Living With a Brain Injury Taught Me How to Be Quiet

 

There are two versions of me.

The one before June 1, 2019.

And the one who woke up after.

Before the accident, I was a technician. Service Advisor. Shop floor ringmaster.

I ran on noise. On pressure. On proving myself in rooms that weren’t built for me. I could hold a torque wrench in one hand and a shop full of egos in the other.

Thirteen years in automotive. Fast pace. Loud shops. I thrived in movement. In solving problems quickly. I was sharp. Competitive. Capable.

My nervous system was built for chaos.

Or at least, I thought it was.

Then the accident happened.

And something invisible shifted.

Traumatic brain injuries are strange because you look the same on the outside. There’s no cast. No stitches people can see. You just… don’t process the world the same anymore.

Noise felt different.

Conflict felt amplified.

Crowds felt suffocating.

Emotion felt heavier.

It wasn’t weakness.

It was neurological.

My brain stopped tolerating what it used to run on.

I began craving silence the way other people crave adrenaline.

Soft mornings. Tea. Structure. Predictability. Organizing drawers. Packing boxes. Finishing coursework. Data. Systems. Calendars.

Calm stopped being boring.

Calm became survival.

But here’s the part no one talks about:

When your brain changes, your needs change.

And people don’t always change with you.

The loud rooms I once dominated started draining me.

Online spaces that used to energize me felt inflamed.

Emotional volatility — mine or anyone else’s — became physically exhausting.

I didn’t know how to explain that I wasn’t becoming “soft.”

I was becoming regulated.

And somewhere in that transition, alcohol stopped working the way it used to.

It didn’t relax me.

It scrambled me.

October 24, 2024 was rock bottom.

I woke up bruised head to toe. 

Two black eyes.

He was gone.

The dogs were gone.

The camper was quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful — it felt hollow.

I didn’t remember everything from the night before. Just fragments. Overstimulation. Emotion. A nervous system pushed too far. My brain already struggled to regulate input, and I had poured alcohol on top of it.

When I saw the bruises, it clicked.

This wasn’t coping.

This was self-harm in slow motion.

Brain injuries and alcohol don’t mix. The brain is already inflamed. Already compensating. Already working overtime to process stimuli. Adding alcohol was like throwing gasoline on a system begging to stabilize.

That morning, alone in the quiet, I understood something clearly:

If I wanted my brain to heal, I had to stop hurting it.

That was the day sobriety began.

Sobriety, for me, wasn’t about rock bottom theatrics.

It was about protecting healing.

It was about understanding that my nervous system required structure. That my brain needed calm environments. That rest wasn’t laziness — it was repair.

Living with a TBI means:

• I need more downtime than I used to.

• I need structure or my cognition suffers.

• I can’t live in constant emotional chaos.

• I crave predictability.

• I recover slower from overstimulation.

• Silence feels medicinal.

• Peace is no longer a luxury. It's maintenance.

And instead of fighting that, I started building around it.

That’s where permaculture came in.

Designing systems. Observing patterns. Working with natural cycles instead of forcing outcomes. Gardening became therapy. Structure became creative instead of restrictive.

I stopped trying to be the loudest person in the room.

I started trying to be the most regulated one.

Right now, my life looks different.

Education.

My businesses.

Intentional online presence instead of constant exposure.

Calm mornings instead of adrenaline spikes.

I’ve learned that healing isn’t about becoming who you were before.

It’s about designing a life that supports who you are now.

I'm still strong.

I'm still capable.

But I'm no longer fueled by chaos.

I'm fueled by structure, healing, and occasionally two dramatic huskies who think 3AM is a reasonable time to scream into the void.

If you’re living with a brain injury, or getting sober while navigating neurological changes, I want you to know this:

You're not broken for needing quiet.

You're not dramatic for needing structure.

You're not weak for protecting your peace.

Your brain is asking for conditions that allow it to heal.

Listen to it.

I finally did.

And everything changed.