U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Brendan Roethel
This blog post by Dr. Pam Murphy, a licensed psychologist at National Center for Telehealth and Technology, was originally posted on the center’s afterdeployment Blog.
Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are increasingly recognized as a significant medical condition, both in the military and our country as a whole. For example, if you watched the football playoffs, you probably heard TBI-related terms such as “concussion,” “head injury” and “extra caution” mentioned several times. If you’re recovering from TBI, you know first-hand some of the challenges this medical condition can cause. If you’re a parent; however, what you may not have considered is that your children are coping with the challenges of your TBI, too.
Any medical condition or illness of a parent is scary for a child. Children worry whether their parent will be OK or even die. They also wonder if they’re somehow responsible for making their parent get hurt or ill (as illogical as that may seem to an adult).