Disinhibition after Severe Brain Injury Lingers

Disinhibition after Severe Brain Injury: Quinn Part Twenty-Six

Quinn still suffers from the frontal lobe issue and and executive functioning issue of disinhibition after severe brain injury.

We’ve covered a number of executive functioning and frontal lobe issues in our conversation but we haven’t specifically addressed them in a more systematic way, so I’m going to talk to you about some classic symptoms of frontal lobe symptoms.   We’ve talked about mood.  Do you have problems, in terms of the way you interact with people,  Quinn still suffers from the frontal lobe issue and and executive functioning issue of disinhibition after severe brain injury, being inappropriate? 

Sometimes, yeah.

Talk to me about that. 

I’ll sometimes say the wrong thing.  Maybe it’s, like I’ll say something inappropriate, maybe, sexual in a group setting that I shouldn’t say it.

Are you talking about political incorrectness or actual mild sexual harassment because of your  Quinn still suffers from the frontal lobe issue and and executive functioning issue of disinhibition after severe brain injury? 

I’d say politically incorrectness more than just sexual harassment.  A friend of mine and his wife, we were, and my wife, we were at a wedding, and I was just flirting with her back and forth, and the four of us were.  But I took it a step too far, that it bothered my wife.  So I apologized to my friend and my friend’s wife, and they didn’t think anything of it.  That’s what they told me, but, you know, I felt bad because I embarrassed my wife, which that bothers me more than anything.

Now you could’ve done it before, but there’s probably something different in the way you did it than you might have before, do you know what that might be? 

I don’t know.  Because I know a lot of times, a lot of times where people don’t like to say things they just, I’ll say it.  If I’m in a group setting and, you know, somebody’s wearing something inappropriate, and the group is saying that looks weird. Let’s say a waiter or waitress is wearing something or whatever, and I’ll just ask a question like, why would you wear something like that in public or, you know, are you, are you wearing that because, you know, you got in trouble for being late to work or something, you know.

Do you have problems with being impulsive? 

I don’t think so.  I don’t think impulsive, no.

The disinhibition after severe brain injury issue may continue to plague Quinn for a while, to some extent because of what is truly an exceptional sense of humor.  Humor is a very complicated process, requiring a good sense of timing, of knowing the line between irreverent satire and offensiveness.  The closer you get to the line, the funnier you are.  But cross the line, and you don’t get a second chance. To walk that line, you must be able to read other people, something that becomes much harder after brain injury. We hope efforts to tone down his sense of humor, doesn’t cost Quinn one of his most enduring personality traits because of his disinhibition after severe brain injury.

Next in Part Twenty Seven – Decision Making Challenges after Severe TBI

By Attorney Gordon Johnson

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