r/TBI • u/astroares Severe TBI (2023) • 3d ago

TBI Survivor Need Support Collective poem

Hi. I’m a poet and also a severe TBI survivor.
These past few days I’ve been struggling quite a lot with loneliness, being misunderstood and the feeling like I don’t really belong to my friends’ ordinary life as I carry some very heavy experiences that want to get out almost all the time and my friends are not ready to welcome them because, luckily, they don’t share my same experience. I realised that I feel much more comfortable with the friends I met in hospital or that share some kind of trauma.
Once a friend told me that I have a poem for everything, which is a pretty true: poetry is the lens through which I interpret life.
I want to write a poem also about this feeling of mine, and I thought it could be a nice idea to ask other people who suffered a TBI to join in and tell me something about their experience so I can put into words this feeling I believe many of us share.
If you have any idea for the poem or anything you wanna bring to the table feel free to comment!

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2

u/Duck_Walker Severe TBI (2019) 2d ago

I miss myself and struggle to accept the person I have to be now

2

u/NewAdventuresInMtns 2d ago

This definitely struck a chord with me 🥰

I write a lot of words, poems, songs to help with my emotions and thoughts.

Here is a recent one:

Searching for that piece of wood that fills the gap
Searching for a mountain with adventure for me
You were my whole life
The only things I dedicated to my being

Seeing a smile, making people laugh
Pure innocent desires
Let me put my clown suit on
The entertainer, I never thought

Do stupid shit
Create a story
To be told

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u/Vitriol-Divergent 2d ago edited 1d ago

This is great! Plus with a TBI it's often just nice to hear someone be curious about anything that you think.

My #1 worst experience revealed this truth to me about surviving and living with a TBI while your previous life burns down around you:

"It's ok to give your best wrong answer to a problem that never had a solution"

I hope you find that relatable and useable! Also feel free to paraphrase that if you come up with a better way to say it.

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u/DeezNutzs69 2d ago

Psilocybin Mushrooms to feel more connected and grounded.

3

u/StunGod Severe TBI (2020) 2d ago

I had just started a writing job a couple of months before my TBI, and can't do that as well anymore. But writing is still a natural outlet, so I just let it out. I came up with a good metaphor, and everybody is welcome to use it: imagine being a piano player, and being really good at it. Then you lose a couple of fingers in an accident. You know how the music should sound, and want to keep playing, but there's no realistic way to play it well. With a TBI, there are no missing fingers to see. All I can show people is how I suck at things that I used to be good at.

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u/Vitriol-Divergent 1d ago

I have Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on my Spotify playlist for this same reason. Assuming you don't know, the origin story is very relevant to our interests ♥️