Why I Believe My TBI Was A Gift
Blog by. Bernie Freytag
In 2000, I had a traumatic brain injury while riding a bicycle. Actually, I guess it’s more accurate to say I had this TBI once I fell off that bicycle, and my biggest regret at that time besides the falling off part, was that I wasn’t wearing my helmet. Hell, I don’t know that I even owned a helmet, so that sentence is technically incorrect, too. I really can’t speak to why I wasn’t wearing this helmet that I didn’t own, but in retrospect I think it’s very possible that I had some sort of inflated ego that made me believe I was untouchable. That there was no way I could get hurt. I was in great shape at that time, training for a marathon, and in the prime of my life at 31 years of age. I was living what I thought was my best life in the heart of Boston, MA, and I’m positive I had those thoughts in my head while blindly going through a very unaware existence. Where I definitely lost sight of a bigger picture, and that TBI was the reminder to refocus on what was more important. A reminder that would eventually lead me to not regret the absence of that helmet I didn’t own, however ridiculous that may sound.
Now, my journey post traumatic brain injury included many days I’d rather not have gone through. Days in the hospital, several months of speech therapy, and years of slowly trying to reconnect with my previous self. Everyone would say that I seemed fine, that I seemed like myself, and on the surface this was probably mostly true. I had no long term physical side-effects and ultimately I had the ability to move forward with a happy and healthy life. Though this was the case, deep down inside I knew something wasn’t how it should be and it would take me years to figure that out.
As people who have had TBIs know, after the injury you are placed in the front row of understanding the power of the brain. We figure this out not by what the brain can do, but by understanding what it’s not doing. As we go through recovery we eventually connect to certain things and have to find new reconnections to old things. Changing how everything is viewed.
I didn’t have access to a group like Keep Your Head Up at the time, and I’m fairly certain I was never presented with any other service like it at the time. I was just trying to get back to the person I was, and I guess I felt that I would eventually figure that out. Which I eventually did, but on a different path that seems now to have been a 20 year detour. Or perhaps it was a more scenic route. The funny thing is that I found this connection within something I’d always had in my back pocket, creativity. I’ve been an illustrator and designer for most of my life and can always be seen drawing something at any given time. Now, although I believe creativity is where I found my connection, my healing wasn’t in drawing, but in the creative power of writing.
I would eventually start writing my own story because I had some really incredible thoughts throughout the post-TBI time. One in particular was about how as my brain healed it would remind me of memories of my childhood, which would ultimately remind me more and more of the simplest wonders of the world. On how a child sees the world. Fast forward to 2019 and I released a book called, Find Wonder in the Ordinary; A Kid’s Book for Adults, and I believe the move toward writing this book allowed the true healing to begin...and it’s where I found the old me, without realizing it was technically a much younger me that I was seeking. During that process it opened my mind, my thoughts, and my feelings to so much more.
The process of writing can be both medicinal and transcending. It brought me to a new chapter in my life, while reconnecting me to a person deep within. Where I’m now not burdened by my unconventional thought process, but enlightened by it daily. Allowing my curiosity to help me understand life more and to bask in the best parts of every day. Like walking my dog, watching a sunrise (or sunset), eating a perfectly cooked meal, driving in the country, having a good cup of coffee, checking out a spider’s web, listening to birds sing, the list goes on and on. You name it and I think I can find some sort of wonder within anything, and I believe that directed me toward my eventual understanding of the wonder we can ultimately find in each breath we take.
Even though this path of mine has led me someplace I could never have imagined, life after a TBI isn’t all filled with these pauses to smell the roses. I’m very aware of the struggles all of us deal with, and unfavourable distractions can always play their part. I also know that I’m very lucky to have found this gift I’ve alluded to in the title of this post. I do, however, wholeheartedly believe that we all have the ability to connect differently, or reconnect somehow with what’s within. It could be tomorrow, next year, or in 20 years, proving time will heal. In that time we may be allowed to view life differently and from a new perspective. A perspective that may need a slower breath at times. A slower pace. A simpler strut that does allow us to smell the hypothetical roses. Proving this TBI may not only have been a gift, but could be one that embodies an endless amount of giving.
