By Diana Lilley, Psychologist, Scotland

As you have already learned, when a person you live with suffers from a brain injury, you suffer too. It's a trauma for everyone in the household. There's the shock of how the person has changed, the adjustment to a different way of living and relating to the person, the continuous hard work of caring, the disturbing feelings that come unbidden: anger, guilt, despair, sadness, frustration - to name but a few.

Adjustment to brain injury takes time. You can't move overnight from the accident to an acceptable new way of living. The transition period is is a time when all manner of feelings emerge in the mind and when the body slows down to recover from the assault of the trauma. For example, feeling worn out and sad or angry during the transition—all are natural reactions to extreme change.The transition has its own timeline: you can't hurry it or slow it down. However, you can "cooperate" with what is happening to you. Here are some ways:

If you are a caregiver to a brain-injured person, you have probably realized by now that this injury defines many people-not just you and the person you care for. It also defines your friends and those family members who you thought would be there for you but weren't. Let's face it, sometimes people just don't measure up to our expectations. That person who said, "I'll help, just call me"— well, there's a pretty good chance that if you call, he or she will say they're too busy or it's not convenient. It's pretty devastating when you need their help and they let you down.

Q: I think I'm losing my mind. I knew I'd have extra stress when Dad moved in with me after his stroke, but this is not anything I expected. I can't remember anything anymore—not even my regular chores that I've been doing for years. I start doing something and if somebody says something, I get distracted and lose everything that was in my mind. It's happening at work too and that scares me. Is this something that's caused by stress or am I getting something like Alzheimers? I'm starting to worry about it.

Hal P. N. Dakota

A: I think I know just how you feel, Hal. Life is pretty complicated for most of us at "normal" times so adding the stress of caring for a loved one amplifies that. Exhaustion and overwork have a great deal of impact on our mental processes—causing forgetfulness, lack of focus and even emotional sensitivity to events that you would have barely noticed if you weren't already struggling with exhaustion.

Written by Garry Prowe
Reviewed by Marilyn Colter

This book is the first in a planned series for helping families navigate the confusing world of brain injury. Chock full of helpful information for people going "From the Emergency Room to Selecting a Rehabilitation Facility," this volume should be in every hospital and offered to brain injury families in their first 24 hours after the accident as they sit in fear and confusion in the hospital waiting room.