Words are powerful. But words are only words. After my severe traumatic brain injury I had to relearn language and simple words. It was a difficult journey to get where I am today. I often have a hard time finding the right word to use, misunderstanding someone’s joke and trouble understanding or following a conversation. It’s also quite hard for me to stay focused during a conversation if there is more than one person talking. I have a hard time following all the different “lines” of discussion. It is exhausting trying to piece it all together and keep up so others don’t see that I am lost or having difficulty understanding. If I have ever seemed uninterested in a conversation, it is because of this. I am not dumb or rude, my brain is just getting overloaded. It’s crazy to think that a simple conversation for most can now completely overload my brain and overwhelm me to the point of shutting down. It has been a very tough road.

Speech Therapy:

During my speech therapy this was something we continuously worked on. My therapist would play background noise while I had to complete a task. Generally my task would be something as simple as playing boogle or just trying to find words in a picture. It was extremely hard. This is when the swelling rage would appear. Luckily after awhile I learned how to detect when I was getting angry and my defenses were down and I would shut off to prevent a blow up. Something that I also have to deal with now, that goes along with my brain getting overloaded, is that if I am in a conversation and I say I need to stop talking, I really mean it. I have to stop and take a break from all the thinking and I need to take time for my brain to process what is being discussed. Once I take a break I will be able to come back and join the conversation and be fully present, but if I can’t take a break my brain will over work itself and shut off. Just imagine a cartoon character when they get mad and steam comes out of their ears, that’s exactly how I’m feeling in these moments except I’m not mad. My brain is just working so hard to keep up and process everything that it starts to overload.

My stamina fluctuates. I will have good days where I can handle more stimulation but I will also have my bad days where it takes everything my brain has just to process a simple conversation of “good morning. How are you? How are you feeling today?” Cognition is a very fragile function for a severe brain injury survivor. Brain injury rehabilitation takes a very long time, it takes years. And even after years go by and I may look or seem back to normal, my brain will never be normal again. Even though today I look like the old Kaylen, please resist expecting me to be who I was. The girl I was before June 11 is dead and gone. She will never come back.

It is frustrating trying to go about life after a severe brain injury. I seem to constantly get “stuck” when my brain is trying to process information. This is difficult because during these times when I’m “stuck” during a conversation or task people want to help. So they will try to coach me or suggest to me ways to help me figure out whatever it is I’m stuck on. During my therapy I had someone who would come with me and they would do this. I believe they were trying to help me but it actually hurt me because they didn’t allow me to do it for myself. They would just finish the task for me. Even though this was their way of helping me because they didn’t like to see me stuck and frustrated with myself, it set me back.

Retraining my brain:

I am now pretty “rigid”. I have to do tasks the same way every time because I am retraining my brain. This has caused a lot of problems for me because I have had people tell me to loosen up or I need to do things differently, but I simply can’t. It’s hard when you aren’t understood. I have to be rigid and do things the same way because repeating tasks in the same way is a rehabilitation strategy. It’s like learning main roads before you can learn shortcuts.
I learned during therapy that I am better working on my own. This was a hard concept to grasp for some who came to therapy with me because they would not be able to help me complete a task I was struggling on. But what they didn’t understand or even try to understand is that by them frequently interrupting me to give me directions on what to do next, it caused my brain to come to a halt to listen to them but then as I would transfer my attention back to the task I would have to start all over. I now have to take it slow and take it one step at a time at my own pace.

Recovery is a daunting process. There are no words to describe the constant war inside my brain every day. Having to fight for cognitive functions that are taken for granted by others has molded me into a much better person. I now see my struggle as a huge gift. It’s like the Trojan horse. At first I only saw my struggle for what it was but once I opened it and had to go to the depths of my soul to find the strength to come out of it, I saw it as something completely different. I was given the gift of compassion, empathy and understanding. No matter what anyone is dealing with, I will now most likely be able to relate to them and understand their struggle. I see this as my blessing in disguise.

“Only time will tell. Just have to be patient with your therapy and give it time.” Something I was told countless times over the past 4 years by my doctors. It’s extremely hard to stay patient and just give it time when you are stuck, alone out at sea, in the middle of a storm that you can’t see your way out of. All you see are the rocks near the shore that you keep beating yourself against.

Therapy is where I learned the true meaning of patience. I learned how to be patient with myself. I am a pretty patient person with others but I am very demanding of myself. I expect myself to be perfect no matter what my situation is. In the beginning of therapy I learned this whole expecting perfection from myself all the time wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to give myself time to adapt and process what is going on, because I honestly had no idea. I was just a little robot going through the motions not understanding the true magnitude of my situation. This was very hard for me. The unknown is very scary. Confusion is also very scary. Try being both all the time. I was confused about everything, as well as everything being completely new to me. My therapists were very patient, kind and nurturing to me. I honestly believe that if I would’ve had any other therapists I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am today. They pushed me to my limits and they were patient and kind with me during my outbursts of frustration.

Seriously imagine yourself sitting in a room and you have someone telling you your next task is to put together a puzzle. They place the puzzle box on the table and when they do you see the age range is 3-7 years. You think to yourself “this is going to be easy.” But after they get all the puzzle pieces out and tell you to go for it.. You can’t do it. Your brain can’t figure it out. You have no idea what to do. You feel defeated. This happened to me every day. Something that to them was so easy, my brain couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t see the step to step process, I couldn’t see the bigger picture.

During my time in therapy I was quite angry with myself. I had a swelling rage inside of me every time I couldn’t complete a task that was so simple for everyone else. I could see in their eyes that it was easy for them and that they were trying to explain it to me in baby steps but still my brain wasn’t understanding. Patience is a virtue not many of us have today. In today’s world we expect everything to come quickly. I am extremely grateful for my struggles in therapy because it has made me into an even more patient and understanding person.

I have learned patience through anger, loss, grief and struggle. Patience through anger was by far the hardest for me because now I have no filter for my anger due to the damage in my frontal lobe. It’s a hard concept to grasp when you give your everything and you get nothing or gain nothing. This was my main source of anger. I was giving all of myself during therapy to become “normal” again but sometimes things didn’t go as planned or my brain just wasn’t ready to process or understand the information yet. I just had to take deep breaths and remind myself that things can happen in a different order than I have in mind.

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. I have had to learn how to use both of these to my advantage. Although it was quite difficult I believe I finally learned how to let time run its course during my recovery and I learned how to be patient to allow it to. Along my road of recovery I constantly reminded myself that Noah waited 120 years before the predicted rains and Abraham waited 25 years for a promised son. So I too, could remain patient. I learned I can’t calm the storm. So I stopped trying. I devoted all that extra energy into myself. I dove in headstrong. Once I did this and calmed my inner rage, my storm slowly started to pass.

Our willingness to wait reveals the true value of what we are waiting for. I value my intelligence and I value my recovery so I was willing to wait however long was needed. I still have some waiting to do but I believe the tough part is over. All I ask of others now is just to please be patient with me. I may forget, get confused or take something literal that wasn’t intended to be. But I promise I am trying. I am constantly fighting an invisible war inside my brain, so please just be patient. Sometimes it might take me a bit longer to process information.

Never look at how long something might take. Give everything you’ve got and you will get results. Trust me on this. You can make many plans for your life but God’s purpose will prevail. Something you can also trust me on. You may not understand what He is doing or how He intends to turn your heartbreak, loss or grief into something great but give it time because someday He will reveal to you His plan. Be patient, because as long as there is still breath in your lungs, God isn’t finished with you yet.

Forgiveness. Seems simple enough but it is so much more complicated than you can imagine. How do you forgive someone for lying to you? How do you forgive someone for potentially putting your recovery at risk? How do you forgive someone for mistreating you? For using you when you were relearning life? Well for me it was actually quite easy. I have a huge heart and I love extremely hard. So once I let you in you are safe with me. But at the same time that’s what made the betrayal so much worse. Because I had let them in and they knew everything I was going through. Yet they still didn’t think twice before pushing me to the brink.

But I am a forgiver. I will always see the good in the people I love no matter how obvious it is to others that they aren’t and their intentions aren’t good and were never good. It wasn’t until I heard the earth shattering truth and saw my world crumble before me as I stood and watched that I could finally believe the actually truth and reality of my situation. Its crazy how you can love a person who you never really knew. I loved this person for who they pretended to be and for what they were to me during my recovery. I will always love that person who I honestly never knew or met. It was just a mirage that was put in front of me. I loved them in a way they will never understand.. But it wasn’t until that moment that I had no other choice but to walk away and try to mend what was left of my tattered heart.

The process of forgiveness:

The hardest struggle is how do I forgive myself? How do I forgive myself for allowing this? For not seeing it? For believing this person over everyone else? For putting my life in someone else’s hands? There is a saying that having children is like having your heart roam outside of your body.. Or something like that. But that’s exactly how it was for me. I gave this person my heart and trusted them with it. I gave them my memories to hold on to for me because I knew I would forget. They are one of the only ones who knows everything. Honestly probably knows more than I do about myself because I have forgotten so much but I was ok with this because I thought how amazing it was to have someone who was going to be with me forever and always be able to remind me of what I went through or remind me of the days in therapy when I was a lunatic and freaked out about a board game timer going off. But now I have been faced with the harsh reality.

That “fairytale” that was given to me was never real. I was nothing to them. Let me reiterate that.. I was nothing to them because who could honestly betray, lie and misuse someone’s memories if they really cared for you. This is just part of the truth I have had to accept and trust me there has been a lot that I have had to swallow. It has been harder to get through than anything that I have had to endure from the wreck BUT it has set me free. I have accepted I will never get answers but that’s ok. I have started to create my own life and by doing so I have had many wonderful people and opportunities come into my life.

Embracing my new reality:

I am now on a mission to be the best I can be. I want to be the best version of myself and I think I am on the right path. I am trying to get things done with my brain. I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I have become arrogant, but simply because I have reached a point in my life where I don’t want to waste my time on things that displease me or hurt me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate.

I have now seen what I can accomplish. I have seen how I can fulfill my passion of helping others and utilize my struggle to help ease somebody else’s. I have heard God’s promise to me and I will remain patient. I KNOW wonderful things are awaiting me once I get through the last part of my storm. I know I will still have my dream future, it will just be altered a bit from the former image I had in my mind.

I have learned that there are moments or times in our life that are either home, holiday or hell. Well I have certainly been through the hell part of my life and I believe am now going through the holiday part. With everything that is unfolding right now I can’t wait to be on my journey home.

Emptiness and uncertainty are probably two of the worst feelings and I feel both all the time. It’s a horrible feeling when you feel don’t belong in your own body. I woke up to a brand new world and unfortunately that “new” world for me was full of emotional and physical pain. I was abandoned by friends. And my family wasn’t there to fully support me the way I needed so I was left alone to deal with everything.

But then I made a friend. This friend turned into my best friend and safety blanket. They kept me in touch with life and what being a 23-27 year old was supposed to be like. They were my most trusted confidant. They witnessed me at my weakest and watched me struggle daily. They promised to always be there for me and I fully believed in them. But I was wrong. Have you ever had to watch your life crumble before your very eyes? Have you ever been told the truth and it feels as if the earth is cracking under your feet? Have you ever felt completely and utterly alone? I have. The truth will set you free but it will hurt like hell before it does.
Having your life crumble before you and not be able to do anything to fix it is something I would never wish on my worst enemy. What are words if you don’t truly mean them when you say them? What’s the point of empty promises? There is none. It’s just wasted air and wasted trust. I thought I had someone who would always have my back yet when I turn around now all I have is my shadow. I guess that’s all I ever had but I was too blind to see it before now. It’s extremely hard for me to lose something that was such a constant in my life because I have already had so much taken. It causes my PTSD to flare up and my panic and anxiety to be at an all time high. For me losing this person who was and had become apart of my “new” world was an incredible loss but then to add on top of that the betrayal of my trust and the misuse of my memory loss.. The pain was unimaginable.

What you do is far greater than what you say. I was told this many times by my grandfather. He used to always give me words of advice and life lessons. So after being left with nothing and feeling completely alone. I decided to look up to God and to look within myself to find my reserved strength. I didn’t believe I had any left but I did. I tapped into it and I opened my eyes and ears to God. I prayed for a peaceful mind. I tried to stop finding reason for why everything has happened the way it has and I prayed for strength. The strength I needed to hold my head high and continue on my path of recovery. My prayers were answered. God has reconnected me to my inner self.

After the wreck I was completely detached. My heart, mind and soul were all separate entities, but with Gods help he has slowly reconnected them so I’m now whole. I have been made new in His eyes. I now feel welcomed in my body and I feel like I have a reason and purpose for being here. I am slowly finding that reason and it is truly amazing to watch Gods work happen right before my eyes. So many great opportunities and people who have come into my life and I believe it’s all a part of Gods plan for me. There is a reason why I suffered, there is a reason why I have been through so much emotional and physical pain. I now believe it is to help others.

Before my wreck I graduated from SWOSU and I majored in psychology. The Friday before my wreck, Monday morning, I was accepted into graduate school to further my passion and goal of becoming a psychologist. I have always wanted to help others and to ease their pain while they are struggling. I think I am a natural nurturer and caretaker. But now I plan on continuing my passion but just in a tad different way, for now. I’m going to use my story and struggles to help others. To help people who are struggling with anything realize you can still have hope. Even if you have watched your world crumble before you or if you have trouble dealing with anxiety/depression you still have hope.

Tomorrow is a new day and if you change your mindset and think of all the obstacles before you as challenges and opportunities for you to prevail then you can do it. Hope is always rising. You can honestly find the silver lining in every bad situation it’s just up to you to decide if you really want to get better or if you have become comfortable and accustomed to the pain and struggle. And that is perfectly normal but one day you will look back and regret not taking the chance to get better. We all deserve the pursuit to happiness. Even if you don’t find exactly what you are looking for you can be proud of the fact that you tried. We only have this one life don’t waste it.