1st Edition
Blossoming Into Disability Culture Following Traumatic Brain Injury The Lotus Arising
This book tells the author’s story of her ten-year journey of recovery and identity transformation from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Dr. Dee is a survivor who regained the ability to articulate what many TBI survivors cannot, and this powerful account, provided in real-time, portrays the many seemingly unrelatable symptoms of brain injury and subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr. Dee portrays how events pushed her beyond her limits and resulted in life-altering learning experiences, revealing a process of first figuring out how to live, then making meaning of her struggle.
When half-way through her PhD program, Dr. Dee was crashed into by a car travelling at 65 miles per hour. She suffered a TBI. She lost her ability to read and write. She had a severe speech impediment and significantly impaired memory. Her journey of recovery, described in the book as her trek, spans four significant periods. The road begins with the loss of most of herself. Diagnosis and evolving symptoms show her broken pathway. The author goes through a rocky road of changes in her relationships and reidentification of herself as she finds her life coach, re-learns to read and write, and deals with mental health issues that felt like the end of her recovery. The final trek reveals hope and posttraumatic growth (PTG) and showcases the value of Disability Culture as a source of pride.
This story is for fellow TBI survivors, their caretakers, families and friends, and professionals in the neurorehabilitation field. It brings light to the daunting changes after TBI and give hope for all who tread on this challenging path.
Introduction
Planting the Seed: Where the Rubber Meets the Road
1. Setting the Context
Trek One: Budding Through Non-Ideal Conditions: Off-Road
Years 1 and 2: Changes in Self-Perception: Loss of My Old Self
2. Potholes - Diagnosis and Evolving symptoms
3. Stepping Stones: Speech Language Therapy
4. Lost in the Alleyway: Impact of Awareness
5. The Broken Path: Hallmarks of Communication
Trek Two: Rising Through Mud and Adversity: The Rocky Road
Years 3 and 4. Changes in Interpersonal Relationships: Reidentification
6. Not a Throughway: Intellect, Emotionality, Control of Behavior
7 Lost Trailways: Relationships and Loss of Identity
8 Finding a Footpath: Rehabilitation and My Life Coach
9. Unearthing Stepping Stones: Learning to Read and Write
10 Road to Recovery: Beginning of Self-Discovery
11. Road to Recovery: Beginning of Reidentification
12. Taking a Toll Road: Concurrent Mental Health Issues
13. Speed Bumps: Co-Morbidity with TBI and PTSD
14. Ruts in the Road: Reckoning with Anger
15. Breakdown Lane: Impatient Rehabilitation
Trek Three: Petals Opening One by One: Changing Lanes
Years 5 and 6: Changes in Philosophy of Life: Acceptance of New Life
16. At the Cross Roads: Spiritual Crisis
17. Staying the Course: Transcending My Story
18. In the Right Lane: Moving Forward
Trek Four: Ultimately Blossoming in the Sun: Paving a Way
Years 7 and Beyond: Toward New Growth: Hope
19. Opening Passageways: Insight, Value and Growth
20. Trail Blazing onto a Steady Path: Blossoming into Disability Culture
Biography
Dee Phyllis Genetti, PhD, LMHC, CTS is a psychologist with clinical expertise in trauma recovery. She is a civil rights advocate for equal rights/access and human dignity for persons with disabilities, a motivational speaker, published author, producer and host of Access Abilities with Dr. Dee and Marquis, and a member of the American Psychological Association.
“The most striking aspect of Dee’s recovery has been how far she has come from the days when she struggled to hold a two-minute NPR news clip in her memory to now completing her doctoral degree. Her singular will and determination have driven her recovery and reset our equations for what is possible after traumatic brain injury.”
– R. Richard Sanders, M.S.CCC, M.T.S. Senior Speech Language Pathology Clinical Specialist at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown MA.
