Hey community -- I’m planning an upcoming episode of the Rupture podcast about clinical trials and I want to hear from you. I'll be hosting an expert who works on patient experience/patient recruitment for clinical trials.

What questions do you have about:

• participating in clinical trials after TBI or concussion
• how trials actually work
• safety concerns
• placebo groups
• access and eligibility
• why so many brain injury patients struggle to find appropriate trials
• what patients wish researchers understood better
• what makes people hesitant to participate

I’m especially interested in the gap between how clinical trials are explained medically… and how they actually feel from the patient side. And other questions not listed here - I'm all ears.

Drop questions below or DM me if you’d rather share privately. Thanks everyone .

Not because you aren’t doing things.

Because your brain immediately moves the goalposts.

You finish something.

“But still…”

Should’ve done more.
Should’ve handled more.
Should’ve pushed harder.

And the strange part is:
the accomplishment itself disappears almost instantly.

There’s no landing.
No satisfaction.
No sense of completion.

Just the next unmet standard.

I’m starting to realize this feels less like ambition and more like some kind of post-injury miscalibration.

Like progress gets recorded…
then immediately discounted.

This took me almost 4 years to recognize.

Before my brain injury, I was extremely forward-focused.
Almost to a fault.

I didn’t look back. Didn’t dwell. Didn’t revisit things. Ever.

Even with music—if a song reminded me of a rough time, I shut it off immediately. I couldn’t stay there.

That was just how I was wired.

Now it’s the opposite.

I get pulled into the past constantly—especially in the evenings.

And not in a nostalgic way. Not even close.
In a kind of terrifying way.

More like loops:
replaying decisions
rethinking things I already did
going over mistakes

And the weirdest part is the music.

I don’t avoid it anymore.
I listen to the songs that take me back—and stay there.

That’s the tiny silver lining. I don’t have to cut music out of my life anymore. Mostly.

But I don’t want to be in those loops.

They spiral. They feel unstoppable.
And I can’t always get out of them.

It feels like a complete reversal in how my brain relates to time.

I went from forward… to backward.

And I don’t like it here.

Pre-TBI: read the recipe once, rarely twice, start cooking.

Cooking school drilled that in—read it through, understand the flow, go. One and done.

Videos? Rarely watched. Usually skipped unless something looked tricky.

Now?

I read the same recipe like 30, 40, 50 times… and still don’t retain it.

If there’s a video, I watch it over and over.
If there isn’t one, I go hunting for one like it’s a missing puzzle piece.

And somehow I still forget a step halfway through.

Same recipe.
Very different brain.