Working after Brain Injury

Flying Without Wings after my Brain Injury

By Beverly Bryant

Occasionally when I get tired, I take a break from all the hustle and bustle of the world around me and just sit. It’s not a moping or laziness, mind you, but a wonderful peaceful quiet time when I can rest. I used to feel that I had to find excuses for doing nothing at all.

Then I realized one day that I was doing something very important and crucial. I was restoring myself.

I wondered, “How could this person who never needed to stop, who never needed to rest, suddenly find herself unable to continue when tiredness overcame me?”  I could imagine what people were thinking. Why does she need to rest every once in a while?  Of course, they probably had no such thoughts, but the important thing was that I thought they did.  What my mind perceived became my reality.

Getting ready to fly

One day while everyone thought I was just sitting, I was busily engrossed in a mind-boggling project, trying to get up that nerve to fly. Taking off on my own was a favorite past time of mine. I had learned during my recovery that I could do many things if others supported me. I looked at my rehabilitative and family support team as my wings. They gave me the ability to travel further and higher than I thought I could.

Well, on this one particular day, I was sitting and pondering. While holding my wings close to me, checking the direction the wind was blowing, suddenly the idea came to me.
If I tried to do what I thought I could never accomplish, what a feeling that would be when I actually did it.

I knew that I could always fly with a little help from my friends, but could I fly on my own, without those wings? Even if I could, did I dare take that initial jump to unknown heights and take the risk of failing?

When others intruded into my solitude and inquired what I was thinking, I proudly said that I was making plans to fly without wings. Almost without exception, they looked at me as though I had lost my sensibility.
I think there is a time in everyone’s life when we need to lose a little sense. We need to go after the impossible. We need to reach beyond what we can see and go after dreams. People without brain injury need to do that, too. Too few of us are willing to challenge ourselves to the limit.

As I sat there, I thought, “If I succeed in flying without wings, where do I want to go, in what direction will I head, and exactly what is it that I want to do when I get there?”

It didn’t take me long to answer my own question. If I was able to accomplish my dream to fly without wings, I wanted to go where people were unable to fly. I wanted to show them how exhilarating and how rewarding it was. I wanted them to have hope, dreams and expectations of their own. Maybe, just seeing another person fly could help them have hope. Maybe just knowing that it was a possibility could inspire them to higher expectations. Maybe seeing me do things my way would encourage them to think creatively and do things their way.

What would it be like to fly without wings… totally independent and moving on from my own experiences?

Having a job that I enjoyed, doing it in a way that I could proud of my work and getting paid for it, that to me, would be flying without wings in a direction I looked forward to taking.

To others that may be a perfunctory, mundane task, or a dream of a far away possibility. For me, the experience is tantamount to taking off on your own, flying without wings. I had flown many, many times and had fallen from the skies many, many times. But my falls were always broken by those wings that opened during my descent to soften the landings and gave me time to ponder what went wrong.

In a full time job, I would have no support team this time to point out that I might want to consider resting. I would have no accommodations except those that I recognized and asked for. I would have no compensatory strategies to assist me in my daily tasks unless I put them into use myself. I would be my own judge and jury in what I did and how I performed, but my clients and those who depended upon my success, would be preparing to take the journey behind me.

I had been told during my recovery that I would never drive again. I had been told that I wasn’t capable of writing a book. I had been told that I would never be able to work in complex multi-task work settings again. I had been told that I would probably need 24-hour supervision. I refused to believe any of it.

Well, I did live with 24-hour supervision for months and did have a job coach for years. Regaining my independence, I finished my book, have written another one, and am almost done with a third book. I volunteered in many, meaningful jobs, and regained the use of my wings by working with others with brain injury. I used my wings to learn to fly again, volunteering for four years as a support group facilitator. I educated myself by reading, traveling, networking and conferences. I planned well and knew the directions that the wind blew.

Taking off

On March 31, 1997 with a lot of apprehension and second thoughts, I finally took off. I stepped out on my own, tucked in those wings and began a paying job that I had only been able to dream about.

I became a support counselor working with persons with brain injury and their families in a day treatment program. I am sure that many people have gone back to paying employment after brain injury, so what makes this job so great? My company recruited me. That means that someone felt that what I did had worth and meaning.

I am part of a staff that is remarkable. A staff that devotes its heart to improving the quality of life in the person they work with. A staff that is knowledgeable, professional, and caring. A team that has a heart with ears and ears with a heart. When I debated taking this job, I thought. This will never live up to what I want it to be. I was wrong.

The first thing I learned, as part of that team was that no one ever flies alone. We are all interdependent on each other to push, teach, carry, lead or inspire each other.

I live 55 miles away from the center, but from the time I get up, I can’t wait to get to work. How long I have waited, and how hard I have worked to feel needed again, goes unsaid for all of us who know that feeling of losing ourselves, our identity and our jobs after brain injury.

Getting back to work

For the past seven years, everywhere I went, the first question that people would ask me is, “What do you do?” I would stutter and stammer and ponder about what I did. Oh, I could say that I was self-employed, but it wasn’t really working. I could say that I was an author, but how many people earn their living by writing?

Going back to work after brain injury is a huge challenge and yet, is incredibly rewarding. Just having the opportunity to get paid for doing what I love to do is a gift that I treasure every day.

But the biggest reward is knowing that after the long struggles of brain injury that there is a time and place where we can feel good about ourselves again. We can share, comfort, educate and enlighten. We can help ourselves, by helping others.
We can close our eyes, pull in those wings, and ask ourselves, “Can we really do all that? Can we really fly without wings?” As we in Maine would say with all honesty, “Ayuh, you bet we can!”

Note from the Survivor Forum:

She has become a national speaker as well as the author of two books about her recovery. Bev has written two books about her brain injury…

In Search of Wings

By Beverly Bryant

Personal journey of life after brain injury shows humor, determination and courage with help for survivors, families and rehabilitation staff. 

To Wherever Oceans Go

By Beverly Bryant

To Wherever Oceans Go is an inspiring and true story of recovery. It is the fabric of one woman who refused to set limits on her potential, one family who loved each other so much that they survived the storm and a rehabilitative team that was unwilling give up.