Full Description

Though he appears normal, Rick Franklin's brain injury has made his life anything but. Teaming up with veteran documentary maker and friend Lyell Davies, Rick explores the impact that brain injury has had on himself and on other brain injury survivors. As they visit with survivors, the filmmakers reveal the wide range of deficits survivors must face, both physically and mentally, and we learn that no two brain injuries are alike.

Words from Lyell Davies: Life with a brain injury is challenging: challenging because although millions of people each year experience brain injuries of different kinds and varying degrees of severity, most people (including some in the medical profession) still know very little about brain injury. Challenging too because it is an "invisible disability" with no direct outward signs—which can make it easily dismissed or ignored as unimportant.

For individuals living with a brain injury, the challenges are enormous: many survivors are not able to work in the jobs they had before their injury (if they are able to work at all), they may be forced to live with constant and distressing 'deficits' and physical conditions, experience behavioral, mood or personality changes, and be stigmatized in by their friends, family or in the workplace.

In making our documentary Brain Injury Dialogues, our goal is to address these challenges directly, and to make a DVD that survivors of brain injury can watch and know, "I'm not alone. Others share my difficulties." We want survivors to be able to show our documentary to their families, friends, or anyone else and say, "Watch this video, you may not see my brain injury, but this is some of what I live with every day."

We want the general public to learn from our documentary, so the public can become familiar with this serious and widespread disability and hopefully work to secure better services and accommodations for people living with brain injuries.

Words from Rick Franklin: Before my TBI, I knew nothing about brain injury. I had never thought about it or even heard of it—except maybe for comic stereotypes or convenient plot devices that are still used today in popular TV and movies. When my brain injury occurred in 1991, it changed everything in my life.

For sixteen years I've been unable to work. I live with chronic mental and physical fatigue and a relentless sensitivity to light and noise. In loud situations, or where there's a lot of movement, I can't focus on one thing and I can get very easily distracted. I have frequent headaches. I can't sleep. Even my sense of taste changed after my injury, now anything citrus is too much for me. And once my mental fatigue sets in (which can happen quickly), I can't function and have to find a quiet darker place to try and rest. As if all of these changes weren't enough to deal with after my injury, most of the people around me vanished—the attitude was "give me a call when you get better." When I get better; like that will happen...

I wish I had seen a documentary like this a year or two after my injury. I think it would have helped me and my family a lot to better understand the magnitude of the impact this injury would have on all of us. Also, one of the key messages in this video is the need for community support for survivors. I was inspired to make this documentary after I got involved with a support group called the East Bay Brain Injury Support Group in Oakland, California. Support groups offer a safe-harbor for survivors to talk openly about their experiences and share support and ideas with each other.

Entering a support group can be like a family welcoming you, knowing a great deal about what you are feeling and have to say. Over time, as new faces continue to appear, you can see how far you've come and how much further others can still grow.

A second message I hope this documentary offers is how essential it is for all of us to better recognize the needs of brain injury survivors. For this to happen, we as brain injury survivors (with the help of disability rights, non-injured advocates, etc.) need to organize ourselves and both demand the accommodations we need and reach out to help others with this kind of injury. I hope our documentary can play a role in this effort.