Identity is Story
I’ve made the decision to take some time to outline HOW to do storytelling rehabilitation. I’ve written a lot proclaiming the benefits, but I recognize that the idea of “Just tell your story, man…” can be both intimidating and frustratingly vague. I also recognize that in order to study this sort of rehabilitation, there needs to be some clear, repeatable method that can be altered as new ideas and techniques are discovered. Furthermore, I’ve wanted to write about this previously, but have always been repelled by the size of the topic. To remedy that fear/intimidation, I’m taking it in small chunks, and in much like how I wrote the first draft of my book, I’ll present ideas bit by bit as blog entries, each focused on another aspect of HOW TO DO STORYTELLING REHABILITATION. The eventual goal is to then consolidate these entries into one publication.
One more quick caveat – these entires are a starting point for how to use this rehabilitation technique and, as of yet, are untested. My suggestions come from personal experience paired with extensive thought and reflection with colleagues, but the goal here is to suggest a base that can be modified and improved with further research. I write these with a hope of discussion, and if you, reader, have any suggestions, academic criticism, or paise for what I lay out, please contact and/or comment — I appreciate all thoughts that might help this search.
That said, before we get to a method, the next several entries will provide reasons for using public storytelling as a way to assist the appreciation of self-identity after TBI. To begin, we look at what is self-identity and why there can be confusion of this after brain injury.
Let’s start with the idea that story creates self-identity. While there are many elements that take part in defining identity — including preferences, fears, appearances, abilities, experiences, and the list continues — all these elements are part of one’s personal story. The idea that identity comes from story is generally (though not universally) accepted in literature on the topic, and accounts for how a consistent ‘I’ exists, despite the fact there are remarkably few consistent parts of a person’s identity. In my case, the ‘I’ as a baby in 1982 is the same ‘I’ as the drama fanatic high school student is the same ‘I’ as the 40-year-old high school teacher in China — even though these versions of ‘I’ all have dissimilar looks, habits, abilities, and locations. ‘I’ am accepted because my personal story can explain how these changes occurred, typically a gradual transformation over time, but on the occasion there is a sudden change, it occurred due to some distinct, remembered event that I am able include in my personal story.
Yet when brain injury happens, everything changes in an instant. I don’t yet know the exact science of why these changes occur, but I imagine a picture — millions of billions of thin circuits that weave about meaty brain chunks, globular masses bound together by threads of thought. The gray meat mass is the core for how we think, move, and react, but the maze of connections are our thoughts that decide how we choose, appreciate, and justify each action. If Brain-Meat-Mass A yells, “NEED FOOD,” a message is sent to the circuits which follow paths, refining the Neanderthalic cry to a preference of, “I think I’m in the mood for spaghetti tonight.” What’s more, the circuits provide our body with awareness of how much salt we prefer, the physical process of how to twirl the noodles, whether we eat at home or going out, and so on. We are fulfilling the core need, but the details and specific actions are provided by the thin wires, and the path for many of these choices is codified by the repetition of a journey along the same or similar wires.
Yet when brain injury occurs — when the brain is shook, struck, pierced and receives physical damage in some way — I imagine the circuit connections are disrupted. Torn apart. And our actions need to find some new path of through the wires that can determine how the need is fulfilled. The wire that services “Need Food” with “I think I want spaghetti” has snapped, and the need must find a new path — no longer do you want spaghetti, but now your wires have taken you down a road that suggests you want a hamburger. This food example might seem rather trivial, but connections of this sort also influence actions such as how a hand moves, body posture, reaction to seeing a friend, how to process emotions, and nearly every other aspect of how we present ourselves to the world. When a connection is broken after injury, the brain must find a new path of habits to fulfill the core need.
Another example, the need is walking across the room, a brain injury survivor may have a new gait because the brain has a new path that defines the details of the action. The need is to process some bit of embarrassment, but instead of politely blushing the survivor responds with a volcano of emotion. To an observer — colleague, friend, family member — these changed details can cause the the survivor to seem a markedly different person and may cause stress in a relationship.
To create further difficulties, the survivor is often unaware of the changed details. The goal is to fulfill the needs demanded by the brain-meat chunk, and the survivor might not be aware that the unconscious-thought-path has changed. Then, when these changes are pointed out or commented on, there is confusion because the survivor has no clear story for how these changes occurred. To be sure, there is the event of brain injury, but typically there is no real memory of this event, and to have this event as an abstract happening that changed every habit in an instant doesn’t provide a story that can adequately explain what happened to one’s self or others.
While I hesitate to say it is the only reason for identity confusion after TBI, it certainly seems likely that this disrupted story is a large reason for such a difficulty.
To summarize:
1) when brain injury occurs, paths-of-habit that exist in the brain are disrupted, and the survivor must create new paths to fulfill core needs.
2) This results in unexpected changes that may be questioned or criticized by members of a peer group.
3) The survivor, even if understanding that brain injury occurred, does not have a clear cause and effect story that can explain the changes cited by peers, and this lack of story creates personal identity confusion.
From here on, my blogs on this topic will build from what is above, and the next entry (in about two weeks) will present an argument for the benefits of public storytelling as opposed to some other narrative or dramatic therapy. I’m excited about this new blog focus, as I hope it will help to clarify my thoughts on the topic. Please comment with questions, praise, or disagreement and keep coming back to share your thoughts. Until next time, may all the best stories find you.
