Ep. 49 | You have been performing strength in public while quietly disappearing in private. And if you are honest with yourself, the exhaustion you are carrying as a TBI wife goes deeper than the caregiving itself. It goes all the way back.
In this episode, Erika Brouillette gets honest about the worthiness wound, the deep, quiet belief that your needs come last, that your worth lives in your usefulness, and that wanting more makes you selfish. This is the belief that started in childhood, long before your husband's brain injury ever happened. And caregiving, the relentless, identity-swallowing reality of life as a traumatic brain injury spouse, has a way of making it louder. Of making self-abandonment sound like strength.
Erika walks you through where that belief started, how it gets amplified after a TBI, and what it actually looks like to question the programming you inherited. Because caregiver identity loss is real. Caregiver burnout is real. And the ambiguous grief of loving someone whose brain injury has changed everything, including who you are inside of it, deserves more than survival advice and self care checklists.
This episode is for the TBI wife who has stopped dreaming. Who says she's fine when she's drowning. Who cannot remember the last time she wanted something just for herself and felt okay about it. Who has been told, by the world or by her faith community, that wanting more is ungrateful. That good wives give everything. That strong women don't need much.
It's time to question that story.
If you are ready to stop disappearing inside the caregiving and start reclaiming your identity, your selfworth, and the life that still belongs to you, this episode is your starting point. Join us at Reclaim to start putting this all into action!
Reflection Questions From This EpisodePause the episode and sit with these, or grab your journal.
- What did you learn about your worth when you were little?
- What did love require of you growing up?
- What version of you felt the safest to be?
- Where did you learn that your needs come last?
- Where did you learn that asking for help means weakness?
- What would actually happen if you let something fall?
- Where did you learn that wanting more is selfish and was that actually true?
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