The Swear Jar
I have a distinct memory of my mum abruptly yelling SUGARRRRRR after she stubbed her toe on the kitchen table. I wasn't quite sure why she was so eager for sugar in that moment - maybe her tea wasn't to her liking. But in any case, I knew she wasn’t happy about it. In fact, there were a lot of moments I can think back on whereby my mum did her utmost to hide any kind of upset or frustration, all to protect my precious little ears. From explicit eye rolls to spelling out the words she wished she could say out loud, I was very fortunate to have a mother who tried to protect me at all costs.
We're taught at a young age not to say things that might offend. It's particularly true for us British folk. The idea of making anyone feel uncomfortable just doesn't sit right with us. So, we go out of our way to ensure we do everything we can to make people feel at ease. Tip toeing from sentence to sentence as we navigate a rather tricky conversation. Making sure the other person understands what we’re saying, using our body language to soften any blows. All of this is done with the very best intentions of course, but sometimes we go too far. Topics that are classed as ‘sensitive’ can sometimes be mistaken for the ‘highly offensive’ category. Complicated issues are spoken about as if they are off limits, when in reality, it’s due to a lack of understanding that means we don’t actually know how to approach the subject.
I found this to be the case whenever I spoke about the awful, highly controversial topic that I had no business mentioning. My brain.
As I began to reacquaint myself with the real world following my accident, conversations I had with people naturally started with a discovery session, whereby I was tasked with answering a number of questions related to my injury. Does it still hurt? Are you still on pain killers? It probably won’t scar. You can barely notice the missing tooth. They all tended to relate to my broken jaw which was interesting. Because despite people being aware of my brain injury, the questions around that side of things seemed to be harder to navigate. People were not quite as forthright in approaching it. It normally ended up being something along the lines of ‘How’s the head?’ spoken with a half jovial/half nervous tone.
But as much as it frustrated me that people couldn’t seem to tackle my brain in the same way as my jaw, I couldn’t be annoyed. Because then I’d be hypocritical. You see, even I, the person having a moan about others not being able to mention it, couldn’t mention ‘it’.
The truth is, I shied away from it. I wasn’t sure how to say it. It was like the words kept getting stuck somewhere between the back of my tongue and behind my teeth. It was as if I was saying the BIGGEST SWEAR WORD EVER, right in front of my dear grandmother. I’m not sure if was fear or embarrassment - probably a combination of both. I didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, in exactly the same way I’d imagine, as they wanted to avoid making me feel uncomfortable.
For some reason, the brain feels like this taboo subject. We all know it’s complicated. People don’t understand how it works. But we know it’s fairly important to everything. It’s where we associate our personality, our logic, our sense of self living. It’s the home for our being. So anything that may harm it in some way panics us. We don’t know how to respond or act. We’re deeply curious, but we can’t ask the questions we really want to, again in case it might offend. People want to learn about my brain injury, I want to tell them, and yet we end up doing this uncoordinated conversation tango that results in neither side feeling satisfied.
What a bizarre situation to be in.
Even with all the best intentions, sometimes protecting others from the honest truth does more harm than good. But as frustrating as this realisation has been for me, being aware of it gives me comfort. Because I know it’s something I have the ability to change. To take control of. To own. I’ve set myself a rule to always use the word brain rather than substituting it for anything else. I often fail - I still stutter over it and get slightly clammy when I mention it to someone new, worrying about what they’ll think, whether I’m ‘still all there’. But I feel better for trying to tackle it. None of this may resonate with those reading - it might feel slightly odd to carry on about. But I suppose I’d say just think about something you know to be true but shy away from for whatever reason. And imagine the freedom you’d feel if you could just use the words.
I had a brain injury. Not a bump to the head or a little knock. It was my brain. And it was scary. And it’s been hard. But I’m doing brilliantly. And I have a whole new understanding of what a headache feels like.