Traumatic Brain Injury Leaders:Legislative Change

Traumatic Brain Injury Leaders: Craig Part Twenty Nine 

I discussed with Craig his role as a Traumatic Brain Injury Leader and what a difference he has made with his work on the internet.

You have been very successful on the Internet as a traumatic brain injury leader where one of the advantages is that you don’t have to wait for anybody’s permission.

Right.

You get an idea, you do it.   If the world likes the idea, it will work, and if the world doesn’t, nothing happens. But, in addition to the internet, you’ve, as a traumatic brain injury leader, had some success in doing things that are difficult to achieve because of the structural resistance.  What I’m talking about would be legislative changes.

Right.

Talk to me about the legislative successes that you’ve had as a traumatic brain injury leader.

Again, that it comes from the people.  It’s just a civil rights movement, whether people want to see it that way or not.   When the medical model’s gone, society has to accept us.  If we accept ourselves and we walk out and society don’t accept us…  So our civil rights movement is not from tyranny or, or suppression, it’s from, existence. People can’t recognize that we’re there.

And there’s a lot of reasons that that’s happened.  I’m kind of seeing this girl on and off, and, she says I don’t see anything wrong with you.  Well yeah you don’t, until I wack out.  But people can’t see it, and so it’s hard for them to visualize it.  Yet they can’t see cancer, but yet they can visualize it.

So our movement is just so that people understand that it’s a real disability and it’s probably one of the most sinister disabilities.  I’ve worked with a lot of disabilities and this one’s sinister in the fact that you can be normal one day and not so normal the next day, depending on where you are in your injury.

See when I’m not normal, then actually I know to stay home.  I’ve learned that, that’s the thing, I have to, because I don’t want to destroy bridges that you’ve worked really hard to do.   So, I actually have a scheduled day every week that is a down day in case I need it, just in between my workweek.

The success truly comes from all the people that you empower, it doesn’t come from me. I mean when we did our Olympia thing this last year, the 2000 people were there, because they were all leaders.

Next in Part Thirty – TBI Fund Act