What to do for your recovering/healing friend?

• be patient.

• bring comfort food

• offer to drive them when their significant other has run out of time off to take them to appointments.

• ask again when they (very Minnesota) turn you down the first time.

  • offer again a few weeks later: food, support, a walk, a coffee, a drink--for the spouse/significant other, and for the recovering. Not necessarily at the same time.

• sit quietly if that's what they want

• Brain healing can take up to 2 years for adults. What you have at that point is likely where you will be. It's okay.

I realized that while my book examples are specific to brain injury/surgery, the suggestions are pretty universal. You're welcome.

This was a useful book for me, written by a young adult who had a malignant brain tumor. My kid read it in class, and gave me a copy for Christmas.

When I asked if I could pass it along, she responded, "Of course. technically, you paid for it."

The graphic novel above.

Maybe don't:

• ask "how are you?" if you don't want or expect an honest answer

• assume that they are back to baseline

• ask if they are back to work. We tend to identify as our jobs, our careers. If we lose that, for whatever reason, there's a floundering for self.

• It's like asking the high school senior what's their dream college. If they have one, and they get in, they'll tell you. If they don't, or don't get in, or college isn't for them, or they can't afford it, you've just added to the crap that they already feel.

• remind them how lucky they are. Sometimes it's okay to mourn the life you had, and not be grateful for the metamorphosis you didn't ask for.

• commiserate with your own symptoms/story/"I knew somebody who"/yadda yadda yadda

  • this isn't about you

• Give them self help shit like this:

  

  TBH, I tortured myself with this from a little free I library. I thought if I just read it, I could get better. UGH. I'll be putting it back in the little free library or on the buy nothing page...