Recursive beginnings as an opportunity post brain injury

Beginnings: The seeds we don't see

When people imagine 'beginnings', they often picture a moment of clarity; a breakthrough, a turning point, a sudden shift. But the truth is that many beginnings arrive quietly, and sometimes they don't feel like beginnings at all.

Instead, they can feel like confusion, exhaustion, or simply the absence of anything recognisable.

Looking back, I can see that the beginning of my rehabilitation wasn't a moment. It was a seed. At the time, I didn't know that. I didn't know that everything my neurological occupational therapist shared with me - every strategy, every tiny adjustment, every piece of learning - was being planted somewhere deep beneath the surface.

   I didn't know that some seeds would sprout quickly, while others would lie dormant for years or even decades. I didn't know that the roots were forming long before I ever saw a single shoot.   

Soil: What the beginning really feels like

The beginning of rehabilitation didn't feel like a beginning to me. It felt mostly like bafflement because I didn't know how to relate to needing specialist support.

People often ask whether I had some breakthrough moment. I didn't. My fog lifted slowly, in layers. Some days it thickened, and some days it thinned. Some days it felt like I was walking backwards.

This pattern persisted for around seven years after rehabilitation (twelve years post-injury), and then it slowly stopped, and the undulations in my daily life levelled to a state of more purposeful management.

But underneath, the soil was shifting. The roots were forming; the seeds were doing their quiet work. Everything planted by my neurological occupational therapist grew to form a garden, with nothing being weeded out.

Beginnings are often invisible because the brain is rebuilding itself from the ground up. Neuroplasticity doesn't add the roof before the windows, or the attic before the ground floor. It follows a biological order that we cannot rush or override.

   When self-awareness is fractured, we are like a garden without a gardener; growth happens, but there is no one there to see it.   

Seeds: The small things that didn't look like progress

In the early days, nothing looked like a breakthrough. Nothing felt dramatic or transformative. And yet, those were the moments that changed everything - a strategy that seemed too simple, a suggestion that felt too small.

These were seeds. And here's something I've come to understand... curiosity is often the first sign that a seed has taken root.

There were moments when something my occupational therapist said wouldn't translate into progress, but it did make me curious. It made me pause and wonder. It made me want to learn about what had happened to my brain.

Each tiny spark, each flicker of interest, was the beginning of a new neural pathway.

Occupational therapists pay attention to curiosity. It's innate within us all, and often appears before understanding, change, and confidence. Curiosity is the mind reaching forwards.

   Beginnings aren't all about starting for the first time; with a brain injury, beginnings repeat.   

Roots: The work that happens beneath the surface

Neuroplasticity - the reconnection and rewiring of the brain - takes monumental and concentrated effort. Most of that effort happens beneath the surface, and out of sight.

Attempts at breakthrough are mentally painful. You persistently push through seemingly impenetrable barriers for small advancements that sometimes disappear the next day. So, you start again, from the beginning, from scratch.

The disappearance of advancements doesn't mean nothing is happening. It means the brain is building scaffolding. Scaffolding always comes before structure.

And the structure that follows is shaped by your unique architecture - your history, your beliefs, your perceptions, your personality, and your strengths.

Nothing is lost; it's reforming. That is why progress is not linear. It is a journey of peaks, troughs, and regressions as the brain figures out how the new wiring fits together.

Roots strengthen in the dark, and the brain strengthens in silence.

Shoots: The first signs of return

There were strategies I learned early on that didn't make sense until much later. Some insights didn't land until I had lived enough life to understand them. There were seeds planted by my neuro OT that took decades to break through the surface.

I remember her telling me that my brain needed experience, and now I understand what was meant.

When the seeds finally found the light of day, they didn't feel like breakthroughs either. They felt like recognition. Like remembering something I had always known. Like my true self stepping forwards again.

The recognition slipped and returned in an endless cycle that continues today, 25 years post-injury.

   That's the thing about rehabilitation; it's not about becoming someone new. It's about recovering access to who you have always been.   

What I wish I had known at the beginning

If I could speak to the person I was at the start - or to anyone beginning their rehabilitation journey - I would say this:

• You are still you, even if you can’t feel it yet.

• Your brain is rebuilding from the foundations up.

• Progress is happening even when you can’t see it.

• Curiosity is a sign of growth.

• Small things matter more than big ones.

• Regression is part of the process.

• Roots form long before shoots appear.

• You are not starting from nothing. You are starting from strength and original architecture. In this, the true beginning remains the original version of you.

Beginnings are rarely dramatic. They are quiet, subtle, and often invisible. But they are powerful, because every seed contains the possibility of a future you cannot yet imagine.

I was always there, just beneath the surface, fighting my way back through the thick layers of dysfunction, waiting for the right conditions to emerge.

And this is what I would tell the families and friends who love us: Underneath it all, we are still ourselves. The person you knew hasn't disappeared. They are working harder than you can imagine to find their way back.

Last updated: 26th January 2026