“I can honestly say and I know I speak for many others, I look forward to going to Headway”
“We all have in common a brain injury and life can often throw up challenges, but that’s where the similarity ends. We all encounter similar problems to varying degrees, commonly if we encounter any problem, we try to work how we can achieve it.
The brain injuries have been acquired through various causes and cause various disabilities according to how severe the brain damage was. So each problem encountered by people with such an injury tends to be different, i.e. everyone is unique. The main trouble we all have, is that we don’t fit in the neat little boxes that we are supposed to and often forms for example, don’t take into consideration tiredness/fatigue or good days and bad days. What I and many others like about Headway is several things:
- You meet other individuals who really understand the problems you are having as they have often experienced the same
- You are never judged by the service providers and are always there to help if you want help
- The service providers help by making doing/learning fun
- The service providers also know what’s good for you, and encourage, but never push you
I used to attend Headway many years ago and it was more like a coffee morning, but don’t get me wrong I used to enjoy it. But it has changed, I think, for the better as there appears to have more structure to it; the latest thing being a service user group, which aims to find out what we want and not what others think we want.
An example is wheelchair users and the pre-conceived ideas people tend to have—I was talking to someone and she had to be in a wheelchair for a short time. She was saying that she was treated totally different and couldn’t wait to be out of the chair and that her perception of disabled people has now changed. The really sad thing is, I’ve heard this before in fact I was probably guilty of this myself—it always happens to someone else.
I can honestly say and I know I speak for many others, I look forward to going to Headway.”
