The Silent Sufferer vs. The Abnormal Alien

“ Which is worse: to be unnoticed because your injury is internal or to be alienated because you look different?” asks a woman who has lived with a traumatic brain injury for forty-two years due to a car accident. While she deeply resonates with her fellow TBI survivor peers and their range of difficulties, she expressed at her support group that she often wishes her injury only affected her cognitive ability. Speech impediments, a distorted memory, and other mental impairments do not allow you to be judged or seen as “abnormal” on sight without so much as a conversation. However, as one who has had to live with deep facial scarring, a distorted smile and an overall “face that doesn’t work” as she puts it, she often feels judged, isolated and boxed in.

On the converse, her peers who suffered less external brain injuries contested that having difficulties that are not explicitly seen is much more difficult. “My memory is shot most times but people don’t understand… so sometimes I just have to suffer in silence,” says a patient who experienced a brain aneurysm. In my opinion, Most of society seems to subscribe to what I call the invisibility factor: mental illness and cognitive impairment is not physically seen and easily witnessed but rather personally experienced. As such, I believe that we ascribe very little credibility to things that we cannot see in the modern age and if we do, it’s usually after meticulous scrutiny and exposure. While it is undeniable that the proliferation of science and technology has brought us many revolutionary changes in society, I think it has also reduced our ability to relate to experience without substantial evidence. We often wrestle with principles of subjectivity and objectivity.

 It is certainly easier to pinpoint someone who has a disability when there is an explicit tell-tale sign thereby eliciting more compassion and aid from members of the wider society. However, should it be at the cost of a patient’s confidence, self-image or sense of belonging? How do we find a way to give patients the accessibility and aid they need to curate a comfortable life living with brain injury in which they are both seen but not suffocated? I propose the implementation of specially designed bracelets that are nationally, and even internationally recognized. Its use can generate societal privileges that allow brain injury patients to access their necessities with less difficulty and curate some sense of normalcy in their daily lives. The bracelets can become a universal symbol of brain injury survivorship whether the patient wears their scars internally or externally. It would be naive to not consider that this too, may have the potential to become a symbol of discrimination and stigmatization toward patients. However, it is equally probable that it can become a symbol of resilience and courage. We would never know if we never try.

Author:           Shernice Martin

Reviewed by: Neha Vutakuri

(Adapted from conversations held with the Brain Injury Association of North Carolina Patient Support Groups)