It IS absolutely "all in our heads"... since its a BRAIN injury!

But if you're asking if I'm making up my symptoms or exaggerating them... nope, sadly I'm not. I did not make up my MRI results that showed brain damage 2 years after my injury and I did not fake or exaggerate my neuropsych assessment results either.

I farm and my available workload has not changed and I used to work sun up to sun down and often a bit longer with just enough breaks to choke back enough food to stay alive and now I barely have energy to do the bare necessities to keep everyone alive and we downsized dramatically following my accident. My fatigue is real and not made up in the slightest.

If I try to push through the fatigue, I run risks of increased falls (and further injury), my head will feel like it needs a hole drilled in it to release the pressure and my emotional state becomes volatile. My ability to speak or comprehend goes way down and operating machinery or working around large animals becomes extremely dangerous.

As others have mentioned, I'm more likely to do my best to not look disabled or affected in any way.

This means I often don't use my cane, even though I'm supposed to always use it... my rehab team has compromised that I only use it when I'm out in public... I probably use it 80% of the time when I'm in public, but never when I'm at home.

I'm more likely to overdo it than get enough rest. My rehab team is always lecturing me about resting and sleeping more and is always looking for ways to incorporate pacing strategies that I will actually use into my life.

Perhaps there are some people that enjoy laying around and doing nothing, but I'm not one of them and I would guess that the other people that are on this forum complaining about not being able to drive or exercise etc are not those people either.

Since brain injuries are nearly invisible, people with brain injuries have a hard enough time being taken seriously by their doctors, insurance companies, their families and friends... seems unfair to be invalidated on a tbi forum, of all places.

Starr