All of us are strong.

Having a stroke or an acquired brain injury at any age is hard, but I feel like having one in your teenage years is extremely difficult because that's supposed to be the best years of your life. Being a teenager and becoming an adult is difficult its complicated and confusing times as your trying to figure out who you are and what you want in life, but that's difficult when you have a brain injury because you as a person change, the person your family and friends have known their whole lives has changed and that's hard to accept because you still look the same but you feel different and you are different.  Some days you feel like you're getting on good and you feel okay, but then other days all you wanna do is cry just cry and be alone because you feel like nothing can help you, you have lost a piece of yourself. 

I think its hard because we as teenagers who have just become young adults want to date and want to find that person for us, we want relationships, but well lets face it that relationships are hard, time consuming and complicated on their own. But having the baggage I have, having a brain injury and the thought of explaining my health situation just turns me off it to be honest. It just makes the thought of relationships more complicated and scarier, especially not knowing why I had a stroke and trying to accept that or the thought that at any moment I could end up back in hospital is scary.  Having a boyfriend the thought of then not understanding or that they try to understand and it makes everything worse because they treat you as if you're fragile and everything will break you. 

My problem was that I jumped straight into a relationship about 8 months after my stroke, I didn't know myself and didn't want to know myself, I couldn't face the fact that I had changed and getting into a relationships which I thought would help made getting to know myself more stressful. He tried to understand, but he didn't and I need time to get to know myself, finally after 2 years I admitted it to myself. my parents always said getting into a relationship was a bad idea, I ignored them but they were right, my life was/is complicated and difficult enough, I am now learning about the new me and how she is different to the old me. She is stronger.

All of us, every one of us are strong. 💜