My name is Angela and I have been living with a Traumatic Brain Injury since 2012, caused by my camper trailer falling on my head. At the time, I had a thriving salon business, a husband, 2 young children.

This ‘Invisible’ disability went unnoticed and unsupported for 12 months, during which time my marriage began to crumble and I was unable to work.  My friends and children have given me unconditional love and support, but as my daughter told me the other day when discussing how I’m not the easiest person to be with, ’That this is hard for you mom, but you need to remember, I’ve been living with this too’. 

As a parent it’s really hard to hear and it has made me more conscious of the things I do, it has made me step back and think how this has affected both my children, in the past, now and for the future.

This support has been invaluable, but getting the peer support from health professionals, other survivors, extended family members did not happen for me until much later.  Really, I advocated for myself and navigated all the different types of support needed at different stages to put together a plan for myself today which has me adjusting to the ‘New Me’.

There’s so many different facets when you talk about ‘peer support’.

For example, going back to work is hard, you need support of not just supervisors and employers, its the support and understanding of your co-workers because you look fine and you look normal it’s been a couple of months ‘why can’t you just get over it?’

Your work, your capacity to work, will suffer to some extent. So peer support in the workplace is vital.  Other survivors and caregivers who have been through it, get it.  However, if you don’t have that experience and acceptance around you, you feel very alone.

I feel that brain injury would have to be one of the most isolating and lonely illnesses to go through. Because people ‘just don’t get it’ unless it has affected or touched their life.