The Hidden Epidemic of Brain Injuries From Domestic Violence

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The Hidden Epidemic of Brain Injuries From Domestic Violence
Research shows that survivors of abuse can sustain head trauma more often than football players. But they are almost never diagnosed.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/magazine/brain-trauma-domestic-violence.html

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In Phoenix, finding work was difficult. The headaches had become debilitating. She wasn’t being hit in the head anymore, but the pain washed over her anyway. She would wake up in the middle of the night, nauseated from it. The ache in her mouth became intolerable, too, so she finally had every molar pulled.

She was also becoming increasingly forgetful. She would walk into a room to do something and then have to backtrack — sometimes several times — to recall why she was there. She lost her train of thought midsentence. After reading passages in a book, she had to reread them almost immediately to remember what they said. It always felt as if a blank wave, a nothingness, crashed over her brain. Life had become quieter, but her mind seemed worse. “When you leave, you think it’s going to be great,” she says. “And then you’re like, Why can’t I see straight?”

Nelly noticed the forgetfulness, too. A year after Becky fled, Nelly and her baby joined her in Phoenix. At first they lived out of Nelly’s car, and Becky drove her granddaughter around in the Arizona summer, air-conditioner blasting, while Nelly worked. Sometimes Becky and Nelly donated plasma — $50 each would get them a night at a motel. There were days when only the baby ate. They would eventually save enough money to rent a place in a quiet neighborhood; when Becky told the landlord about her ex-boyfriend, he put bars on all of her windows. Having lived apart from Becky for so many years, Nelly was startled by the way her mom told the same story multiple times, not remembering that she had already shared it, and constantly lost things after stowing them in unusual places.

One night, Becky Googled “domestic violence help” and came across a public-radio story about a local neurologist who treated women whose heads had been repeatedly battered. Dr. Glynnis Zieman worked at the Barrow Neurological Institute’s Concussion & Brain Injury Center in Arizona and treated professional athletes for mild traumatic brain injuries, also known as concussions. She also treated women like Becky.