Perspectives

When did you learn about gravity?
If like me you would state in school.
In fact you didn't.
You learned it when you first tried to roll over or tried to crawl or walk and fell over.
If I asked you to climb atop of your 2 story house and jump off, chances are you would respond, "You first!."
The reason is you need no scientific proof of velocity and the sudden stop at the end to convince you, "This is gonna hurt!"

If we go out fishing and catch a fish, remove the hook and release the fish back into the water, one could assume that the fish saw its world from a different point of view.  It also saw its limitations and how it was bound to its watery confines.

Welcome to the world of the brain injured.  
 If you are a caregiver for the first time.
If you are a survivor for the first time.
Each of you are like that fish.  Your perspective has been changed.  The world for your friends carries on but yours will never be the same.
The point of view of friends and family may not coincide with yours.  They are not wrong, they just haven't been pulled out of their world and viewed it through your eyes.  Chances are they will never get it.  Why should they?  They too, have a comfort zone, have time constraints, and all the daily constraints  that differs from both of you.
They are not wrong if they leave you behind.
In essence both you, caregiver and survivor have taken a different path too.
Yes, you may miss the friendship or be angry for their lack of compassion but there are truths about brain injury you need to appreciate like the truth about gravity that will need to be accepted if  you desire a less traumatic path to acceptance.
Truth
Friends will abandon you.  Regardless of brain injury, friends will come and go.
Family may abandon you.
Its hard to get around the word permanent, the word disability and forever.  Put them into one sentence, "Your loved one has suffered a brain injury and will be permanently disabled and the affects are most likely forever.
Truth
You are and will yearn for who you once were.
You will gauge your progress on who you once was clinging to any inkling that he is resembling his/herself.
DON'T!!!!!!!!
The more you chase the past, the more anxious and frustrated you will become.
Gauge the process from the date of the injury and move forward from there celebrating any  new progress made!
TRUTH
You are like a new child, a new employee on this path for the first time.  Do you berate a child for failing in his/her first dozen attempts or give them encouragement?
So, caregivers, you need patience and be positive.
Brain injured?  Give yourself some latitude to screw up.  Like gravity, you will stumble and fall
TRUTH
YOU WILL NOT REGAIN ALL FUNCTIONALITY!
You will master your new world minimizing the affects of having a broken  brain and have a new perspective that those who failed to follow you in the progress of healing, are most likely doomed to return to the bonds of earth and repeat the lesson of compassion.