Maturity Levels Before Brain Injury and After Brain Injury

Maturity Levels Before Brain Injury: Lori Part Five

Lori and I discussed the difference in her maturity levels before brain injury and the maturity after brain injury.  She was in the young adult years where maturity levels increase rapidly.

Now you told us that you were an executive secretary at the time you got hurt.  You also were a hairdresser?

Yes.  I still had my license. I just wasn’t in a salon.  I was doing hair on the side.

Talk to me about your job as an executive secretary before you got hurt?

I worked for a local board of realtors, and I was the secretary to the CEO and the administrative assistant.  So, the board of realtors would have kind of in-house, reviews of people who did things, real-estate wise, improperly.  So I was in charge of taking notes during those meetings and notifying people when to come to those meetings.  I did scheduling.

Anytime the chief executive officer had a letter that he needed to go out I took dictation, and I typed that.  And I worked on the computer, and I worked with the administrative assistant.  I worked with her the closest, and I guess I helped her the most.

It was very detailed work.  I don’t remember it real clearly, but I do remember that it was very detailed.  I had to keep what’s called a “tickler file.”  Old, old tech. 3 by 5 cards to tell me what to do each day, to make sure.  There were so many processes through everything I had to do.

How many years did you work for them?

Let me go backwards.  So the accident was in 1986. And I was working there at the time.  And I met my husband in 1982 and I was working there when I met my husband.  So maybe four years.

How did your job change from the time you were 20 to the time you were 24?

When I started working for the board of realtors I was attending college at night and I was a full-time hairdresser.  Oops, I’m sorry.  I was a full-time hairdresser going to college at night, and I met someone who worked for the board of realtors, and I had said I wanted a more secure job, and that’s why I was going to college.  And she said, “Oh, I work for the board of realtors, why don’t you come and, and we’re hiring data processors.”  And I said I don’t know anything about that, and she said, “We’ll do on the job training.”

So that’s where I started, was at data processing.  And that’s where I sat in a cubicle, and when a realtor was putting their house that they had for sale on the market I would get the listing and I would put onto the computer all the details of each home.

They call that the MLS?

Yeah.  Very much, the MLS.   So I did that until probably the late fall of 1985, maybe summer of ’85.  And then I moved into the executive secretary position.

Do you see a change in your   maturity levels before brain injury between 20 and 24, during that period you, you met your now husband, you started in data processing, became an executive secretary, as you look back do you see a change in your growing maturity levels before brain injury over that period?

Huge, yes.

Tell me about the changing maturity levels before brain injury.

When I started data processing with the MLS I was still kind of a happy go lucky, like I was in high school.  And as I was working in data processing, and as I was going to college at night, I guess I started to see where I wanted to be as a adult, where I really didn’t look at that so much prior to that.  That’s probably the best way to say it.

Did you see growing maturity levels before brain injury in the interactions with your husband?

Yeah.  Because when we first started dating I was just dating everyone.  But I was a good girl.  And we just developed our relationship and became really good friends, and then we became seclusive (exclusive), is that the proper word?  Which is just he and I.  And at that time, about that time when he and I saw each other, only each other, then I started looking at him as my future life partner.

How old is he?

He’s the same age as I am.

Did you see a change in his maturity over those four years?

Yes.

How would you describe that?

Probably about the same way, yeah.  Yeah, because when I first met him he was happy go lucky, like I was.  And he started his business when I started working in the real estate board.  And he started, yeah.  Probably about the same way.

Next in Part Six – Time in Hospital After Severe Brain Injury