I Thought I Lost Everything - and I’m Happier Than I've Ever Been

The years leading up to my concussion contained a lot of loss. My mom died New Year’s Eve of 2016. My sister and her family moved out of state in 2018. I separated from my ex-husband in 2019, and our divorce was final in January 2020. Then COVID.

When I hit my head in September 2020, I thought it was nothing, no big deal. That night proved differently and it started a four-year journey of healing that I was unprepared for in length, depth, and breadth.

To aid my recovery, I retreated to the quiet of my cousins’ house in Washington, which they generously offered as they were riding out COVID in another location. I thought it was a temporary move.

I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t look at any screens, or listen to music. Anything other than eating and sleeping was too much input for my brain to handle. No driving, no working, no nothing. It was isolating and scary. I thought I had lost everything.

The thing is, I didn’t really lose anything. Even though my long-standing community of friends was hours away, I was supported with cards and calls and visits. My family bonds strengthened. I found all the medical care I needed in Washington. I softened, allowing myself to accept what felt like massive amounts of help. I resisted and railed against my limitations, and then came around to them. I cried, grieved.

Eventually, I could work, even if it was just over the phone for a couple of hours a day. I could take a Lyft with my eyes closed. I could walk more than a mile. I kept going, kept pushing the boundaries, kept accepting help.

In 2023, I finally felt a turning point. Healing accelerated. My life became a celebration of small things and I was buoyed with gratitidue and happiness.

I can now drive on side streets for a half hour and about a mile on the freeway and feel fine. I can take the bus anywhere I need to go. I am on a Dragonboat paddling team. I’m back to dancing and I go out and listen to jazz. I’m working full-time. I’m making community in my new state.

I am happier than I have ever been. Yes, because I can do more. But not just because of that. There is a peace I carry with me from the whole process. I wish I could have reached this peace another way, but so it is.

The following list is what I have learned from my journey, one that still continues. I hope it helps you find some of your own peace and possibility in it.

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1. Hit your head and get a concussion

   OK, please don’t! :) But there’s often a catalyst that kicks off a big life change, a transformation - it can be by chance or our own choice. However it starts, the path through growth has its own pace and can’t be forced. I do believe it can be invited and eased.
   

2. Go inward

   When I first hit my head the estimate from doctors was that the limitations would only be for two weeks. That stretched to months, then years. Without much ability to look outward initially, it felt almost like a forced turning inward. During this time I had a craniosacral practitioner who recommended I look at it like the silent Zen Buddhist retreats I had been on. Embrace it, she said. Discard distractions so you can grow.
   

3. Release grief

   With all that quiet, inward time and nowhere to go, I found a lot of sadness. What I had lost so far due to the concussion, the uncertainty about when/if I would get better. That led to other grief - the death of my mom, regret from our relationship. The end of my marriage. And as trite as it seemed, the visceral confronting of childhood trauma. A dark and necessary time.
   

4. Surrender

   No, really. Really, really do it. Notice resistance and let it go as much as possible. The summer of 2021 I proceeded to break my ankle. At that point I had started to heal some but was still struggling with daily life activities. Breaking my ankle stopped everything. Looking back at that moment with a long-time friend, she observed “That’s when you completely surrendered to what was happening.”
   

5. Say yes to help

   I had unbelievable amounts of help over the last four years. Countless rides to appointments. Weekly check-in calls to see how I was faring. Visits. Financial support. One friend let me stay on her couch with her family for two weeks after breaking my ankle and took amazing care of me. I have been housesitting for my cousins for part of the year for the last 4 years. The generosity of spirit from my friends and family was initially hard to accept, then overwhelming and finally, I was able to relax into it. I found a previously elusive balance of acceptance and gratitude. I live in a culture of extreme independence, raised by a mother whose independence was a force of nature, and have my own strong personality leanings towards it. This softening has been life-changing.

6. See love everywhere

   Once I was able to let go and more fully accept support, I could see how much caring and love has been available to me all my life. It was like a veil lifted. I could more easily see through conflicts to where there was love. Differences of opinions with health care providers - love. It just felt like the underlying truth of life.
   

7. Listen

   My brain injury required me to listen in a whole new way to myself and others. Any vestiges of wanting a solid answer, grasping for what the “right” thing was had to fall away. I looked for encouragement in lots of places. One fun one was Lyft drivers. I took soooo many Lyft rides. Much of them I had to have my eyes closed which prompted interesting conversations, shared experiences, much needed human connection. Time and time again, wisdom and encouragement came from the drivers. It almost felt like I was in a bubble and given divine guidance. Pretty magical.

8. Move towards fear

   There’s a lot of research lately on brain injury that suggests rest isn’t really the only way to heal. In fact, it might be better to encourage the brain early on to make new neural pathways, through or around those that were damaged. Once I could ride the bus without needing days of recovery, I started widening my world in my new city. I love jazz - I would go out and listen, come home with a migraine. But it was healing to go, to push my brain to process the music. I got back to dancing - slowly. Spins sent my vestibular system into a panic, but over time I worked through it. My limits kept stretching, and it required a lot of continual discomfort to get to each one. Which leads me to #9.

9. Make a commitment

   With all of this limitation, I returned to something I knew about myself all along. I wanted to live the fullest life I possibly could and I was 100% committed. I told health care practitioners that if they didn’t think it was possible that I could heal and be even better (emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually) than before the injury that we shouldn’t work together. I found the balance in accepting my very real limitations and pushed to maximize feeling alive within them. Some days that was very little. Others I felt like a big adventurer. No matter what, I had a guiding principle that was unshakeable, even though I couldn’t see how it might unfold.
   

10. Go

    It’s almost been four years since the injury. I still can’t drive on the freeway very long or fly in a plane, but I now feel like it’s inevitable that I will. The biggest change, though, feels like the one inside. It’s time to move from this foundation and jump into the next chapter.