Brain Injury Association of Windsor-Essex

Explanation of Mask

The colours I used on my mask represents who I am and how I feel after my brain injury. Red means I am angry that this happened to me and also cheated of a life that could have been orange. There are days I feel strong and there are days I feel confused, distracted and exhausted.

Purple represents love in my life and lucky to still have my family support me from day to day. Green represents frustration, grief and pissed and grouchy.

Explanation of Mask

The red area represents how annoyed I became when my life quickly came to a “stop.” I became overwhelmed with the new changes and challenges in my life. I couldn’t speak so I became very quiet and withdrawn from life around me. I became very bitter towards others and myself, “why did this have to happen to me?”

The purple area represents my life before the brain injury. I had a positive outlook on life when I felt safe and able to do almost anything. I was happy all the time and was a fun person to be around.

The blue area represents just how confused and frightened I became of my new life. I worried about what others thought of me and felt different so I became nervous around people. I became helpless in my thoughts, which surprised my family because I wasn’t that type of person before.

The yellow represents how welcomed I now feel in this new life of mine. I have an uplifted and joyful outlook on life. I may not be as graceful as I once was but I am very happy and lucky to be alive.

Explanation of Mask

Black and White Half:
Once I was a gifted professional with a beautiful computer mind,
Entrepreneur, IT accountant, multi-tasker, all tasks done in time,
Fashionably dressed, high heels and nice make up,
Enjoyed chatting & mingling with H20 inside my cup,
Pickle Ball, exercising, dancing gave me energy,
Florida palm trees swaying gently over our RV,
Life was black & white, I enjoyed working in IT,
My age reversed, young people inspire me,
In 2014, life changed like never before,
My head was hit, it was May 24,
The old me disappeared.

***********

Colourful/Feathers Half:
It’s a long road to see recovery,
Weekly therapies, medical help and IMEs,
No broken bones, how do I prove no functionality
The environment around hurts me,
Noise, lights & sounds, I have emotional lability,
Daily balancing with a short life battery,
I no longer hear or feel music, beauty disappeared,
It was the BIAWE support group & those who really cared,
Now I can see colours and a Phoenix slowly rising,
This new chapter is one that will be surprising,
The art mask is my 1st post 2014 creative endeavour,
A new beginning, a memory I will always treasure.

Explanation of Mask

The purple area represents that I have trouble trusting. I feel challenged with everyday life. I am constantly thinking about things and I can’t seem to sort things out in my head. I become grouchy and sharp with people when they want to help and I know at one time I could do things, but I have trouble at things now. I can’t shut my brain off so I don’t sleep well, which is frustrating on my part. I procrastinate about doing things that need to be done and I don’t do them.

The green area represents how grateful I am for the help I receive from others and how lucky I am to be alive.

The blue area represents that a part of me can become cold and angry at people who try to help.

The black area represents that I feel sad about the way I feel about myself and others.

The orange area represents that I feel lonely and I can’t let people in and how insecure I feel about myself.

The yellow area shows that when I put my mind to things, I can become creative.

The red on my lips represents how critical I can become and say things to people that I may mean one thing and others take it a different way.

The white area represents how scared I am of the way I think people see me and think of me.

Explanation of Mask

I chose green because it is the recognized colour for Traumatic Brain Injury in the USA. That is where I had my accident and was first hospitalized. The fireworks represent the explosion of constant crippling headaches I have every day. The thunderbolt around my left ear represents the constant ringing in my left ear and hearing loss from nerve damage. The eye patch covers my right eye because I damaged my third optic nerve. It is not repairable. I constantly see double. The black tars represent constant mood swings and depression. The scar represents the many cars from feeding tubes, tracheotomy, IVs and hospital neglect bed sores. The Band-Aids represent my inability to get my thoughts out verbally.

Explanation of Mask

My mask represents the metamorphosis I have gone through since my brain injury. The smaller butterflies are flying away, that is my old self. The larger butterfly came back and with it brought a much more sensitive and creative self. It took many years to get where I am today. Brain Injury is a complicated journey.

Explanation of Mask

The black part is the unknown. Feeling frustration, sad, confused, angry, lost, alone and filled with so many questions. The platinum coil represents the fusion of the artery. The yellow part demonstrates that I am determined, will never give up with any obstacles or challenges that get in my way. I have the support from family, friends and a support group. I lost a lot of old stuff but that’s okay, I have a lot of new stuff. It’s great to be alive!

Explanation of Mask

Prior to my acquired brain injury, I was an active member of society. I was a business owner. I was married and raising four young children. I was an auxiliary police constable. My life was full. I was happy. I never had to look at a price tag before I purchased an item.

Then the accident happened! Grief, anger, despair, recovery and divorce ensured. A decade of trials and tribulations.

NOW

I am humble and grateful for all the lessons I learned during my decade of recovery. I have a new career and passion in life. I have learned to love myself again and love another. I have learned not to look back but live in the moment and look to the future.

Explanation of Mask

When I emerged from my diffuse axonal brain injury, I was like a child learning about my world all over again. Preliminary tasks were to eat without choking and walking a straight line. Next came Dick and Jane primers and printing like a child. I had no concept of time so I have to experience waiting 5, 10, 15 minutes over and over, more people I knew experienced my short temper when I thought they were taking too long. I now have what I call sloth brain, where I sued to be quick witted. Now it takes me a day to think of a response. My emotions are flat or I lose my temper like a flash in a pan. I can smell and taste chemicals but not roses, lilacs or cinnamon. The most enjoyable change is vision, when looking at a full moon, I see three!

Explanation of Mask

My mask represents to be all the emotions and feelings a person with a traumatic brain injury goes through. It represents my life as a survivor in the past, present and as well as the future. It signifies the hidden feelings that no one in the world can see or relate to, because for any of us, we look totally healthy and normal on the outside. Yet, on the inside we life in constant confusion. My purpose in this mask is to let as many people know that people with brain injuries have hidden issues and hope and pray that family, friends, and others will be more sympathetic and understanding to the survivors. We, as survivors, are doing the best we can. “All we need is love.”

Explanation of Mask

The prominent question mark represents my inability to formulate coherent thoughts and sentences. I often struggle to understand the world around me. My information recall and processing deficiencies create barriers affecting my ability to connect with people. I paid the question mark over my eyes and mouth because it is an invisible barrier between myself and others. People tend not to see brain injury as a disability, like one that requires a mobility device; my friends and family, though they love me, don’t always understand. I spend a lot of my time confused, also represented by the Element of Um.

One of the more prevalent cognitive dysfunctions I suffer is the exhausting seizures that impact how I can spend my days, determining my quality of life and level of happiness. Being tired triggers seizures, but the energy it takes to think causes brain fatigue and this creates a vicious cycle I get trapped in: my brain works harder than it used to, which makes me tired, which triggers seizures, so my brain then works even harder to function at a level considered “normal.”

I feel lucky to be alive and that I survived the accident, even if sometimes I feel ashamed of how my injury makes me behave. I know I worry too much about how others see me and what they perceive as a personality flaw instead of part of my brain injury.

Explanation of Mask

Vision Loss,

memory loss,

touch death,

hope flower

no voice

Zen

feather can fly

Explanation of Mask

I remember being asked to try and pick up mercury in a high school chemistry class. It is impossible because the mercury beads endlessly form and reform. Before my bleed I was used to a mind that worked quickly and productively, creating complex designs with my thoughts. After my bleed, other characteristics of mercury – that my thoughts were difficult to hold and my ability to work with ideas was unpredictable – because a huge source of frustration.

I painted my mask silver and placed the beads to represent mercury and my altered ability to think. From being able to organize my thoughts in patterns and reshape them like kaleidoscope, it was as if beads of mercury were just rolling away on their own and I had no idea if they were coming back. Many of the changes after a brain injury are invisible, so I have made my craniotomy scar visible in white wool and added some broken pieces of Styrofoam. Just beneath my scar is a piece of fabric indicating the bleed. The dark grey fabric is imprinted with silver feathers, and represents “Hope is the Thing With Feathers,” a poem by Emily Dickinson. Gradually, as I learned to work with my changes, more colour and design returned.

Explanation of Mask

In my life before my brain injury I was a successful professional teacher with two BA’s in Psychology and in Education. I was recognized by the Ministry of Education as a specialist in education with an emphasis in mental and physical challenges. I was a supervisor of 7 educational assistants and my job was to work with teachers in integrating students into regular classes. I assisted in developing the life skills program in two other high schools. My life was one that resembled sunshine and after a car crash and a traumatic brain injury, my life resembles a ladybug who is always looking for a way to survive the winter. I a always looking for ways to survive; ways of accomplishing everything that was taken away from me: my memory, my ability to multi-task, my anger control, my ability to comprehend complex issues and solve them. I am finding successful ways of surviving life with a brain injury and I am like the ladybug entering a new journey each time I succeed.

Explanation of Mask

I used oil based pastels to blend my emotions I went through during the first couple of years after my injury. Then used acrylic paint to add texture; to add my Croatian heritage and used coloured ribbon for the TBI ribbon colour. Black describes the depression I went through during the first couple of months after my injury. Blue is the colour of hope. Red is for the anger I went through. Purple for creativity. White represents the scars I got during the accident.

I used words that best describe brain injury in one sentence.

Explanation of Mask

Trying to put on a good face, to hide my depression and tears of loneliness and loss.

Explanation of Mask

The fracture line down the middle of the mask represents dichotomy of the 2 worlds I now live in. I have the old me who was an A student in University to someone who can’t remember words or put together a coherent sentence when stressed. The new me remembers the old me. This is extremely difficult to reconcile.

The butterfly is in memory of my cousin who died from a butterfly shaped glioblastoma.

The green ribbons represent brain injury awareness.

The grey ribbons represent brain tumours, which can cause brain injury.

The blue spiral represents my journey. The crystal is the mountain I first have to climb and the spiral is the never ending ups and downs of my journey.

The red spiral is the insurmountable feeling of anger towards the tumour in my head and the time it has stolen from my life.

The yellow spiral represents hope. Hope I’ll be fortunate enough to not deal with another tumour and this bump in the road will soon be a distant memory and the future will be promising.

Explanation of Mask

I chose vibrant colours because that is the way I experience the world. The butterflies show how fragile life is, but also how beautiful. One side of the mask has a dark wash over it. This represents the time since the accident. The world is still beautiful, still colourful, but there is a veil covering its beauty, its vibrancy, making it frustratingly difficult to access. I can see the colours of the world, I just can’t touch them in the same way as before.

Explanation of Mask

The colours I have chosen represents me before and after my meningitis. The orange area of my mask represents my feeling different from before “why did this happen to me?” I’m irritated and tired. I am not myself.

The blue area represents just how outgoing I was. I felt wanted, needed and valuable when my friends hung around with me.

The red area represents just how cheated out of life I feel, “why did this happen to me.” My life isn’t going the way I wanted and I feel frustrated and bitter.

The white area with the hearts representing tear drops show how discouraged I felt when my relationship fell apart with my boyfriend and how overwhelmed I felt in this new body.

The green area is a reminder to myself to stay calm and try to accept what has happened. I need to stay strong for myself and show determination towards understanding the new challenges in this new life of mine.

The pink on my lips represents that I can be loved, appreciated and feel “good” about myself.

Explanation of Mask

My mask is blue for two reasons. I have felt very blue throughout the past year and a half. There have been times when I have wanted to give up on everything. It can be very depressing for your life to change in a matter of seconds. All of a sudden, I couldn’t drive. I was no longer able to shop, read, workout, walk, watch TV, shower, or cook without feeling dizzy, dazed, disoriented and confused. I began to fall and bump into things. I couldn’t get out certain words. My multi-tasking skills went out the window. I would have a conversation and forget the topic or what I had just said. I would enter a room and forget why I was there. I couldn’t even play “catch” with my kids or cross the street on my own. This caused so much sadness, anger and frustration. The other reason for the colour blue represents water and water has played a big role in my recovery. Each day, I am striving to be more like water. Water nourishes, gives, and benefits all, yet it is strong enough to move mountains and gentle enough to caress rocks. Water flows downwards and aspires to be the lowest position, which is what I think a humble leader does. The puzzle pieces represent how broken and put together I feel. Some says, I feel like I’m falling apart, other days, I feel like a puzzle being assembled into the shape of the woman that God wants me to be. And as time passes, the blue remains, but as you can see, colour is slowly returning to my world and that is why the broken puzzle pieces are coloured in colours which are important to me. It is only through transforming the brokenness that colour has been able to return to my life. Yellow represents sunlight, purple represents being a survivors, and pink represents my feminine strength and health.

The broken glass represents the damage to my left eye and how much the injury has impacted my life and recovery. I used broken glass because I have felt like broken glass over the past 19 months. I have felt fragile, useless, shattered, and discarded, especially as I watched community events and family activities take place, without my presence or involvement. That was tough. It made me want to shout out “please don’t forget about me!” The broken glass also represents to me, the shattering of what I thought made life good before. I’ve had a lot to unlearn.

The yellow between the glass represents light because I have grown to believe that it is through our brokenness that light enters. For me today, that light is love, self-love, peace, gratitude, faith, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, humility, wisdom, service and trust. If you knew me before, you know that I struggled with many of these. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. It was very therapeutic.

Explanation of Mask

The colourful side of the mask depicts the life I had and was trained for. My brain injury robbed me of that life and left me with a black and white existence. Every day I try to colour the grey areas of my life with discipline, kindness, empathy, compassion, and courage. Everyday life humbles me and strengthens my faith in humanity.

Explanation of Mask

I am easily distracted. The red represents how I am determined and eager to go on. I have problems with forgetting but I have never been low with my accident. The blue represents that I am appreciative of the things in my life and grateful for the things I have. The green represents that I am cheerful, alive and have a sense of humour. Most of the time I am relaxed. The yellow represents that I am kind in the way that I think that other people need help. I try to be pleasant even though sometimes I am not. I love the things that are simple and think of what “God” has crated for us.