When game designer Jane McGonigal found herself bedridden and suicidal following a severe concussion, she had a fascinating idea for how to get better. She dove into the scientific research and created the healing game, SuperBetter. In this moving talk, McGonigal explains how a game can boost resilience -- and promises to add 7.5 minutes to your life.…

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I am looking for some TBI survivors who have gone through or are going through outpatient rehab at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.  I would like to do a brief phone interview with you.

I am a TBI survivor myself and have been (well, still am) a patient at CORP (Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Program) at Harborview.  I am also a student in the Certificate in Nonfiction Writing program at the UW. 

For my next assignment in the course, I want to write a short…

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I posted a short while ago about a talk by Brené Brown.  Here are three more that are extremely wonderful and helpful for anyone who has suffered a TBI.  I have listened to all 3 of these numerous times and there is still so much to get in them.  These talks are in the order Brené Brown gave them.  This is also the order in which I would recommend you watch them.  Each of them is around 20 minutes long. 

Brené Brown, PhD.…

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This is a short 8 minute talk by Brené Brown, PhD, a researcher at the University of Houston.  I am posting this talk here because of what she explains about Connection, Empathy, Shame, and Vulnerability.  

Connection is our ability to forge meaningful authentic connections with other people.  If you think about connection on a continuum on one end is anchored by Empathy.  It is what moves us toward deep meaningful…

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This site is the one place I know I can rant about peoples obsessive need to give pep talks instead of listening to what I am saying!

Thank God for rehab professionals. They keep me sane! So do you all. So do many people. But many other people don't get it at all.

I am so very…

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(For anyone who reads my blog at DancingUpsideDown.com I wrote this post here first but also just posted it on Dancing.)



I stole the line used in the title from a poem Jessica Starr posted the other day in the forum section. Her line was actually:… Continue

This is a short 4 minute TED talk video that shows exciting new research in using fMRI to help a patient retrain their own brain. In his example he is showing someone who has been in chronic pain but it seems that it could be used for many issues that are caused by a TBI. (Having a TBI is a drag, but we are so lucky to be living now instead of 50 years ago.) fMRI stands for Functional MRI (Magnetic Resonance… Continue

I still get frustrated by my gaps!

Tonight I did my classic thing:

• I carefully checked the public transportation to get to where I was going to meet friends;
• I planned out when I needed to leave,
• I planned out what buses I needed, etc.
• I do everything according to my plan and then:…

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At night the drugs wear off.

The chasm opens,

despair engulfs;

dark hands take hold.

How strange

this battered brain

relegated to rely

on pills and prescriptions

How strange

this me

that once stood proud

and disdained the very drugs

I now depend on

Bare, bereft

Worn and worried

Tangled and trapped

So very tired of nightly…

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Scott Adams, the author of the Dilbert comic strip has a fascinating blog. I enjoy his writing. A couple of days ago he wrote a post entitled Exobrain. Click on the word Exobrain and it will take you to the whole post but to give you a bit of a taste here are two quotes from it:



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The wonderful drawing "Tis better to have loved and lost your mind" is by Jeff Gregory of Jagged Smile and is used with permission. Please contact Jeff at… Continue

In reading some of the old (and not-so-old) blog and forum discussions here on the network, I have been concerned by the number of people who sound like they are struggling with depression (whether they know it or not).



A friend just sent me an article on a recent study of 559 adults who have had a traumatic brain injury showing that over half (53 percent) of the participants developed major depression in the year following their injury. The researchers point out that they only… Continue

I have been doing some work on my external blog in preparation, in part, to linking it to my home page on this site. (I will post when I get it up and running, but if you want to check it out it is DancingUpsideDown.com) Anyway, I came across this poem I posted almost a year ago and thought people here might appreciate it.…



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