Blog Post 8 - Lingering Pain: Just how long will it, or does it last?

As much as I always wished that I had the answer for this question, I don’t have an answer or magic formula to calculate it.

Probably one of the most important things that I taught myself was that so much of my recovery time and progress was within my control.

So, what pain do brain injury survivors deal with?

For me, I’d say that most of it was mental and emotional pain. I wouldn’t call any of the physical duress or struggles that I faced pain, as, by then, I was used to the fact that strengthening your body requires heavy usage of muscles, which can sometimes be confused as “pain” by those that either aren’t used to it or don’t want it bad enough.

That’s one main thing that I didn’t question often.

I felt like nobody, including other brain injury survivors, wanted it more than me.

That was a mindset that I had to dust off and return from my school days, back when I competed against many others just as, or even more talented than I at sports that I competed in, which was a necessary way of thinking in order to survive and win in a crowd of like-minded athletes.

This is especially crucial when you zoom out and remember that you’re brain injured now and will be for the rest of your life. That unfortunately includes any lingering disabilities and symptoms that plague your daily efforts to aid and overcome them.