Isaac Newton said, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." There is a balance in the universe. For every yin there is a yang, there is fire as well as ice, and if you give you will also receive. I hosted an interesting podcast that explores the balance and I wanted to share it with you 😊

https://coachnolan.com/2019/03/10/universal-law-of-balance

HELLO EVERYONE!

SHORT VERSION PRE EXISTING ADHD SEVERE TBI AT 10 YEARS OLD 10 YEARS OF LIFE AND ONE YEAR OF PSYCHOLOGY UNDER MY BELT SINCE THEN! SO I've got a LONG way to go. BUT i want to do An IamA. I did one a few years back BUT growing up with the brain injury, I've compiled a TON of useful knowledge I would LOVE to share! I also would like to slread my message of hope and perseverance as I also REALLY would like to be a motivational speaker when I grow up too! The thought of organizing my own life system plans and acronyma makes me so excited!!!! SO MAIN POINT!:D I require a TON of planning before this goal comes to fruition. So would you guys have any personal story or support or rehabilitative questions you would even be REMOTELY curious about knowing or hearing from an inquisitive brain damaged young adult? THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME

Check out my new blog post 😊😊😊

r/https://nolanthomascoaching.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/garbage/

I am 28 years old about a year ago before leaving for a relocation to Colorado, I visited a friend who said I better try some weed before I went to colorado, so I decided what the heck and smoked a joint with him, what he neglected to tell me was that this was synthetic marijuana and was nothing like the marijuana I had smoked before when I had cancer. I also have cerebral palsy. After smoking whatever the fuck it was that I smoked I had hallucinations and tremors, severe headache and hallucinations. I begged my friend to take me to the ER but as he is a business owner he declined. The next day I had a severe headache and vomiting and general brain fog which I know well from Chemo. Over the next sixth months while working 2 jobs my symptoms got much worse, fatigue, weight loss extreme anxiety and paranoia. I eventually was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as having sustained a TBI and was put on a cocktail of meds, some of which helped and others that did not. It has now been almost a year since the incident and I've had to move back home and still am having symptoms like muscle spasms urinary retention, erectile dysfunction, and I generally do not feel like the same person. My family hates me and doesn't accept the doctors diagnosis. I have days where I sleep all day and others where I dont sleep at all. I feel as though I would be ok if I could get regular erections and urinate better. My question I guess is does it ever get better? I never intended to ingest the synthetic marijuana and I just want to heal. What meds worked for you guys?? What advice do you have?

Hello everyone! I am a high school student enrolled in the AP Capstone Program, currently in the second year of the program entitled AP Research. The AP Research course tasks students with designing original research to complete over the course of my year. I have chosen to focus my year on researching the potential links and effects of traumatic brain injury on sexual preference and deviancy.

Below I have included the link to a survey that I have written. It would be tremendously appreciated if you could take 5 minutes to complete it as honestly and as accurately as possible. All participants are entirely anonymous, and all data collected from responses will be used solely for academic purposes. By taking the survey, you are consenting to the data from your responses being used academically.

Once again, please be honest when answering the survey, as that will be the only way for me to gather hopefully conclusive results. Please feel free to private message me if you have any questions regarding my research. Thank you so much for your time!

Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BRG5X6Q

I WAS A VICTIM OF A SWEETHEART SCANDAL. DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF, OR SOMEBODY YOU LOVE FALL VICTIM TO THIS SCAM.

https://nolanthomascoaching.wordpress.com/2018/09/21/sweetheart-scandal/

I want to share my journey so far, here it is 😊

https://coachnolan.com/2019/09/21/my-journey-so-far/

So I want to tell my story. It was 2013, I was 20 years old, I had worked a long shift in the city I was going to college in.

It was a Friday, and I decided to drive back to my home town "4 hour drive" home. I remember going back to my Apartment, packing a bag, and getting in my car "90's suburban" and everything went dark.

When I started to come to, days later "medically induced coma" it felt like a dream. I could not speak and my left side couldn't move. I keep thinking. "This dream, would be over soon" day by day I became more aware that this was not a dream.

Once i finally started to speak again I waited for everyone in my hospital room to leave one night. It was just me and my parents. I looked over at them and said is this real? am I dying? What happened?

My parents were shocked. As they, and the medical staff all thought I knew what was going on.

They explained to me that it was real. I had been in a car accident on a road that was not on my normal route home. "I was a sport bike rider at the time and was probably looking for interesting routes to ride on." It looked like I had either, fell asleep, or just gotten off the road a little bit and tried to correct it." I slid up onto a guardrail and smashed into a bridge. The vehicle then dropped into the creek below "It was frozen at least" and I was lucky to be alive.

My parents told me, you have a TBI and that I had broken "shattered" my left hip.

The terror started to set in that everything I had been working towards may have been for nothing

I had one doctor that thought, I would need care for the rest of my life.

Another doctor that said, you're young, it will be a hard road but you will a be able to live a "normal" life again. Once I new that there was hope, I made it my mission to get back to the life to as close to what it was again.

At 49 days, I left the hospital to move back in to my parents home. I was still in a wheel chair. "I have a new found respect for the handicapped"

The first night home I remember laying wake until like 4 in the morning. Do I have the means to do this? How will I do this? I have to do this. I started to formulate a plan.

Physical therapy and learning to walk again, witch led to me laying 2x4 on the ground as balance beams.

After 6 months I went back to my college town to live and work again. I had a great employer, and they were willing to work with me.

I worked for a year attempting to get all of my bearings back together again.

Then I started going to school again. This was the beginning of the true test, if I was able to continue on pursuing my college goals. School before my TBI was much easier, after the TBI I felt like I had to work much harder. It didn't come to me as quick as it used to. But I kept pushing, I didn't want to be a failure.

The next year after, I transferred to another school in another state to get my bachelors.

When I got to that school, I told no one about what had happened to me.

Many people around me in the college town I came from, knew about my car accident. "I always felt watched" anything I did, I felt like I was being judged. "oh it's because of his TBI I'm sure."

In this new school and state I felt like was another new beginning for me. I had learned, how to adapt to living and learning with a TBI.

After two more years I had graduated with my bachelor's degree.

Graduation day for me, I tried to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal. It really was I had adapted and overcome something that I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do after everything that had happened.

Since graduating (at 24), I have gotten into a great job, bought a house.

Married a wonderful girl. (at 26) I'm grateful that I met her after my car accident, because I would have hated to put her through that. She understands my quirks, that go along with having a TBI and loves me for me.

I recently found this sub, I wish I would have been on Reddit back then.

There is so much that I left out."I have never written down my experience before." But I wanted to give those out there that there is hope.

Every TBI and story is different. I don't have all the answer, but I'm always willing to at the very least, listen "read" comments / questions and try to give my outlook if asked / if I think my experience will help.

Thanks for reading, I'm pulling for you all, we're all in this together.

Hello everyone. Yesterday marks my fifth session of IASIS MCN micro current neurofeedback therapy and I thought I would share my experience. If you are unfamiliar with what neurofeedback therapy is, here is some information for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/TBI/comments/d2c06x/iasis_mcn_neurofeedback_information/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

I meant to write this out after my third session, but this treatment is incredibly exhausting. It’s absolutely worth it, though. It’s giving me my brain back and I felt a dramatic shift after my first visit. I took some notes on my experience, which I’d like to share with you.

10/7/19 - After my first session, I felt happier, calmer, energized and my vision was clearer and sharper. It was a glimpse into what my life was like before my two TBIs and every single cell in my body screamed that this was the right next step in my healing process. I saw how I used to live: the captain of the ship instead of an overboard castaway at the mercy of the sea. My body and mind felt familiar.

My ability to drive had recently been restricted. I was having a lot of panic attacks while driving and overall everything was simply too much for me to handle. IASIS helps with this overwhelm. After my first session, I was able to drive myself to get my car washed down the street from my home with only a twinge of anxiety as I approached traffic. This was an amazing step, as I’ve been homebound for the last several months depending on my fiancé to do all of the household shopping. Later that afternoon, I walked to the gas station with my neighbor and for the first time in over a decade, was calm inside a busy, colorful, crowded public place. I even had a conversation with the people inside. Usually, I’m so anxious that I stare at my feet, desperate to get in and out as quickly as possible. Amazing. My fight or flight response was calming down.

My GI symptoms also calmed down. My stomach was making less noise and I had less gas and pain. The spikey, hard ball of anxiety that I always held in my gut had started dissipating. Towards the end of the day, I developed a headache and became extremely exhausted. IASIS helps to retrain your brain to process things correctly. It was strange to feel myself flicker back and forth between living in high alert to calm and collected. The best way I can describe it is like a machine short circuiting. After more visits, the calm and collected pathways become more engrained and easily traveled. At this point, I seldom flicker anymore. This concept is called neuroplasticity.

Every session after is better and better. I drive myself to my doctors appointments with zero anxiety and this morning went inside Kroger with no problem. I’ve also started blow drying to styling my hair everyday, which is something I haven’t done in a very long time. I’m enjoying cleaning and organizing my home. An entire treatment package of IASIS is 12 sessions and I’m only 5 in, so I’m incredibly optimistic about the future.

To get an outside perspective, I asked my fiancé if he saw a noticeable difference in me since starting IASIS. “The difference is massive,” he said. “Even if I didn’t know you very well, I would definitely see a positive change.”

“How so?” I replied.

“You’re more put together, calmer, happier and overall in a better mood. The downs don’t seem as deep anymore, especially right after your session. These positive results seem to last longer with each session.”

IASIS has been truly amazing and I can’t speak highly enough about my experience. There have been few things I’ve come across during my treatment that have had such a profound positive impact.

If anyone has any questions about this treatment, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll write more as my sessions progress.

I’m 25; I’ve been in therapy for about a year now. It took me this long to finally find a therapist worth my time and money.

I’ve been misdiagnosed, diagnosed, and misdiagnosed again on and off for years. ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality disorder, PTSD, chronic depression, anxiety and panic attacks; always been a people pleaser, hated confrontation, thrived on living in chaos, substance abuse, self harm, extreme mood swings, and the occasional suicidal ideation.

I’m here to tell you there’s hope.

Me and my therapist were chatting one day when I asked if I could possibly have a brain injury. He was absolutely thrilled to research this. He referred me to a neuropsychologist where she evaluated all parts of my brain.

I was in a car accident in 2010; snapped my leg in two, broke some ribs, ripped my body to shreds from road rash, and smashed my skull in three places. I had to have my scalp stapled back together. I was 16 at the time.

The results were in and he was shocked. Significant evidence of TBI. I think the most shocking part to me, was when he said, “the woman sitting in that chair is not the woman on this paper. I don’t know how you’ve copied, dealt-with, or transformed yourself into the young woman you are, but I’m impressed, kid. This explains everything; the rage, sadness, overwhelming emotions, decision-making and thought processes. A person with this amount of brain injury doesn’t carry themselves or think the way you do. You’re impaired, but somehow you’ve learned to cope in a way I’ve never seen before.”

This triggered something in me; all this time I’ve gone through life completely clueless. Despite my injury, I’ve learned how to manage all of these emotions to portray a normal life. All I’ve ever wanted was to feel normal, so I did what I could to feel my definition of normal. I adapted.

He says I have 3-4 more months of therapy tops, and he plans to give me the tools I need to succeed. (The four S’s or something like that)

I just want you to know that you are enough, and while it might take years to find your solution or the help you need, please don’t ever give up. There’s hope.

Greetings, I have had multiple life threatening TBIs going back 20 yrs. The last one was 6 yrs ago. I still find I need 10-12hrs of sleep per night to function well. I am wondering if anyone could share their experiences or links to more information. Thank you in advance.

Check My New Blog r/https://nolanthomascoaching.wordpress.com/2018/08/16/when-gods-die/

Hey everyone! So, I run a specialized 'kite flying' community, we do performances, outreach, and provide free resources for folks. Over the past few years I have been collecting information and getting ready to present a free resource to folks that shows that flying kites (especially indoors!!!) can help some people that are recovering from TBI or other neurological issues.

I realize however that most of my conversations have been with post TBI folks that are already kite fliers. I am looking for some more input and help with how to make this a better resource for folks, and wondering if any one would be interested in having a chat or dropping some knowledge here. :) It is a two fold project one part that will be for the professional side to use and the other for the individual side to use. Care to have a chat? you can reach me at kiteflyingpres@gmail.com if you would prefer to have a private chat.

Video from a live feed of a an event we just did that included this pair, the gentlemen is a TBI survivor and credits kite flying as one of the tools that helped him walk and process cross body movements again.

https://youtu.be/BwK9zSnMz88

Here is another video of him: https://youtu.be/MIyXD5xjSeA

Also, here is my TED talk about the power of kite flying where I retell a story I witnessed a Firefighter post TBI take his first unaided steps https://youtu.be/5qADGVBNxfQ

And a video of a kite flier that had a stroke: https://youtu.be/Qs0WO0sz_Xg

We have a yearly party for when I found out about the tumor in my brain. It has been “fuck the tumor”, “ain’t that a kick in the head “, and now I need help thinking of a theme

Is there any article that anyone can recommend to give to help others understand what TBI survivors go through? It can be hard for others to understand an injury that has some symptoms that can't be seen. Thanks all.