GG,

It really is eerie. It’s been a mystery to me all these years what exactly happened, and why I continued to get so much worse for almost a year after the injury. I’ve accepted that at this point there’s no way to know, but I’ve suspected the benzos and alcohol were the main culprit. The similarity of our experiences is quite interesting in that sense.

I’ve always struggled to remember my state of mind after the injury and figure out just how much the injury itself affected me. All I can say for sure is that by the time I started school two weeks later I noticed immediately that I was having reading comprehension problems, which I had never experienced before in my life. And the facts that I didn’t even think to suspect the brain injury and that I was completely unconcerned about my declining mental state suggest to me that I was already pretty out of it. I made it through the latter 3 years of college only thanks to Adderall, which I’m sure also did me no favors in the long run.

The injury itself was fairly significant – I lost consciousness for a while, then was catatonic and then behaving irrationally and erratically, and have 5 or 6 hours of lost time, so I can’t imagine it didn’t affect me more than I thought at the time. I went to work the next day and took a half day because I was having vertigo, took the weekend off, and then went back to work and thought no more of it. But my memory of the time period after the injury is much hazier than that of the time before it, which leads me to believe that some noticeable damage had already been done.

I’m doing worlds better now, but it’s been quite the process. My brain still gets easily overstimulated, but as I recover I’m able to handle more and more without shutting down. My condition has also been complicated by PCS from a second injury 3 years ago, but the long-term repercussions of that one have been attributed to my neck more than my brain. I would say that ever since hitting rock bottom in the months after quitting the benzos, I’ve improved steadily but very slowly. It’s been difficult to parse out what issues were due to benzo withdrawal and what was due to the damage already done. My cognitive problems were already so bad that I only noticed them getting a little worse when I stopped the benzos; my main withdrawal symptom was my anxiety and stress levels skyrocketing.

As such, it’s also hard to say when the benzo withdrawal ended, because all of the issues got slightly better over time but none of them went away on their own. Only active interventions like the vision therapy and neurofeedback have made a meaningful difference for me. It seems not impossible that some of your issues could be due to withdrawal at this point, though it’s so hard to know since benzo withdrawal and brain injuries have so many common symptoms. Did you notice any change when you went off the Valium and Xanax? You’re lucky that you realized what was happening before further damage was done or you became dependent on them.

My concussion doctor for my more recent injury had recommended resveratrol and green tea extract in addition to curcumin for TBI recovery; I’ve tried all of them and dozens of other supplements, and I personally didn’t notice a drastic difference with any of them. But eating a nutrient-dense diet and taking many various brain-supporting supplements seems to have helped a lot overall.

I hope you’re continuing to see improvement. You seem like you’re in a much better position to recover than I was. It took me years and years to even figure out what had happened to me, to find medical professionals who knew anything at all about brain injuries, and to stop doing further damage. I’m happy to provide any moral support I can – I know how hard it can be to find others who can relate. Take good care of yourself!