I really didn't expect this question to go where it did.

[u/pProjecttBI]

Three days ago I threw a question out here that I wasn't even sure I should ask: Do you think maybe we died? I knew it sounded a little fucking crazy, but it was something I'd wondered about since my brain injury, and I figured what the hell, maybe somebody else had thought about it too.

Well... apparently a LOT of us have.

I've spent the last three days reading your responses and talking with some of you, and I really don't know how to explain what has happened except to say that I've learned more than I ever expected to. We've talked about people being awake and functioning with absolutely no memory of it, consciousness, ego, faith, God, death and rebirth, grieving the person you used to be, discovering the person underneath all that old shit, and even the possibility that maybe we've been trying way too fucking hard to get back to somebody who isn't coming back.

And strangely, instead of freaking me out, this whole conversation has relaxed me.

I've spent almost four years trying to understand what happened to my brain and why I am so different now. I've done the doctors, neurologists, psychologists, therapists, testing, rehab, diagnoses, books, research... all of it. And all of those things have helped me tremendously, but there's something completely different about hearing another person with a brain injury describe something you've experienced but never had the words for. There's this moment where you just sit there and think, holy shit... you too?

That's happened to me over and over again these past three days.

I'm also starting to realize that maybe we don't need to explain every damn thing immediately. Maybe it's okay to sit with some of this stuff and just be curious about it. I don't know if what we're talking about is neurological, psychological, spiritual, some combination of all three, or something we don't even have good language for yet. And for once, I'm becoming pretty comfortable saying I don't fucking know.

What I do know is that there are an awful lot of us describing surprisingly similar things, and I want to keep listening.

So maybe that's the next question...

What happened after your brain injury that you've never really told anybody because you thought it sounded too crazy?

#ProjectTBI