Is/ can lying be another symptom of a TBI or concusion

[Douglas Dunning]

Or is it a totally separate issue all together

See I lied to my wife to try and protect her her from stupid decisions that I was making.or so I thought. Convinced my self of in fact

What I come to find out today is that most likely I was doing it to protect myself from her.

Didn't want or couldn't take her being mad at me. so I hid things from her. and ultimately made things much worse.for both of us.

Goes to show how messed up a brain can be. I have had many concussions in my life time dating back to my teens. I'm not looking for a excuse just a cause for them.

The lies were prior to and after  my TBI that is why I am wondering about the concussions

Really just trying too understand my brain as to not make similar mistakes in the future.

Thanks  any input will help

[Vicky Varichak]

Doug,

This sounds as if it could have a different cause to me - learning to "protect" oneself by not telling the truth often comes lacking self-esteem; being not feeling "good enough" at a deep personal level. So many of us have to come to grips with this in order to move forward in recovery - regardless of what we are recovering from. 

It seems like that when people experience a TBI they get a lot of "shame" messages from the world around them.  Shame is toxic when it moves from being "I make mistakes"  to "I am a mistake".   It's reasonable to expect people to make mistakes, especially people who have injured brains, but it seems that sometimes other people don't get that, when to them, the person seems OK.   

Sounds like looking into the concept of "shame" might give you some insight.  Most of the written material is focused on recovery from addiction, but you can get the basic idea.  One I think is good is by John Bradshaw, called  "Healing the Shame that Binds You". 

I also wanted to share this website with you it's about a suicide survivor named Kevin Hines, I got to hear him share his story at a conference last year - it's worth seeing what he has to say.  

 http://www.kevinhinesstory.com/    If you ever feel like you are on the verge of taking that step - make it a "rule" that you will call or otherwise contact people until you can find one person who it matters to if you follow though or not - like me.

Your friend,

Vicky

 

[Bernadette Coleman]

Can you tell us your TBI survivor story at www.trymunity.com?

[mary lutz]

I use to consider myself a very honest person. I had the ability to communicate effectively and was confident that what I would say would be direct and honest. I had the confidence to accept if others did not approve. After tbi, it seemed that I was unable to articulate or communicate in the same manner. I found that almost everything I did or said caused a conflict. I found myself just saying whatever caused less conflict and while it may not be a blatent lie, it may not be the most honest approach. That is the only correlation that I can see. I dont know if this helps, and is along the lines of what Vicky already said.