Swimming Upstream: Taking Risks as a Woman Living with TBI

In 1980, I (JPR) acquired a traumatic brain injury (TBI) from a bludgeoning that killed my fiancé and left me with disabilities. Following months of rehab therapies, I became dependent on my parents. My rehab team, parents, and I agreed that my primary goals were regaining my independence and pre-injury quality of life. My former employer welcomed me back, and my providers and family urged me to return to that company. They feared that I might never receive another comparable opportunity and could become permanently unemployed, lacking expert guidance to prevent failure. But I refused to take their advice. I was steadfast in my decision to seek out a new career in a nonprofit agency and avoid spiraling into a depression that could forever make me dependent on family or warehoused in a facility. I found myself alone, on an uncertain path to becoming a professional woman living with new cognitive and physical limitations and PTSD. In this essay, I explore what taking this risk of unemployment meant to me, my rationale for the risk, the hurdles I faced, and how I overcame them to create a personal and professional life that surpassed the quality of my pre-injury life.