FINDING MY VOICE BY KATIE HANNON

Katie and her family

Love Your Brain came into my life when I was a freshman at The University of Vermont, and was taking a course called Healthy Brains Healthy Bodies. It was all about how so many different parts of your life impact your brain health, and one day Adam and Kevin Pearce came in to speak. As soon as they started talking it was like I was the only student in that 200 person lecture. We watched The Crash Reel and Kevin shared his story, and I couldn’t believe how one person could make me feel so seen and heard, without even seeing or hearing me. It was like they came into that class just for me.

Katie at the LoveYourBrain Retreat

I started a LoveYourBrain yoga series that fall, and later attended the LYB Retreat. I didn’t know if I was eligible - yeah I’d faced a bunch of concussions, but there wasn’t some huge accident or surgery that I had to overcome. My injuries were completely invisible, and had been brushed past for as long as I could remember. All of the days I spent in a dark quiet room, having crushing headaches from the moment I woke up until I fell asleep, struggling with word retrieval and socializing, constantly exhausted - those were just my days. I kept to myself about my feelings because I didn’t think it was a big deal, because nobody else did; they didn’t know it was going on because they couldn’t see it. But LoveYourBrain assured me I belonged, and gave me the boost I needed to spend a week in the woods at the Retreat with a bunch of strangers. That turned into the most transformative week of my life. 

I remember one night at the Retreat, during a sharing circle, we each had the space to explain why we were there. One of the other participants said that when they found Love Your Brain, they thought they were totally fine and didn’t need it, but after going on their first Retreat, realized they weren’t fine at all. That is exactly how I felt. I hadn’t outwardly sought out a community of TBI people because I didn’t know I needed to. All of the things that were challenging for me - like school, socializing, constant fatigue, pain management, migraines, vision changes, mental health, you name it - I thought everyone felt that way. I thought, well yeah this might be hard for me, but it’s hard because it’s hard for everyone. But after going to the retreat and hearing stories of people almost exactly like myself, I realized my challenges were unique. I had a traumatic brain injury. 

Katie sharing her story at the LYB Golf Tournament

I’m now empowered to tell my story, and share with those around me how I felt and what a TBI actually even was. I now carry my TBI with pride and am willing to talk about it with anyone who asks. LoveYourBrain has helped more than just me, too - it’s changed my family’s lives forever. I learned how to actually communicate with them and they were able to see and hear me for the first time. LoveYourBrain gave them an insight into what I had been silently enduring since I was 12 years old. I didn’t know how hard it was on them too - not feeling like they could help, and not understanding why.

Katie and her parents

We all watched The Crash Reel together, and the stories of Kevin’s family struck a chord with them, and the most amazing conversations have come out of it. I didn’t know the toll a TBI could take on my parents and sister, too. We all needed our experiences to be seen and heard. 

So now I’m 22, almost 23 years old, and coming up on my 10 years with a TBI anniversary this December, and thanks to Love Your Brain,I now have an entire new understanding of how I operate and what I need, and most importantly how to communicate that.