Those of you who have been following my blog will have seen a post I wrote The gamble of socialising after brain injury. In it I explained the reasons why I struggle to cope with large groups of people. But today I wanted to talk about the effort that goes into holding any conversation following a brain injury.

Trying to talk about something other than having a brain injury

Having a brain injury is the biggest thing that has ever happened to me. For some people it’s having their first child, or their recent wedding, or swimming with sharks. As I have never done any of these things it’s definitely sustaining a brain injury rate’s the highest on my personal experiences list. I know it isn’t a positive thing, and actually a very personal subject, so people don’t always know what to say. But in the same way a new parent will have any mundane occurrence remind them of their child and tell you how, I’m like that with my brain injury. I know parents are doing it through sheer love and enthusiasm, where as I suppose mine is driven more through my regret that this ever happened to me.

People can easily relate to the new parent, not least because their topic is a positive one. Even when they are explaining how they can only get 2 hours of sleep at a time between night feeds, you know that despite it’s difficulties, they wouldn’t be without their new bundle of joy. But you can’t say the same thing about my brain injury, I definitely would be without it. So even though it’s always there and on my mind, I have to try to find something else to talk about.

Thinking of conversation subjects when your life is much more pedestrian than it used to be

In my job I used to be in and out of the office going to meetings and meeting new people every day. That meant I was having new experiences all the time, which in turn inspired lots of different things for me to talk about with others. I could easily start a conversation based on something that I had recently done. But now that I don’t work and I see few people, I find myself hoping the other person will be happy to lead the conversation because I have no inspiration. I even struggle to think of questions to get them talking about something, apart from “How are you?” and “How’s work?” Meh, how vanilla!

Hurry up and finish talking, I’ve thought of something to add! Oh, no it’s gone.

There will be times that my companion will have hit a subject that has sparked an idea or comment I have to add. And seeing as I struggle to start conversations, I really love these moments. But they are still relaying their story so I must still listen and try not to interrupt. My short attention span means if I’m not careful I can quickly lose the thread of what they are saying all together. So I have to put in extra effort to stay with them. However that extra concentration can mean I can’t hold on to my thought. When they finish, that little gem I was all excited about has gone. I’m left saying something vanilla again like “It’s amazing, isn’t it.” They are left feeling like they have been talking to themselves. So much for 2 way conversation.