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Recovery Strategy: Back to School
Barbara A. Dively

About a year after my brain injury, I was told to do something about community re-entry. This meant finding a place to go where people wouldn't notice my difficulties. I decided to attend a continuing education certificate program in holistic health two nights a week for one school year. My limp toes were admired as "so relaxed." I heard people talking about a lot of interesting things. My silence was viewed as composure. I couldn't study for the tests but I was assured that tests were not used to eliminate people.

Later, when my brain injury program no longer fit my needs, I remembered my positive experience in continuing education and decided to go to the local community college. I went right to the guidance office and was encouraged to register. For the price of one hour of cognitive retraining I had a place to go for one hour, three days a week, for 13 weeks. I chose basic math, career planning, developmental psychology, and introductory sociology. The math was perfect and the teacher let me leave the room to take a break during a test if I got overwhelmed. Career planning was very enjoyable and allowed me to practice talking. Developmental psychology renewed my grasp of what makes people tick. I dropped the sociology course because the teacher used confrontation which triggered my rage. Then I tried more psychology courses, some art courses, weight training, yoga, health education, more math, etc. My agreement with myself and the guidance office was that I could drop any course at any time if I was too overwhelmed. I did have to bail out of a few. Overall, however, I enjoyed people, learned to make small talk again, found classrooms, ate in the cafeteria, met others in the mature students lounge, handled money, met assignment deadlines, kept my books and papers organized, watched the time, made parking arrangements, etc. My confidence increased as I recaptured lost skills.

If your rehabilitation is not complete, consider courses at a high school evening school, a GED program, a community college, a regular college, continuing education, a community center, a computer center, craft or art center - anything to get out, have fun and practice fitting in again.

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