I recently completed a final exam. The last final exam of my last class before diving into the Capstone and Internship to complete my degree.

When it was over, I felt an enormous sense of relief knowing it was finally in my rearview mirror. It was more than the ordinary relief of finishing a test. For me, testing anxiety can become so intense that it feels almost paralyzing. My thoughts begin competing with one another. I second-guess what I know, question answers I felt confident about only moments earlier, and sometimes struggle to trust the mind to remember and carry me through the experience. I accomplished with this whole process something that kept me limited for years – my fear.

Yet I followed through.

I sat with the discomfort. I took my time. I read each question carefully, worked through what I knew, and reminded myself to trust my instincts. Whether every answer was right was no longer the only measure of success. I had faced something that frightened and overwhelmed me, and I completed it. Class after class after class.

Living with the effects of a traumatic brain injury can make self-trust complicated. Sometimes I know something without immediately being able to explain how I know it. Sometimes I need more time to process information, organize my thoughts, or find the words I want to use. Sometimes my first instinct is correct, but anxiety causes me to question it. Sometimes I may feel completely confident and I ammi mistaken. I may review a decision repeatedly, searching for reassurance that I have not overlooked something.

Part of that anxiety is rooted in a fear of forgetting. Memory issues are something I still contend with, and learning and retaining new material is harder for me now than it used to be. I have a nice little toolbox with a host of tools I use to help me manage all of this.  When I remember to use the tools, building is a lot smoother. The fear is not always that I never learned something. Sometimes it is the fear that I did learn it, but I will not be able to reach it when I need it. Preparing for an exam can require way more time, way more repetition, and significantly more mental energy, while still leaving me wondering whether the information will be there when the question appears in front of me.

Learning to manage my energy and pace myself has become a learned skill that I still have to navigate and keep on top of. As I reflected on the experience, I realized how much taking that exam resembled the larger journey of learning to trust myself. I realized how much time it has taken to get to know myself again and be okay with where I am at in any given moment.

At the same time, there was a certain comfort and familiarity in this particular subject matter. Some of what I knew did not come from memorizing words on a page. It came from intuition, lived experience, and actions practiced over many years. At times, I could feel my way toward the right answer before I could fully explain why it was right. That does not make the knowledge less valid. It means some of it has become part of how I understand and move through the world and perhaps reflects the walking the walk, and talking the talk aspect of things.

Perhaps what I fear most is that my forgetting will come across as incompetence – maybe because, in those moments, that is exactly how it can make me feel. A missed detail, a blank moment, having to start an explanation over, or the need to ask for something again can quickly become more than an isolated difficulty in my mind. It can awaken imposter syndrome and leave me questioning whether I truly belong in the spaces I have worked so hard to enter, and quite honestly, deserve to be in.

Can I really embody and live as the person I want to be when I know that parts of me still carry damage, remain imperfect, or fall short of the standard of competence I have defined for myself? I am learning that this question is shaped by an unforgiving definition of competence – one that leaves very little room for disability, vulnerability, or even ordinary human error.

The reality is that I am going to forget. I am going to get lost. I am going to panic. I am going to make mistakes, and I am going to fail. My mind may try to follow each of those moments down every dark rabbit hole and turn one difficult experience into evidence for every fear I have about myself.

But that is not the whole reality. I am also going to succeed. I am going to make great choices. I am going to evolve, create, learn, and grow. I am going to experience many of the wonderful, future-focused possibilities I envision and strive toward every day. Both realities can exist at the same time. I can be competent and still forget. I can be capable and still need help finding my way. I can panic and still recover. I can make a mistake without becoming the mistake. I can be a success even when some things I attempt are not successful My imperfections do not disqualify me from becoming…. and already being…..the person I want to be – and let’s face it – the person I am.

Recovery has required me to become acquainted with myself in ways I never anticipated. It has meant learning when to pause, when to ask for help, when to examine something more closely, and when to trust that I already know enough to take the next step. It has meant appreciating things at a deeper level than I did before and embracing being able to give myself permission to be less than perfect, and be okay with that.

To me, there will likely always be a “me in recovery”.

I remember the person I was before my injuries. That is still fresh in my mind and my being. I remember what once came more easily, the life I expected to have, the mobility I had in my body, and the ways I once moved through the world without having to think so carefully about every decision, demand, or consequence. I remain aware of what has changed, what I have regained, what I continue to work toward, and what may never return in quite the same way. I remain starkly aware of those differences.

But the people around me do not necessarily experience those different versions of me.

To most of them, I am simply the me I am now.

They may not see every internal comparison I make or recognize how often I measure the present against the past. They may not know when an ordinary task requires extraordinary effort. They may not see that a small accomplishment is actually a huge win. They see the person standing before them – the person who learns, works, advocates, creates, loves, struggles, adapts, and continues moving forward.

They see a person that looks like anyone else in the world. That realization is both challenging and freeing.

I am more than a survivor. I am more than my injury that reminds me of itself every day.

I am more than the trauma I endured, the diagnoses I carry, and the symptoms I continue to manage. I am also more than who I used to be. In fact, I dare say, I am not really that past person anymore at all. The life I had before my injuries will always be part of my story, but it does not have to be the only standard by which I evaluate the person I am today. It does not have to be the only standard I hold myself to for the person I am tomorrow or as I move into the future of many tomorrows.

The world sees me through the ways I present myself, the choices I make, the work I do, and the relationships I build, the passion I share, the authenticity and love I give. My goal is to bring my internal and external worlds into greater alignment, and to allow the person others see to reflect the person I know myself to be, while also offering myself compassion for everything that may remain unseen.

Don’t misunderstand me or get me wrong here. This does not mean pretending that recovery is finished or presenting a polished version of myself that leaves no room for struggle. It means allowing myself to be seen as a whole person: capable and still learning, confident and occasionally uncertain, resilient and sometimes tired, independent and deserving of support. It means acting in my role as a professional, as a business owner, as a student of academics and life, and as a human being….with dignity, confidence, and determination.

Years ago, when I described why I created this website, I wrote:

“This website is a gift of love. This space was created as a gift – to myself, to my husband, to my mom, to my children, and to anyone whose life has been touched by trauma in any form.”

I wrote about coming home from the hospital with a body that was present while parts of me still felt absent. I wrote about looking in the mirror and seeing a reflection that felt both familiar and foreign. I wrote about mourning who I had been, learning about the person I was becoming, and gradually shifting my attention away from trying to define a “new me” and toward enjoying who I am now.

I also wrote:

“I am on a mission to reinvent myself, one piece at a time – not because it is easy, but because it is necessary”.

Honestly, those words could not be more true than they are right now.

The exam I completed was not just another academic requirement. It represented years of learning how to work with my brain instead of continually judging it against what it could once do. It reminded me that courage does not always look dramatic. Sometimes courage is sitting in front of something that makes you feel paralyzed with fear, or sitting in front of a difficult question, breathing through the anxiety, and trusting yourself enough to just face it, or at the very least, choose an answer.

Sometimes it is continuing your education when part of you wonders whether you can.

Sometimes it is accepting that you may need more time without believing that needing more time makes you less capable.

Sometimes it is recognizing that progress is still progress, even when it happens differently than you imagined; and even if it is different than other people experience their own progress.

And sometimes it is allowing the test – or the fear, setback, diagnosis, expectation, or former version of yourself….to remain in the rearview mirror while you continue moving forward.

My goals for this space have always been basic:

To be real.

To educate.

To challenge myself.

To share.

To grow.

Those goals remain unchanged. What continues to change is the person living them.

I am still recovering. I am still becoming. I am still learning to trust my knowledge, my instincts, my voice, and the person I have worked so hard to become.

I am not waiting to return to who I was before I begin valuing who I am now.

I am here.

I followed through.

I am moving forward…..one question, one choice, one accomplishment, one test, and one trusted instinct at a time.

I am excited to keep living those results.