Optimism After TBI

Kevin Part Ten

Kevin had a message of hope for brain injury survivors and their loved ones. It’s important in this situation to always stay positive.

Despite challenges, Kevin tries staying positive. Kevin was told to write things down to help his memory in treatment. He didn’t really think he needed to until he forgot that he was coming to do the interview. “See if I wrote it down on a pad of paper, then I would have been prepared to go to the appointment,” he said. 

The interview, which had lasted more than a couple of hours, was getting more difficult to him. When asked about this, he said was going to say something, but he forgot what he was going to say, and this frustrated him.

Despite his frustrations, he still tries being optimistic. When I asked him what he would say to other survivors or their loved ones, he had a message of hope and advised people about staying positive. “Always think positive…Try not to think about the past and what happened and all that,” he said. “Just think, go one day at a time.”

He recommended always thinking good thoughts and staying positive. “Songs can help too,” he said. Kevin likes Miranda Lambert, Taylor Swift, and John Mellencamp. Songs can help a person get through rehab, he suggested.

Music and sports have made an immense difference for the people in TBI Voices going through traumatic brain injury. It doesn’t have to be formal recreational therapy. I would be interested in seeing research on “spectating based cognitive therapy,” which wouldn’t be hard to do. The therapy could also be self-administered, because of the high interest level in the topics.

While part of our mission in taking on the TBI Voices project was to provide an archive that elaborates on the full spectrum of the disability after brain injury, our most significant goal is to help the brain injury community to see a map forward for a lifetime of recovery. Kevin’s story could provide us with part of that guide. Protect the family unit and keep life as interesting as possible.

Gordon Johnson

Attorney Gordon Johnson is one of the nations leading brain injury advocates. He is Past-Chair of the TBILG, a national group of more than 150 brain injury advocates. He has spoken at numerous brain injury seminars and is the author of some of the most read brain injury web pages on the internet.

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