Back in the Ring: Returning to Work After a Traumatic Brain Injury By Adam Cook

Photo by Freepik

There’s a moment—maybe it happens in your kitchen while you're buttering toast, maybe it sneaks up during a walk—that you feel something close to your old self. That tiny flicker of clarity, the sharpness returning in little stabs, is both thrilling and terrifying. Because then comes the question you’ve been half-dreading, half-dreaming about: Am I ready to go back to work? Not in the “do I have to pay rent?” sense (though, yes), but the deeper, less spoken part—can I do it again? Can I be me again?

Find the Ideal Role

Finding the right job after a brain injury isn't about chasing titles or old ambitions—it’s about alignment. You need something that meets your current capacity, respects your limits, and still taps into your strengths in a way that feels meaningful. It might mean working fewer hours, shifting industries, or rethinking what fulfillment looks like, but that’s not settling—it’s evolving. If you’re updating your resume, take the time to craft something that highlights your value clearly and authentically—and when you’re ready to send it, here's an option for converting it to a PDF so it stays clean, easy to open, and consistent no matter who’s reading it.

Work Doesn’t Mean the Same Thing Anymore

The biggest shift post-TBI isn’t always cognitive; it’s philosophical. Work used to mean hustle, identity, validation. It might’ve meant long hours and back-to-back meetings and being “on” in a way that never gave your brain a minute to exhale. After an injury, work isn’t just work. It’s a test of self, stamina, and reinvention. You have to come at it sideways—redefining what “productive” looks like, and more importantly, what you want it to look like now. It’s less about climbing and more about calibrating.

Your Confidence May Feel Off

Nobody warns you how wobbly your confidence feels the first time you reread an email five times and still second-guess hitting “send.” You start side-eyeing your own memory, your words, even your tone. That inner critic becomes louder than any coworker. But here’s the thing: your confidence isn’t broken, it’s just under renovation. Every day you show up, every time you advocate for yourself, that scaffolding gets stronger. The key isn’t faking it—it’s being real about where you’re at and asking for what you need unapologetically.

Invisible Doesn’t Mean Imaginary

People mean well. They do. But when you walk into a room without a limp or cast, they assume you’re fine. And if you stumble on a sentence or space out during a call, they think you’re flaky or distracted. The invisibility of brain injury can be more exhausting than the symptoms themselves. Which makes it crucial to carve out space to be seen—whether that’s through disclosure, advocacy, or just refusing to pretend everything’s okay when it isn’t. Your recovery is real, even if they can’t see it on an MRI or in a meeting invite.

Build a “Yes, And” Life

Here’s where improv theory helps more than productivity books. You’re not going back to the life you had—you’re building a new one. And that means adopting a “yes, and” mindset. Yes, you still get overwhelmed in crowds and you’re finding ways to navigate it. Yes, you work fewer hours and your focus during those hours is laser-sharp. You’re not failing at your old life; you’re editing it. That doesn’t make you less capable. It makes you a curator of your own energy. That’s a power most people never learn to wield.

Co-Workers Are Not Mind Readers

If you don’t tell them, they won’t know. That’s not just a truth about brain injury—it’s a truth about adulthood. People are wrapped in their own stuff, their own deliverables and deadlines. So if you need a quieter workspace, more time on a project, or a Monday morning that starts at 11 instead of 9, you have to speak up. You don’t need to justify, overshare, or apologize. Just state it with clarity. Every time you advocate for yourself, you make the path easier for someone else who’s coming up behind you, wondering if they can speak, too.

The job, whatever it is, will adjust. It’ll morph around your rhythms or it won’t—and if it doesn’t, it wasn’t your forever place anyway. What matters more is that you’re doing something extraordinary: not just returning to work, but reimagining what working can look like when wholeness, not hustle, is the metric. Every return email, every small win, every deep breath before a Zoom call—that’s the work now. And you’re doing it. Not perfectly. Not always smoothly. But fully. Fully you.

Discover inspiring stories and valuable insights from brain injury survivors by tuning into the Making Headway Podcast, hosted by Eryn Martin and Alison House, two resilient survivors and registered nurses.