Shopping After TBI – An Overload of the Decision Making Process

Shopping After TBI: Part Sixteen of Angela’s Story

Shopping after TBI is a difficult thing for most brain injury survivors.  A store is a distraction filled world, with countless decisions to make, which most of us give little thought to. Those little decisions challenge the frontal lobes, interfering with memory capacity and the environmental challenges can cause meltdowns and huge errors in judgment.  Angela recounts some of these types experiences including a trip to Ikea where she went for one thing and was at the checkout with a pallet full of furniture.

“It was when I go the cash register and say, ‘I am so sorry I really don’t know what’s in the cart, and so I am gonna go ahead and leave’ because otherwise I will get home and I will have a bunch of stuff I don’t need and I would have to return it all.”

Angela explains in her own words about how noises can distract her:

Angela goes on to explain her difficulties with shopping after TBI such as certain stores make her crazy.  She also knows which store(s) to go to that she can deal with it. As previously stated, writing lists is very important when it come to shopping after TBI.  TBI survivors have a tendency to buy things that they really don’t need. Lists help to prevent this.

Fatigue after TBI. One of the biggest common denominators of brain injury symptoms is fatigue. Just as your battery would run down faster on your laptop if you computer starting running hot, a brain injured person required to over-attend in the world around them, like a store or a restaurant, will run out of energy quickly. Angela says:   “Well, I’m always exhausted.  But I don’t ever sit down. “

For Part Seventeen of Angela’s Story, click here.