Over the last few weeks I have been doing a lot of reflecting about things that have happened in the last two years. Mostly around this time of year. I have been thinking about one thing that the more I think about it the more angry I am about it. I probably shouldn’t write about it but as I have said before writing it down in this blog and sharing it really helps to get it out of my head. For the first year after my cardiac arrest I got amazing support from a service who help with brain injury. The support I got from them through the rehabilitation period was amazing. But as I moved on and started to realise that life would be different now, that support came to a sudden end. They couldn’t help someone with a mental health problem and passed me on to the mental health system. Well that was a year ago and when I think about it now what help have they given me. I have seen a psychiatrist once who did nothing and just put me on a list to see a psychologist who has seen me once. Now that is terrible. You see TV programmes looking at mental health problems and afterwards give you a support number to use if you want to talk to someone. Well in my experience this is stupid, they can’t help you. You just get put on a list and you sit and wait and hopefully you don’t do anything stupid. I am angry at this but I am also angry at the service who just cut me off and passed me onto the mental health service. How could they have been so helpful to me in the rehab stage and they just push me to the side when I needed them the most. Do they realise they are doing this and that now instead of thanking them for the help they gave me, I hate them for doing what they did to me. I know this is a bit of a long rant but I just have to say what I am thinking. I just hope that someone who mattered to me reads this and realises that they have let me down.
A Recovering Brain 
Im glad you survived.
I was in a near fatal accident back in Jan 2000, i sustained massive internal injuries and a hypoxic brain injury also, to my right frontal lobe apparently, i also get a burning smell, or phantom smells so i must have damaged my olfactory bulb also.
I was in a coma for 2 months, i also contracted the MRSA suoerbug.
After i came out of ICU i was transferred to a general ward at a local hospital, rehabilitation was planned, but the rehab hospital closed down apparently and no alternative placement was suggested, I had no rehabilitation, for the physical trauma, head injury or psychological trauma.
Reading this information reminds me of the early days, of the huge perpetual nightmare i awoke into, as impossible as the accident was to survive, it was over and done with in around 3 months and i left hospital, then i started to come too from it all and realise i was a drastically different person, there’s a new personality now that overrides everything and is geared for survival.
No doctor ever mentioned the head injury to me, it wasnt until about a year after te accident hat a neurologist told me about the head injury i sustained.
In my case, the neuropsychologists/neuropsychiatrists i breifly saw years later were next to useless, they couldn’t even give me a diagnosis of the resulting conditions i suffered after the head injury, or explain them.
I hope you are well and im glad that i found your blog and to meet a fellow survivor.
All the best.
Paul.
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Hi Graham,
Thanks for you message. I was a bit surprised to see my Headway article doing the rounds today but I guess it is good for World Mental Health Day! It was first published in January this year.
You are nearly a couple of decades into the brain injury survivorship, I feel like a bit of a newbie but have learnt so much in the last year. I haven’t seen a neuropsychologist, apparently there isn’t one in the county that I live. I see a great counsellor now how understands brain injury so I am lucky I suppose, I hate that word!
I have been writing my blog for a year now and it really helps me get things out of my help. If it helps other people then that is a bonus!
Thanks
Joanna xx
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