Closed Head Injury and Anger - 2nd Draft

As the title suggests, this is the revised edition of Closed Head Injury and Anger. However, I didn’t change very much. I think most of what I needed to change had to do with word choice and voice. If you happen to have read the first draft, I would appreciate knowing if this version sounds or reads different than the first draft.



I’ve been a closed head injury survivor for almost 15 year. I wrote some about it in I Lost Part of my Life.

Technically, I’m disabled. I say technically, because I’m not physically disabled and with the exception of my speech, which isn’t really all that bad, but is eternally a thorn in my side, most days I don’t have any reason to ever even think about my head injury. Maybe I’m in denial, but who isn’t?

However, there are days that are filled to the brim with reminders. The things I’m forced to deal with, combined with the sometimes idiotic ways I deal with them, are not only reminders that I do I have a head injury, but they’re reminders that force me to face the fact that I am dealing with a lot.

I guess in many ways I’m lucky. Some survivors deal not only with the mental struggles of a head injury, but with a huge range of physical deficits as well. This is something I try to remind myself of on the hard days…but trying to convince myself that I’m lucky to only have a closed head injury is usually not all that helpful.

When you break part of your body, it heals and life goes on. When you damage part of your brain either other parts of your brain take over and learn to compensate for the skill or ability you lost, or you learn to function without that particular skill.

My head injury took all my emotions, tossed them into a blender, hit puree and poured the emotional smoothie back into my brain.

Before my head injury I had strict control over any and all of my emotions. If I didn’t want to laugh, I didn’t laugh. If I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t cry. And I decided where and when I got angry. I liked having that kind of control. It made coping with an ever-changing world child’s play.

(In “I Lost Part of my Life,” I talk about me comparing
“New Hugh” to “Old Hugh”…it looks and sounds a lot like this)

These days my emotions have me at their mercy. I can’t watch TV without uncontrollably breaking into tears over the stupidest things. (I’m talking about Tide commercials!) It’s actually become kind of a family joke to look over and see what see what new household product commercial has caused Hugh to fall to pieces.

I also find myself laughing uncontrollably at the stupidest things. Seeing as laughing sends extra air through your windpipe and, thanks to a tracheotomy, I only have one functioning vocal cord to regulate the amount of oxygen that’s coming out, suddenly laughing makes it nearly impossible for me to talk and be understood.

These two problems are a minor inconvenience at best and while I would rather not have to go through life dealing with them, I’m the only one who is truly bothered and I can deal with that.

Not so for the anger.

Difficulty with anger management is an all too common problem experienced by closed head injury survivors. I know from the countless hours I spent in Occupational and Cognitive Remediation therapy that learning to deal with anger is a huge part of living with a closed head injury.

For the past 15 years I’ve been living with a kind of time bomb inside my head and I don’t have much, if any, control over when and where it goes off.

In a nutshell, this is what happens: Something happens that doesn’t go quite the way it should. Maybe it’s something that just isn’t working like it is supposed to, or maybe it’s simply not working the way Hugh thinks it should be working. Either way, my feeling overly frustrated is the first step. Over the years I’ve learned to identify this “overly frustrated feeling” and can now usually back away from the situation and avoid anything else.

If the situation involves other people, or something I can’t easily back away from that’s when I start to feel the wave. This wave of anger starts somewhere deep down. I don’t know exactly where, but I can feel it bubbling up and it sometimes scares me. There are times I can feel the wave coming and rational thought is able to block the wave. Other times, however, the wave is either so huge, or I’m already so tired, that rational thoughts don’t even register.

I can usually feel myself losing control. I know that I’m not being rational and that the situation, whatever it may be, doesn’t need my being angry. However, simply understanding that things are moving in the wrong direction isn’t always enough to turn things around.

I feel a lot like one of those cartoon characters has an angel on one shoulder and devil on the other. Early on, in my closed head injury survivor world, the angel rarely spoke. On the few occasions in which the angel did have something to say, it was all too easy for the devil to convince me to see things his way.

Melissa and I had only been married for a year and a half when we were in the car accident that pureed my emotions. For the first few years after the accident, Melissa lovingly dealt with a husband whose mood and temper were fragile at best. On more than one occasion, her easygoing spirit helped to calm me down long before anger was able to take over.

My daughter, on the other hand, has only known life with a head injured dad.

If you’re 10 and you get hurt, you go to the doctor and you get better. For this reason, I’m not sure she truly understands the kind of injury we’re talking about, but I can see in her eyes that she loves me and just wants everything to be okay.

Having a condition that never goes away is hard for me to wrap my mind around, and I’ve been on this planet 30 years longer than she has. How can I expect her to fully understand?

Let me just say that the times I’ve “blown-up” have, in the big scheme of things, been relatively minor. There’s never any physical violence, just me being angry and ranting and raving. The only thing I’ve ever broken was a Cross pen of mine that I happen to be holding, and I was very sad. It didn’t make a mess, but it was my favorite pen.

After 15 years, several hard life lessons, the support of my family and friends combined with me turning 40, I can finally say that these days the inner me doesn’t get angry all that quick. Even though the feelings are still there, more often than not I’m able take control of my anger before it takes control of me.

However, for reasons I don’t understand, although fatigue plays a big role, there are times my head injury pops out of the closet, takes control, and my anger gets the best of me.

These days it usually only happens with my immediate family, another fact that I don’t quite understand. Maybe home is the only place I’m able to completely let my guard down…I don’t know.

My anger management, thanks to Melissa’s continued love and support, has improved significantly. After 15 years, there are times she sees the potential for trouble long before it’s an issue, and is able to help me avoid the whole situation, or at least address it calmly.

I don’t know what I’d do without my wife and daughter, they are truly a blessing in my life, head injury or not. Their love, understanding and support make my life, which can seem hard at times, all worth it.

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So there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about the anger issues of a closed head injury survivor. My head injury life is an uphill battle, and as much as I hate to admit it, it always will be. I guess I’ll just keep trudging through life and learning from my mistakes as best I can.


Note:
I’ve talked about this a lot with my family, but this is the first time I’ve written about it…at least the anger part. Writing it down has caused me to think through and see things much more carefully and clearly - thanks for listening.