Brain injuries are one of the strangest medical problems we can experience. On the outside, to those who might meet someone with a traumatic brain injury, it can be completely invisible. On the inside, with the headaches, light sensitivity, brain fog and countless other symptoms, it’s anything but.

The idea for the series came to me out of this experience. It is an attempt, through a visual medium, to make an invisible injury visible through photo composites.  I want to visually express how a brain injury feels in hopes that this helps people better understand my experiences and those of the many people who have invisible disabilities. I also hope it helps create more empathy and reduces bias.

One of the most difficult aspects of living with a brain injury is navigating relationships and interacting with others. Early on after my injury I learned what almost everyone with an invisible disability or chronic health problem already knows. Many people are critical and dismissive of disabilities or injuries that can’t be seen. These injuries are definitely not obvious to others, like having a bandaged head or hobbling with a crutch.

My symptoms have slowly been improving, although a return to somewhat better health has been a decade long process. Still, over all these years, many people couldn’t picture how severe my injury was because, of course, it was completely invisible to them.

Hence these photos. I used Photoshop to create the images. The photos were taken on Toronto Island, the great North Coast of Lake Superior, and on Canada’s southernmost inhabited spec of land, Pelee Island. 

As you’ll see in many of the images, I tried to create, through visual means, some of the feelings of pain and mental fogginess that are the hallmarks of this injury. In Immobilized, I want to show how my life was frozen while others moved on, represented by blurs around me.  Searching for Silver Linings, one of the Pelee Island photographs, illustrates a feeling I had early on when I tried desperately to find something I could learn and take away from this terrible experience. Friendly Fire 1 and 2 are about well meaning offers of health advice that often aren’t very helpful. With Chaos I am trying to show how completely overwhelming it can feel when exposed to noise, light or any other stimulus.  I placed that feeling in the top of my head where I have a constant headache.

I would also like to thank the Ontario Arts Council for its funding and support. I hope you enjoy Out of Order as much as I enjoyed creating it.