definitely not working.

So holding on to the old self was not working, I had to break up with my old self, in order to find my new self. And I’m not saying I’m totally different in every way, but you do have to allow yourself to be different. 

That was a big part of it for me, was acceptance and trying something new.