Click on the image above to listen to Bridget's episode
Appearances can often be deceiving and our next interviewee from Headway North West London - Bridget - is the perfect example of that.
Before her brain injury she was a personnel manager for a company in London, which probably explains why she speaks so well.
Listening back to the interview, she reminds me so much of the former BBC news presenter Angela Rippon.
She sounds like she has absolutely everything in her life together - but this is so often the nature of brain injury.
In her own words, Bridget so eloquently puts it: “Brain injury is a hidden injury and people on the outside do not know what it is like.”
I could not have put it better myself.
Many brain injury survivors have to overcome an obstacle of some kind but Bridget has to - quite literally at times.
I have spoken before about the variety of different ways in which a brain injury can affect you, and eyesight is the area affected for Bridget.
As she puts it: “It is the messages going from the eyes to the brain which were affected.”
This means she has problems focussing on the wider area of things, so she is not really aware of things going on - I could not help finding this ironic about life.
As you will learn from her interview, her partner was sadly killed in the car accident she was involved in - which caused her brain injury.
Therefore, she has suffered great loss in her life and at one point in the interview she actually forgets the question I just asked her, and then asks me to repeat it.
It may sound amazing to you to forget a question you have just been asked, but once more, this is the cruel nature of brain injury.
She also regales a tail about how one of the consultants told her she was a fighter - which as I have found out - is what you really have to be when you have suffered a brain injury.
As with every interviewee, we asked her what a ‘new me’ looked like to her, and I was stunned by her answer.
She said: “I do not think there is a new me, I just think I am very similar to the person I was before.”
It was also ironic that during the interview when talking to her, you can clearly hear a siren sounding in the background at one point - possibly an ambulance.
She then tells a story where she had recently met up with a university friend, who described her as 'very sociable and outgoing' - and she still considers herself to be.
She then goes on to tell another story of how involved she got with her local Headway, and said she became chair of her local Headway and I could totally see her in that position, because she came across as so regal.
So here’s to dame Bridget!
She was an absolute delight!
Headway North West London
Headway UK
Below is the film created by Headway North West London for ABIWeek last year that Bridget mentioned in her interview. A really powerful watch.
Before her brain injury she was a personnel manager for a company in London, which probably explains why she speaks so well.
Listening back to the interview, she reminds me so much of the former BBC news presenter Angela Rippon.
She sounds like she has absolutely everything in her life together - but this is so often the nature of brain injury.
In her own words, Bridget so eloquently puts it: “Brain injury is a hidden injury and people on the outside do not know what it is like.”
I could not have put it better myself.
Many brain injury survivors have to overcome an obstacle of some kind but Bridget has to - quite literally at times.
I have spoken before about the variety of different ways in which a brain injury can affect you, and eyesight is the area affected for Bridget.
As she puts it: “It is the messages going from the eyes to the brain which were affected.”
This means she has problems focussing on the wider area of things, so she is not really aware of things going on - I could not help finding this ironic about life.
As you will learn from her interview, her partner was sadly killed in the car accident she was involved in - which caused her brain injury.
Therefore, she has suffered great loss in her life and at one point in the interview she actually forgets the question I just asked her, and then asks me to repeat it.
It may sound amazing to you to forget a question you have just been asked, but once more, this is the cruel nature of brain injury.
She also regales a tail about how one of the consultants told her she was a fighter - which as I have found out - is what you really have to be when you have suffered a brain injury.
As with every interviewee, we asked her what a ‘new me’ looked like to her, and I was stunned by her answer.
She said: “I do not think there is a new me, I just think I am very similar to the person I was before.”
It was also ironic that during the interview when talking to her, you can clearly hear a siren sounding in the background at one point - possibly an ambulance.
She then tells a story where she had recently met up with a university friend, who described her as 'very sociable and outgoing' - and she still considers herself to be.
She then goes on to tell another story of how involved she got with her local Headway, and said she became chair of her local Headway and I could totally see her in that position, because she came across as so regal.
So here’s to dame Bridget!
She was an absolute delight!
Headway North West London
Headway UK
Below is the film created by Headway North West London for ABIWeek last year that Bridget mentioned in her interview. A really powerful watch.
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