What's really important to know is that the very first thing that will be taxed with brain injury for that individual and their family is their mental well-being. There is nobody I've ever worked with who's gone through this experience, including me, who didn't use the words “anxiety” and “depression”. When you don't have those supports to help you understand what's happening, you're left to navigate a very siloed system.
In British Columbia especially, we see that people can't access services outside of something. If you have a brain injury, you are denied services for mental health or addiction. It's considered too complex. They don't know how to handle it. But those intersections are real. When we don't address what a person is going through with their mental health, and they turn to substance use to cope, or they're on prescription medications that can lead to those addictive cycles, it gets out of control. We just leave them in this ocean of emotion without any safeguards. That then leads to further complications.
Certainly for families that are taxed, trying to navigate the system and get support when they're not even included is exhausting. We often see families fracture and these relationships end. The person then often ends up on the street. We've now clearly been able to see from the research that with all these intersections, the root cause is often brain injury. That's why I say it lives at the forefront but also in the aftermath.