Does anyone else feel like their brain is still stuck at the age they had their TBI?
Has anyone else experienced this weird sense of being “stuck” at the age you had your TBI?
Okay, so I’ve realized something really weird about myself recently and I’m wondering if anyone else with a TBI has experienced something similar.
I had a severe TBI from multiple gunshot wounds to my head a few days before I turned 21. I had shrapnel, and I’ve had a pretty significant recovery/adaptation process since then. I’m 25 now, so it’s been several years.
Lately I’ve been having these random moments where I realize that, apparently, my brain still thinks I’m around 20/21. 😂
For example, my boyfriend was talking about a friend’s daughter who is 19, and my immediate thought was basically, “Oh wow, she’s almost my age. That’s weird.”
Then literally seconds later I was like:
“WAIT. WHAT THE FUCK. SHE IS NOT ALMOST MY AGE. I’M 25.”
Another time, I found out my brother is about to turn 20 and had basically the exact same reaction:
“Damn, my brother is almost as old as me…”
…followed immediately by:
“NO HE ISN’T. I’M FUCKING 25.” 😭
And it’s happened in several other ways too. I sometimes feel surprised that people who were kids/teenagers when I was 20 are now adults. I also sometimes feel like the years since my TBI happened in one giant blur rather than feeling like distinct years of my life.
I know I’m 25. I’m not actually confused about my age. It’s more like my automatic/internal sense of myself seems to be anchored around the age I was when I got my TBI.
I’ve also wondered if part of it is because 21 was such a massive dividing line in my life. There’s “me before the TBI” and “me after the TBI,” and sometimes it feels like my brain never fully updated the internal version of myself after that point.
My boyfriend used to work as a peer support specialist and mentioned something about “suspended adolescence,” but we don’t think that quite describes what I’m experiencing rather a term related.I’ve been reading about things like subjective age, age identity, autobiographical self-continuity, and developmental disruption, and some of those concepts sound closer.
So I’m curious:
Has anyone else with a TBI experienced something like this?
Especially if your TBI happened at a particularly formative age—do you ever feel psychologically or subjectively “anchored” around the age you were when it happened? Or do the years afterward feel weirdly compressed/blurred compared with your life before the injury?
I’d love to hear if anyone else has experienced this, because I genuinely had never thought about it until recently and now I’m noticing it EVERYWHERE. 😂