ASM180 Living with Brain Injury with Christy Neal

[transcript automatically generated - please help edit to make it better]

in fall of 2015 my dad was in the hospital he'd had a major stroke and he was staying in an extended care facility because he couldn't walk or move independently and he needed to go get an mri and i thought it's a wonderful day so i pulled my motorcycle out of the garage got it started and rolled up to a stop sign i went through that stop sign and went down the street and as i begin to take a right turn something people do on motorcycles all the time the engine stalled out if you've ever ridden a motorcycle you know a stall in a curve is not a great situation and i applied some throttle trying to wake the engine back up and just before the motorcycle hit the ground the engine roared to life and in doing so launched me into the air like a volleyball now i don't remember that part but a spectator who saw me fly through the air and land headfirst on the ground used that phrase i flew through the air like a volleyball and in that moment my life completely changed i didn't know it at that moment but i had a double brain bleed and a severe concussion i'd never heard of post-concussion syndrome i didn't know that brain injuries can have complications that last not only hours and weeks but months and years but it's not overstating it to say that a brain injury dramatically changed my life in ways i could have never expected or anticipated and as we've been talking about issues surrounding ability and disability here on ask science mike i thought it might be helpful and useful and instructive for all of us to consider those kinds of disabilities that people acquire unexpectedly the things that are invisible to someone passing you on the street but are never more than a moment away in daily living and so this week i've invited my dear friend christy neal to join us on ask science mike to talk about living with brain injuries christy thank you for being here thank you for having me i feel really excited and well i'm a podcast version like this is the first podcast yeah that i've been on so i did not wear natural deodorant today because i knew i'd be really nervous and sweaty so i wore like the real deodorant oh wow yeah yeah so i'm excited but i'm really nervous um but like here's the thing like it's also the first time that i've actually talked about what life is like for me and what has happened publicly um so there's a lot of fear in that but there's also a lot of like oh my goodness if i would have known like if i can help somebody like if i would have known the things that i know now about living with a brain injury like um things would have been a little different and a little less lonely wow so thank you for having me gosh i'm so honored and you are like one of my dearest closest friends period in the whole world um so for listeners if it sounds like we're familiar and know each other well uh that's because it is you're listening in a conversation between two friends and uh not a there's no publicist or media entourage here yeah i feel oh my goodness i feel the same the same way um you are actually i was just telling you this the other day like mike you're the only person that is in my life that actually understands um so when i met you um you know i hadn't i hadn't had my accident yet and you were a year i think you were a year out of your accident so you were able to talk about it and then um yeah you've been my concussion coach so thank you thank you for having me yeah brain injury twins that's right what was what give me like a snapshot or a feeling of what life was like and how you felt before uh you had a brain injury yeah um i was a homeschool mom um we have three children and i homeschooled my kids i was in i was in year 10 when the accident happened i was really really good at multitasking maybe like 17 things at once wow and um i guess i was pretty proud of that um very efficient um just not really i just didn't struggle with thinking oh what's the right thing to do here what's the best thing to do here well this is the best thing to do um this is how you do it and it's the right way um uh let's see let's talk a little bit about anxiety and depression i i have always kind of struggled with anxiety and depression been in and out of therapy in and off of meds um since after my first baby that just turned 16 two weeks ago oh my gosh um so i was pretty familiar with what that looked like and how to pursue health in with those conditions um but yeah just a busy homeschool mom and making life happen ceo of my house like making it happen and multitasking yes oh my gosh like why would you only do one thing at once but what's wrong yeah if you do that what's wrong yeah yeah uh so what happened what how did how did you injure your brain um august 2016 i was coming out of my favorite grocery store and most people's favorite grocery store i don't know if i'm allowed to say the name or not you absolutely can trader joe's trader joe's coming out of trader joe's um and i had my hands full and in this particular parking lot it was a newer trader joe's not one that i frequented like all the time so it wasn't like my home trader joe's it was just on the way home from running errands um and in the parking lot they have these medians and like every couple of feet not new trees are planted and the trees were covered in leaves um the branches there was one particular branch that was hanging um pretty low like i'm five nine and i think i was like wearing wedges so like i was probably five ten-ish a little bit more and the branch would probably like a like hanging at maybe five five five six um and i did not see it and i stepped up into the median and stepped up with my full force into that tree branch and if you can imagine a tree branch kind of coming down in a v like almost a 90 degree angle and then there was like this knot on where the 90 degree angle would meet um that went into the center of my head and i did not know what just happened like immediately down on my feet um in the parking lot dropped the groceries i did not pass out i didn't lose consciousness um everything blacked and i saw stars immediately but then i was like a little bit embarrassed i was like oh my gosh who saw me do that like i'm in the middle of a parking lot but my head really hurts yeah right right so i knew i knew what was happening so then i'm like okay get my groceries get in the van close the door it was a super hot day and then just close myself in the van to recover to be like oh my gosh like get yourself together um which in hindsight was not a great thing to do um but thankfully i didn't lose consciousness and i drove home i came to enough to drive home and then i told my kids they were with a babysitter and i told her i was like i just hit my head pretty bad but i mean i think i'm okay i just feel like i hit my head right and then she was like do you need me to stay with you and i was like i was like no i think i'm all right i didn't i really just felt like oh i just got knocked out i didn't feel um nauseous i didn't feel anything other than i just hit my head i thought i was fine went on went through the afternoon night um and in 24 hours everything changed um so i was driving my kids back from tutoring um and the nausea was overwhelming and then the headache came then the vertigo piled on like everything was spinning in the van and it was just like should i pull over should i be driving can i actually get home um is it even responsible or safe for me to be driving on the freeway right now um so i did i did pull over i remember pulling over and like i called my husband and i was like i think i'm like 10 maybe 10 minutes outside of the house and i was like i'm i think i'm fine to drive home i'm going to drive home but then i'm driving myself to the er like something's not right and i knew brain i knew head injuries were pretty big deal like well probably i probably need a ct scan just to make sure and so i did i drove myself to the er um had a ct scan it was clear no bleeds um and then so they gave me the slip of paper eight to twelve days you'll be fine take it easy well i'm a homeschool mom i don't take it easy like what is that right like 17 things at a time right um so the instructions were literally like i'd never heard of post-concussion syndrome that was never mentioned like i was never told i think there was like something in the fine print like if you experience symptoms for longer than eight to twelve days maybe you should seek a professional like that type of thing that they have to put on the what's it called when they discharge you the discharge papers um so yeah that's what i did i came home and i didn't take it easy um because i just kept doing what i was doing with the nausea and then i think it was like maybe in the next you know three to four days when i was like okay this isn't really going away maybe i should see a neurologist i went to neurologist number one and he prescribed medication for vertigo medication for nausea like the same medication um zofran that i was on when i was pregnant and like that that helped a little bit um but i just started like two prescription drugs right away um it really it it would touch the nausea a little bit but not really the thing that was worse that started happening even after like a week was something happened with my sleep cycles and i could not sleep i couldn't sleep at all like we're talking i was up 20 to 21 hours a day so if you read and if you hear oh the best thing for brain injury is to rest and recover and it like sleep as much as you can like that wasn't happening my brain was not turning off at all the anxiety that i knew well was oh i mean it was overwhelming i felt extremely paralyzed with anxiety um i am an enneagram six which pair the fear and the um lack of security with a normal enneagram six with a head injury enneagram six i mean it was outrageous it was it was seriously paralyzing i'm trying to remember i think we ended up yeah we ended up seeing neurologists too and he was the one to encourage brain rest um i didn't get a new oh i did get a new prescription drug neurologist who prescribed um zoloft for my anxiety so i'm on three prescription drugs now and he's just telling me about brain rest i was like okay what is brain rest like what does that mean like because i got from the er take it easy and that meant for at least a month i want no teaching like stop teaching your kids i want no driving i want you in dark a dark room um stay off of your phone let's let's have your let's have a screen a screen break like you don't need to be watching tv like i really want you to rest um that was extremely hard that was probably i mean i listened he's a doctor i listened um that was probably the lowest time in my life um i would literally stare at the stone wall in our room for hours because i still wasn't sleeping um yeah i mean the kids would come in and just say hello um and leave i wasn't having conversations with people um i'm a super social person so telling me that i have to stay isolated and quiet i'm also extremely loud and like wanna be loud and want to be at a party and want like it was just really hard it's the complete opposite of who i am um we you know everything changed for our family at that point while i was having a month rest like we had tutors we had to have tutors come in for the kids because i was homeschooling them and i wasn't going to put them in school right in the middle of the year right so yeah i had people coming in bringing meals um figuring out my kids schedules everything that i was good at and everything that i did was taken away and i had to be completely dependent on other people for the first time in my life and it was um it was really hard wow it was really hard wow i mean several things actually strike me i've got this dramatic story motorcycle wow dangerous yes of course of course you have a brain injury you were buying groceries and walking oh my gosh yeah like i literally did not i did not know what happened and it sounds like that was one of one of the most life-changing steps of your life like literally literally literally yes like a literal literal step like maybe the last step down the aisle oh my god the last step into labor and delivery might be the only steps that are even remotely competitive with that fateful day yeah yeah and i mean i think like any normal person like i go back like why did i have to go to that trader joe's why did i take that route home why did i wear those shoes if i would have been wearing my tennis shoes then i would have given myself a couple of inches and maybe i would have missed like the guilt doesn't stop like yes that step changed my life and it was my fault like and that's something that i had to deal with in therapy for sure like you know it's like you okay you were you were answering the call and going to yeah i don't know did you ever deal with that oh my gosh constantly like why did i yes why did i either let the motor cycle sit so long which is bad for motorcycles right because that was a hospital hospital hospital hospital so i started driving a car again i never drove cars i only drove my motorcycle but i was riding around in cars and the longer a motorcycle sits the more dangerous it can become okay i didn't know that um and so then i thought i should have either continued writing it or waited even longer i shouldn't have if i was going to take the bike out i shouldn't have taken it when i had somewhere to be right i should have taken it for a slow easy test ride with no destination right right because because because it's your fault right either way it's your fault yeah yeah i mean the way i figured out i had a brain injury i felt fine i thought maybe i had an adrenaline rush because i just felt kind of uh that didn't make good radio me shaking my body but it's really literally really jittery yeah uh but when i was at the hospital with my dad they gave me his intake form to fill out and i couldn't read it oh okay it i mean i could see there was paper and i could see there was writing on it but i couldn't make out what any letter was much less words yeah and i said i can't read this he said oh are you not literate do you need an interpreter and i said no i um i can read i just can't read right now he looks at me it's like well i fell off my motorcycle and because i was in a hospital oh my gosh he got on his little radio next thing i know they're taking me down the hall from the mri center to the er oh my gosh um and it was like i was like wait but i feel fine i didn't realize how much life was gonna change after that um and that cycle of like self-blame and and searching because life changes in a big way and at first you're like okay well i've got a concussion i can handle a few weeks of this yeah i'm gonna get help for a month after a month i'm gonna be cool like i can start teaching my kids again i love to go to the grocery store i can do my own grocery shopping like my husband doesn't even know how to scramble eggs but he's gonna learn for just a month and then i can start scrambling eggs again like i did find out that he could do a lot more than he thought he could so that was a big plus that was a big plus i'm married to a six as well i know that and i think sometimes when you're married to a strong capable six your k you know you're capable of more but whenever you try to be capable yeah your strong sex is like that's not good okay maybe i know what you're talking about i don't know my favorite thing is like i'm gonna make jenny's day i'll clean and organize something oh that's a bad idea okay that's okay that's a panic attack well maybe i'll just uh maybe just load the dishwasher and then she does say thank you but then she does she reload completely reloads the whole thing of course she does like oh i didn't i didn't know there were such specific rules of raven stuff like that yeah so you see how hard it was for me oh my gosh that's what i mean in the bed for a month oh my gosh i can't even because you control your anxiety by controlling the environment doing doing yes and i learned in that period i mean we'll probably talk about this later on but like i am a fighter not a healer yeah and then what i've learned in the three years since this has happened is you have to become a healer like i had to be willing to heal i couldn't fight can't fight your way out of this that's been the biggest thing wow i'm stubborn mike i'm stubborn so as you move from a recovery period you realize some what made you realize this is going to be an ongoing thing well the internet um i ended up seeing neurologist number three as well um and then just basically figured out this is not working like nothing that they're giving me is helping these prescription drugs may be making me feel worse like i'm on so many things right now i don't know if my symptoms are concussion related or side effect from the prescription drugs right i decide to drop it all to stop it all like no more prescription drugs i look into research on my own i'm taking it into my own hands told you i'm stubborn but this is my health i am my own advocate like who else is gonna do this nobody else is gonna do this um i take it into my own hands and then i start reading about post-concussion syndrome and we're in like several months like i don't even know the timeline is crazy but we'll just all say that this is in the first year um i take it into my own hands um i start making these he's like i became really hippie like i've never really been a hippie i've became so hippie and like i made these incredible brain tonics you would be so you would be impressed you would be impressed um i made weekly brain tonics um maybe a little bit woo you would say but it was working right it was working for me because i was doing it right right um [Music] and i started once i started reading about potion post concussion syndrome i was like oh crap we're reading about people that are six years post injury and they still have brain fog yeah why have i never heard of this like why didn't neurologist number one neurologist number two neurologist number three like nobody told me this um and then i got really scared like really scared um i'm never gonna be the old christie like this is my life for the rest of my life you know and i'm still in year two i'm pretty much in a downward spiral like um actually i did check myself back into therapy during that time like i think i'd kind of had a break from seeing my therapist for just anxiety and depression health um and she actually told me that i wasn't allowed to go online anymore because it had become such an obsession um because what we figured out together she and i um the people i would find myself in places that really people were talking about how horrible their life was and they were in year six and she's like you know what like this is probably true and yes we can talk about post-concussion syndrome but the people that have experienced some healing they're probably not on the internet writing all about how amazing their recovery journeys have been they're out living their life that's right so i think that you were feeding your monster stop with the internet searching um [Music] so it was hard i mean i still i still got on the internet i mean i didn't get on the internet as much but like i took it into my own hands i started reading um i could read you a list of all the things that i did and you would just be like wow like acupuncture chinese medicine um physical therapy which actually was super helpful like we started vestibular system therapy and you know i couldn't i could not i couldn't put one front one foot in front of the other and just walk like a straight line um she would harness me in and i would walk on a treadmill treadmill as slowly as possible and like move my head from left to right like and almost fall off every single time like i was but i was strapped in so it was great um and we did the balance beam like she strapped me in and then she put me on a balance beam and like would have me say my say the alphabet backwards and that was the hardest thing like that i'd ever done like she did these really cool brain exercises and um you know it's just it i could talk all day about it but it was just a very long year of research and discovery because there's so much that's not out there yeah because you don't hear these stories hmm it's so tough if you think about it from a clinician's point of view yeah if you prepare people for the potential of a very long-term recovery because of things like the nocebo effect i know it can actually create a harder recovery for them i know but when you don't tell people that some people have a concussion and 12 years later still experiencing pretty significant post-concussion syndrome yeah it's hard i know i understand it's hard and like every brain is so complex they're so it's so different like your injury is way different than my injury like we have some very similar things um so yeah it's it's it's really complicated it's really complicated it was hard for me to let go of the old me oh my gosh one of the most frustrating days ever was i actually was texting with jenny this was after we met you guys but you had not moved to la yet which for people listening we live in l.a because jenny met christy thank you and another friend jesse but because uh jenny was like terrified of like this big city we grew up in small town southeast usa and uh when jenny met christy and jessie and heard like strong southern women talking [Laughter] so we um we were texting she continued to text with me i talked to you a lot on the phone but i knew that texting was hard for you um with your recovery and one of the things that one of the hardest days for me was when jenny texted me you know what christy you're probably gonna need to start figuring out what the new you looks like i was pissed i was so mad because no i am that would be giving up i am getting the old me back and i had to work through that i had to work through that suggestion yeah it's hard it's really hard i could never multitask okay but i could maintain a state of intense focus and concentration okay for if i needed to 27 hours straight i mean i could literally work a 24-hour day when i needed to oh my gosh with quality work the whole time um i had this like almost unlimited mental stamina and uh probably two and a half years three years post injury i never wake up with brain fog anymore um you know a lot of the cognitive issues have declined uh other than i still can't text uh you know animated interfaces are tough for me still but the thing i had the most grief about is i have about four to five good high mental horsepower hours a day they're easier to get in the morning um but i can't write for four hours in the morning podcast for additional four hours and then do a bunch of work in the evening i'm pretty much cooked by about 2 p.m yeah me too oh my gosh me too and that's pick up time for the kids right i'm like how am i going to make it till 9 00 pm right yeah i i i feel the same way i feel the same way so how has that changed in your because i know you still experience brain fog as well yeah and you've got cognitive issues you've got mental stamina limitations how has that impacted your relationships with your family who has been super dependent on you historically and even uh with your friends well i figured out the answer well no not the answer i looked into jenny's suggestion of finding the new me and i thought about instead of fighting healing um [Music] and really begin to like break it down kind of like you would a math problem i used to teach high school math so it gets me a little nerdy when i think about oh let me figure out the bet what's the best system if i can't if i can't fix my brain i can fix the system right so it became it became a math equation and okay i have sensory issues now how can i calm and quiet the noises around me um i invested in those earplugs you told me about eargasms they're amazing yeah oh my goodness so they're on my keychain um i have figured out if we're going out with our friends i am not afraid to ask anymore like oh okay i have to get on yelp and first look at the restaurant i have to figure out if it's gonna be cramped i figure out okay they have the little um they have the line on yelp that says noise noise level low moderate or high if it's a high cramped restaurant i speak up and i ask is there any way we can choose a different place because i really want to come and i know i know i can't come to this restaurant um if there's patio seating i like to sit outside at a restaurant um the i'm trying to think of like all these accommodations that are like and yes we hear you rest of the country we have some la privilege year-round outdoor seating that's right yes i'm really grateful for that um oh when i think about the afternoons like you said you're 2pm battery dead right like it also it makes me think about a phone battery because like when your iphone is done like it's done like you you literally have to put it in the charger or you can't use the gps anymore right it's the same way with with my brain like i feel like i have to schedule in like a 45 minute nap some days before i get the kids which is another huge change like we had to put the kids in traditional school like there was no more homeschooling for me because the multitasking was gone um so we transitioned the kids in school and like they're doing great they love it so when pick-up time comes there's a good chance that the 45 minutes before that first pickup i have been in complete silence and asleep to make it till nine o'clock um i also have a really strict bedtime um you would think well maybe that comes with being a 40 year old but no it's it's it's the brain thing and like i can tell the next day if i haven't stuck with my sleep cycles like if they've been messed up at all that's the only time i have brain fog and yeah and like migraine like headaches is when my sleep patterns get interrupted yeah yeah that's really hard um the next day like most i mean i experience these symptoms daily like there there's rarely a day that i feel that like i can go to sleep i'm laying down at night and i'm like oh my goodness like i it didn't feel like i had a concussion today like it did it didn't feel like i was in concussion recovery today and i'll be i mean it's so i'm so grateful for that um because most days it's like i don't know if you've heard me describe it this way but it's like a um a turtle walking in peanut butter oh wow like that's the best description i have like when you're trying to explain to somebody how you feel like what is brain fog what is brain fog what does it feel like like either my head is a balloon and it's just literally floating off and i'm trying to grasp at the ribbon to pull it down and or a turtle walking in people every thought has like this cloud and resistance like it you can't it's difficult to make a thought on purpose yeah and the thoughts that happen automatically i it totally feels like they're moving through a viscous fluid yeah oh my gosh yes wow um so yeah i've just had to make changes um like how can i how can i set myself up for success and like asking like you've mentioned friendships like asking for what i need has been really hard but i feel like with the ones that love me most and like want me to feel the best like that's not difficult um it still is really isolating even when you feel like you have like you know four or five really really tight friends that understand what you're going through it's still it still feels isolating um because you know you walk in a room and you you said at the beginning of the episode you used the word invisible and that has been like that's a great just a great word because i look normal you know like it's a disability that doesn't you don't automatically which i hate using the word normal maybe i shouldn't even use the word normal you can't see my injury um you can't see my disability um so asking for what i need i think has been like key in my relationships um and then just on really lonely isolating like days that i feel isolated even asking or reaching out to someone um instead of just you know being alone i mean some days it's good to be alone but like if that happens like three or four days in a row then i know that okay are you playing victim i'm playing victim right now let's walk in health and like maybe you should call jetty and go on a walk so that's what i do that's been tough for me you know one of the things that they say is most um therapeutic for brain injury is exercise and physical activity yeah absolutely which and i hate absolutely exercise yeah i like a good walk yeah you know the way i feel is like i have so few hours that i can get worked on so i gotta get my work done right and then i'm cooked i don't wanna go out and hear all these noises and that's right deal with bright sunlight because sunlight's a big deal for me since for sensory over being overwhelmed um i'll give me a migraine really fast if i if i get bright lights in my eyes and uh so this thing that could really help me feel better feels too hard to even try and i i feel like that's a cycle i don't know if it happens to you but i get stuck in a lot the things that would help me the most also seem like the hardest things in the world to do they are i mean i didn't other than taking small walks the first two years i stopped working out i mean and i was in the gym like four days a week and i stopped working out um so i was dealing with the isolation from my gym friends in my gym community which i loved so much that just kind of stopped but then the physical like the benefits that i was that my body was getting physically that stopped for two years um because exactly because of what you're saying like there was no way i was gonna why would i go outside and why would i go to a gym when i feel like i'm just gonna fall over yeah right like because i i still will struggle with like feeling really dizzy and i have to watch my head movements right um so it just was really really slow oh yeah really bad i never was garcic before the accident yeah and now i'm car sick yeah literally every time we go anywhere yeah yeah so but exercise i mean that i just have started that back and it it it's actually helping i feel like it's really helping the um the cloudiness and i have fallen over i mean in the gym i'll like oh i can't do that i can't do this and now you just try it and then it's a it's just i'm it's an equation and i'm still figuring it out oh wow i might have to start exercising maybe once i finish this damn book of mine you can do it uh i know you grew up in the church too i did and everybody you're on your own completely unique faith journey yes but i i'm curious if a brain injury has impacted your faith journey at all um you know that is a really loaded question and i know that science faith in life is what this podcast is all about that i want to deliver right um you know it yeah it's been i think it's you know the timing of everything is so crazy because i was already in this place of trying to deconstruct things from my past and growing up like all like evangelical christianity um all that it gives you right like trying just on this journey of deconstructing um and really trying to figure out like what i want to hold on to like what do like if i really think about it like what do i really believe um and i feel like this is like a whole podcast in itself um it is it's a really really tough question um and i'm not completely ready to talk about it all now um but i did like i feel like i was in a really regard like i think i put all the questions aside because i was scared i was really scared like at one time my dad um he said he's like well you know god god let you hit your head on that tree and i was like okay like okay maybe yeah and he was like because you got to slow down christy you got to slow down and at first i was just really like dad you know what you're talking about but then like three years later i'm kind of like oh maybe he knew more than what i knew he knew or thought he knew or whatever um but like i i put the questions aside and all of my like okay how am i gonna break down this theology what am i actually gonna believe um because i just needed the i needed comfort and i needed security and like god is that to me god has always been that to me um and like the personality of a sex that's what i value most and i've never really been able to find that outside of my relationship with god um so i mean my i feel like it was like i feel like i had a sweet time with god in the healing because i wasn't fighting and like you know it's the whole fight heal thing again like i really tabled i really tabled everything like i just i had i had to and i mean i'm really grateful i'm really grateful i don't know that's kind of an answer it's kind of an answer kind of an answer i feel like i could say like so much and i will one day yeah yeah but i think that's i think a lot of people could relate to that you know um i don't know what i believe about this but i need it right now oh gosh i yeah i i mean i remember one um one conversation my husband and i were having and it was i don't even remember what the topic was like maybe it was something about an art the ark some i think we're talking about the ark and i was like i cannot think about what actually like if there was an arc like i can't think about this anymore i have to heal i'm trying to figure out how i'm gonna wake up the next morning right and then he's like okay we can't okay we can't talk about this anymore i'm like no we can't right now so i think that's really encouraging that's a little bit the if there is something interesting and important about religion and even a relationship with god i think it is those things that impact the way we live life each day whether we see the world with hope or not whether we see ourselves and others with love or not absolutely and i i find it really comforting and encouraging that you had this life-changing difficult thing happen and [Music] you were able to and you decided to set aside deconstruction and all this stuff that people love to talk about on the internet and instead um [Music] get what you needed out of this lifelong investment right you'd made in in in the church yeah and in christianity right so i appreciate you sharing that with us thanks if someone's listening to us right now and they've had a concussion or they've had oh gosh there's a more severe stroke if they've had some kind of transient unexplained neural phenomena that's impacting their life and they're much closer to their time of injury than you are is there anything you would say to someone who's right now wondering if they're ever going to get better or if they're ever going to be like they were um i would say first that i'm sorry i'm really really sorry i would say that you are not alone even though it feels 100 like you are i would say that you're not crazy that this is actually really hard [Music] i would say that you may never be pre-injury self but post injury self can be really beautiful i would say to reach out don't stay in isolation reach out to someone preferably like if it is a head injury reach out to someone who actually gets it so like you got two people right here um because it's it's just very different like i i seriously do not know what i don't i don't think you and jenny know how much you have been a part of my healing [Music] because there were times that we were hanging out when i would just have to leave and you would see me leave you would come out of the room and you wouldn't say anything you would just look at me and then you would just know that i can't be in here right now i'm on the verge of a panic attack right now because the sensory overload is too much yeah reach out to somebody i think probably the biggest thing would be um find like maybe two or three things that you feel like um calms you and grounds you and like for me that's been um being outside and taking a long walk and like i have to actually schedule that in my day because it's part of my healing it's part of my therapy like i am not medicated at all right now and that is my medicine wow um that's been one of my things um you know this about me my second thing is finding something that you feel like you can nurture and for me that's my house plants yeah um it's time consuming and it's beautiful and i love taking care of like each specific leaf i love knowing this like what soil it needs like it's just something really small that i feel like i can do well and it gets me outside of my head um and then and the third thing would be my dog having having jade my little dog um because i'm never alone she follows me everywhere and you know find find something find what grounds you found find what works for you do you do you have anything like that definitely besides cheese we have that we have that in common we also love a good cheeseboard cheese is my mistress my temptress jenny lit said the other day she was like you do cheat on me i was like what she's like with cheese you lied to me about where you've been oh my god you hide it from me no she did and you have it has utter control over you she knows you well and she's right because she'll be like what'd you eat today i'm like oh nothing nothing blockable really nothing where'd you go for lunch oh i got a rice ball i got a rice ball why are you looking away uh there's something over here because yeah because i had yeah so yeah like what do you do what what grounds you i feel like i know and have a relationship with every tree and shrub and succulent and hummingbird and lizard oh my goodness yes um on this little patch of ground where i live that's beautiful um and i check on all of them multiple times a week and see who's feeling well i know on a windy day who might be leaning over and need some support i know who will tell me first that it's too dry and they need water and i know who will tell me first there's too much water can we dry out um and i mean gosh i know it feels so good right i know what time and what days the parrots visit and which two doves land in which tree at what time of day and um that's my favorite thing and it is absolutely when i don't have the brain power left to even be present and intelligible with my family yeah all those plants and wild things allow me to simply be yeah yeah it's kind of like they just receive your love and your care and you don't that that's what they do and then they're just beautiful mm-hmm yeah like i and my landscapers probably think i'm not well because if they accidentally step on a little succulent no i'm like did you see this [Laughter] yes you know what i mean like i'm just like you got to be careful that's my yeah those are my friends i love that yeah i love it and your yard's pretty amazing it's one of my favorite spots as well i spent an absurd amount of time out there good it's really um yeah christy thank you thank you for joining us today thank you um it means a lot to me that you took the time out to do this yeah i mean i feel i feel just really grateful like august you know i'm coming up on my three-year injury anniversary and it's a day of celebration now and it's not it doesn't mean that like there are still days that are extremely hard but i really can look at it as a day of celebration um so i feel grateful thank you for having me thank you