Saya S.
Photography by Sabrina Atkin
If you’re reading this, you’re more than your brain.
Recovering from a brain injury is a test of stamina. The same way a broken arm means you stop using your arm, a broken brain means you stop using your brain. But how do you do that? How do you stop thinking?
Our brains are designed to label us. They tell us we are a student, a dancer, a pianist, a friend. But who are we when we put away those pieces of ourselves?
When I got a concussion in high school, I thought my recovery would last two weeks. But it was not until two years later that I got back to my symptom free life. For women in particular, concussion symptoms don’t just mean a headache. It means unrelenting pain, periodic loss of vision, audio and touch sensitivity, photosensitivity, hormonal disruptions, insomnia, fainting, nausea. It means not being able to sit in class and listen to a lecture much less hold a conversation. It means giving up on clubs and hobbies and friends to preserve your headspace. It means thinking you’re recovered, pushing a little too hard, and ending up immobile and unable to speak for days.
There’s no quick fix to a brain injury. The true remedy is just time. But time sure does pass slowly when you’ve lost what made you you. So who are we when we take our brains out of the equation? If I cannot go to school am I still a student? Who do we become when we’ve emptied out our personalities and are stuck with the shell? What do we have left if not our labels?
We have our breath.
As much as you may not feel like your old self, the truth is that you’re still you. You were breathing back when you had your labels, and you’re still breathing now. It’s that familiar inhale exhale that brings you back to your body when you can’t find who you were in who you are now.
A couple of months after I recovered from my concussion, the pandemic began. I went directly from isolation to isolation, and my labels were out of reach once again. I had tried so hard to preserve who I was throughout my recovery, insisting that I would pick up right where I left off. If that wasn’t already delusional, the pandemic ensured I would have to let it all go.
I’m still a student, a dancer, a pianist, a friend. The definition behind each label has changed to fit who I am now, but I haven’t lost who I was. For each of those pieces I’ve let fade, I’ve made room for new labels I wouldn’t have recognized on my old self. I’m proud of what I’ve gained and what I’ve lost and what I’ve built.
But if it all went away again, I know I’m still breathing. I’m still growing. I’m still me.
Saya S., University of Southern California
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