Traumatic Brain Injury

The Ministry of Accommodation

Division of Unseen Labor and Real Consideration

WendyLC

May 30, 2025

We regret to inform you: most spaces weren’t designed with you in mind.

They assumed endurance.

They rewarded masking.

They celebrated resilience without asking what it cost.

They presumed you were better by now — that healing was complete.

But here in BestGuessistan, we know better.

So we built something better.

The Ministry of Accommodation

Here, needs aren’t negotiated — they’re anticipated.

Requests don’t have to be made twice (or at all).

Support isn’t a favor. It’s infrastructure. It’s the beating heart of the BestGuessistan ethos.

This Ministry doesn’t fix people. It knows it can’t — and doesn’t try.

But it does the next-best thing (which might actually be the best thing):

It reconfigures the world around them.

Cognitive Load Reduction

All signage is readable, unambiguous, and quiet.

Forms are short — when they exist at all. When they don’t, there’s help.

Directions are literal: “Left. Elevator. Second door.” Not a riddle. Not a test.

“You Are Here” is always where you actually are.

Maps are clear. Fonts are friendly. Nothing requires deciphering.

Sensory Design

Lights are soft by default. Dimmers are everywhere.

No screeches. No buzz. No flicker.

Walls absorb sound. Nothing echoes unless you want it to.

Textures are intentional. Nothing itches or clangs.

Textural contrast exists throughout BestGuessistan — interesting, never overwhelming.

Physical & Structural Access

Seating is ample, not ornamental.

Doors open easily. If they’re meant to be closed — they are.

No stairs without equals. No corners without railings.

Every floor is quiet, stable, non-slick.

Movement paths make sense — and are never traps.

None of this is infantilizing.

All of it is accommodating.

Visual Order

Artwork is everywhere. This isn’t the Ministry that selects the art —

but it ensures the art works for the visitors.

Every piece is level.

Nothing whispers “fix me.”

You are not required to manage visual tension.

Chrono-Logical Clarity

All timelines adapt to individual needs, body clocks, and tolerances.

Time is flexible. Participation is modular.

You don’t have to choose everything in advance — or stick to it.

You don’t actually have to choose anything.

Canceling is never rude. It’s respected as a skill. Honed as a craft.

Here, the day bends to meet your energy, your rhythm, your limits —

free from expectation, free from the tyranny of “should.”

Emotional Consideration

Crying rooms exist. And are plentiful.

So do reentry escorts.

Support is available — verbal or silent.

Nothing requires you to explain why you’re overwhelmed.

Hope is offered, never pushed.

You are accepted exactly as you are, where you are.

The environment will meet you there.

Optional Artifacts

A “Checked / Rechecked / Still Here” sticker pack

Fog Log™ — Accommodation Edition

A self-inking “Not Today” stamp

A Maybe Bell™ — for when something finally feels just right

Cancellation Cards — pre-signed, guilt-free

This Ministry consulted not just experts — but the exhausted.

It was designed in collaboration with those who’ve been reshaped, disoriented, dismissed, or simply done.

This space does not require you to justify yourself.

It simply makes room.

It’s not about fixing you.

It’s about not having to perform in a space that wasn’t made for you —

at least for the length of your stay in BestGuessistan.

#Trauma #TraumaticBrainInjury #ChronicIllness #Disability

People stumble over the name.

Sometimes I stumble over the name.

BestGuessistan.

It doesn’t glide off the tongue. It’s clunky. Awkward. A little broken.

Exactly.

That’s not a branding blunder.

Not one of those names a company spends decades apologizing for.

It’s not incorrect — it’s intentional. Very intentional.

That’s the lived experience.

Because life after rupture — after a brain injury, a diagnosis, a breakdown, a crack-up — is all awkward.

The smoothness is gone, replaced by rough surfaces and struggle.

Things that used to be effortless now require planning. Coordination. Prep.

Extensive prep. A checklist.

Even speaking. Even being.

Before, I could talk my way through anything.

Any word, thought, quote, or reference was within easy reach.

Like silk off a spool, as Thornton Wilder says in Our Town.

Now, I rehearse. I pause. I hunt for the word that used to live right there, on the tip of my brain.

Sometimes my speech sounds halting.

I hear it before my listeners do.

And with every pause, I’m reminded: the old fluency is gone.

This is the after-you.

BestGuessistan slows you down. Makes you work for it.

Just like I have to work for everything now.

It’s not slick.

It’s not optimized.

It’s accurate.

That name is a mouthful — and so is living like this.

Welcome to BestGuessistan.

Try again, slowly. You’ll get there.

Join me.

The water’s not fine.

But it’s where we live now.#TraumaticBrainInjury #Recovery

Not cleared. Not sanctioned. Absolutely on-brand.

Due to a minor breach in containment protocols

(someone left a Fog Log™ in the communal compost; these things happen and are fine),

the following dispatches from BestGuessistan have been prematurely exposed.

We will neither confirm nor deny their accuracy.

But if you happen to find yourself in this order, you might just survive.

🔜 The Potemkin Department of Wellness

An internal memo from the Bureau of Appearances and Performance, revealing just how hollow the gleam of “wellness” can be when we’re soul-tired, performance-optimized, and dangerously good at faking fine.

🔜 BestGuessistan’s Corporate BS Bingo

Mission. Vision. Values. Synergy. Alignment.

The Ministry of Strategic Repositioning has finally decoded corporate doublespeak into actual human language.

And yes, it’s a game now. There are stickers. And dotting. And double dotting.

🔜 The Ministry of Ritual and Repetition

A field guide for those who need lucky socks, matched clocks, and to wash their hands exactly three times.

Featuring the Superstishwear Boutique, the Alignment Station, and the Maybe Bell™.

A gift shop is under development. Updates on a need-to-know basis.

🔜 The Modular Survival Kit

Forget the tools you’re told to need. These are the ones that actually kept us upright.

Maybe. For now. Until we need different ones.

We’ve figured it out. For now. Until it doesn’t work.

🔜 The It Dependsathon

A hedge maze housed inside the Rewirement Reserve.

Some paths are clipped with French precision. Others meander like English wildflowers.

Some are minimalist, mossy, and still. Recovery isn’t linear. It’s horticultural.

There’s a force field where questions like “aren’t you better by now?” bounce off and are never felt.

🔜 No Wrong Answers: The Video Game

You left BestGuessistan, but it left a little something in you.

This immersive post-visit game keeps the rewirement going—camouflaging vision therapy and cognitive rehab as play.

(Don’t worry. The yoga dog still won’t make eye contact.)

It’s a world. It’s a universe. It keeps BestGuessistan with you, but only as much as you want.

Individual mileage may vary.

Please note: this list is neither exhaustive nor binding.

Timelines are suggestions.

Publishing order is subject to real life, reprocessing, and rest cycles.

If you were hoping for consistency, you may be lost.

But if you’re comfortable with ambiguity, you’re home.

Filed by the Ministry of Controlled Disclosure

Because some leaks are intentional.

Everything is eventually fine. At least in the director’s cut.

#BrainFog #InvisibleIllness

#ChronicFatigue #TraumaticBrainInjury Fog

For anyone navigating TBI, burnout, or just trying to function through the fog:

I wrote this as a satirical check-in from a fictional island called BestGuessistan. It’s absurd—but not untrue. If you’re still buffering, that’s kind of the point.

Thank You for Visiting BestGuessistan

A short and completely painless survey for the recently rewired

WendyLC

May 20, 2025

Hi there,

We hope you’ve had time to rest, recalibrate, or at least unpack your emotional carry-on. As part of our commitment to non-linear recovery, we’d love your feedback on your recent stay in BestGuessistan.

Please answer as many or as few questions as your executive function allows. Or just nod and close the tab. That counts too.

1. Upon re-entry, how would you describe your current state?

☐ Rebooting

☐ Still buffering

☐ Overstimulated but optimistic

☐ Considering applying for permanent residency

(If checked, the Ministry of Transition will be in touch.)

2. During your stay, did you feel: (check all that apply)

☐ Seen

☐ Heard

☐ Held

☐ Quietly dissolved

☐ Like maybe you’re not broken—just on a different operating system now

3. What moment stuck with you most?

☐ The square of milk chocolate that healed you just a little

☐ The cup labeled Not Urgent

☐ The fire circle with no talking and no pressure

☐ The yoga dog who stared into your soul, then respectfully looked away

☐ The 1-mph treadmill that applauded your restraint

4. BestGuessistan might be right for someone who…

☐ Still uses a planner labeled Maybe

☐ Needs curated silence more than curated content

☐ Has a favorite yoga dog and no favorite human

☐ Believes buffering is a lifestyle, not a glitch

☐ Thinks plausible deniability should be covered by insurance

☐ Has ever left rehab thinking, That was nice, but I’m still weird

5. Any additional thoughts, dreams, or dissociative revelations?

(Optional, but welcome in any format: haiku, scream, annotated grocery list.)

You may reply to this message, ignore it completely, or fold your answers into a small origami bird and release it into the fog. We’ll find it.

Thanks again for visiting. We hope you’re settling gently back into your timeline. But if not—remember:

The ferry runs whenever you’re ready.

Warmly,

The Ministry of Rewirement

“Progress may appear non-linear. That’s because it is.”

#neurodivergence #Trauma recovery #invisible disability #mental health #Humor #TBI #Identity #Satire #chronic illness

For anyone navigating TBI, burnout, or just trying to function through the fog:

I wrote this as a satirical check-in from a fictional island called BestGuessistan. It’s absurd—but not untrue. If you’re still buffering, that’s kind of the point.

Thank You for Visiting BestGuessistan

A short and completely painless survey for the recently rewired

WendyLC

May 20, 2025

Hi there,

We hope you’ve had time to rest, recalibrate, or at least unpack your emotional carry-on. As part of our commitment to non-linear recovery, we’d love your feedback on your recent stay in BestGuessistan.

Please answer as many or as few questions as your executive function allows. Or just nod and close the tab. That counts too.

1. Upon re-entry, how would you describe your current state?

☐ Rebooting

☐ Still buffering

☐ Overstimulated but optimistic

☐ Considering applying for permanent residency

(If checked, the Ministry of Transition will be in touch.)

2. During your stay, did you feel: (check all that apply)

☐ Seen

☐ Heard

☐ Held

☐ Quietly dissolved

☐ Like maybe you’re not broken—just on a different operating system now

3. What moment stuck with you most?

☐ The square of milk chocolate that healed you just a little

☐ The cup labeled Not Urgent

☐ The fire circle with no talking and no pressure

☐ The yoga dog who stared into your soul, then respectfully looked away

☐ The 1-mph treadmill that applauded your restraint

4. BestGuessistan might be right for someone who…

☐ Still uses a planner labeled Maybe

☐ Needs curated silence more than curated content

☐ Has a favorite yoga dog and no favorite human

☐ Believes buffering is a lifestyle, not a glitch

☐ Thinks plausible deniability should be covered by insurance

☐ Has ever left rehab thinking, That was nice, but I’m still weird

5. Any additional thoughts, dreams, or dissociative revelations?

(Optional, but welcome in any format: haiku, scream, annotated grocery list.)

You may reply to this message, ignore it completely, or fold your answers into a small origami bird and release it into the fog. We’ll find it.

Thanks again for visiting. We hope you’re settling gently back into your timeline. But if not—remember:

The ferry runs whenever you’re ready.

Warmly,

The Ministry of Rewirement

“Progress may appear non-linear. That’s because it is.”

#neurodivergence #Trauma recovery #invisible disability #mental health #Humor #TBI #Identity #Satire #chronic illness

Just published something I’ve been working toward for a while: a travel guide to the soft, strange place your brain goes after a burnout, breakdown, or brain injury.

It’s called 36 Hours in BestGuessistan.

A satirical field guide for the newly rewired—where the signage is gentle, the coffee is strong, and metaphors are the local currency.

It’s funny, yes. But it’s also real.

Hope it brings a smile, or maybe just a little exhale.

WendyLC | Substack #TraumaticBrainInjury #Recovery #ChronicIllness

I originally shared this in Conquer Your Mind but thought it might resonate here too.

For anyone who’s struggled to describe the indescribable:

Your Brain Has Left the Chat

What happens when the part of you that explains what’s wrong… breaks too.

👉https://open.substack.com/pub/wendylc/p/your-brain-has-left-the-chat?r=byuk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

#TraumaticBrainInjury #Anxiety

I said I had a headache. Every day. A daily headache. The cadence was correct, but the rest wasn’t. “Headache” made me sound functional. Like someone you could offer Advil to.

The problem was language itself.

The original sin was the brain injury. But then the problem became language. My brain wasn’t working the same way, and the part that explains things was also damaged.

Language for pain has always failed. It’s a white whale. I had inadequacy stacked on inadequacy. So I made up a word: headpain. Not headache. Not trauma. Not static terms. Just: headpain. A hum, a throb, a shutdown. An endless, structureless dissonance.

It felt like being full of noise. Not sound—noise. Hissing, screeching neurons glitching out. Fridge motors triggered flinches like firecrackers. Sometimes I felt underwater. Other times, jagged sparks of sensation.

I used to live in language. English major. Linguistics grad school. Former CMO. I wrote thought leadership. I made things mean things. I was proud of that.

Then suddenly, everything meant nothing. I lost words mid-sentence. I couldn’t hold thoughts in my head. The worst part: I remembered what it used to be like.

I had watched my father, late in Alzheimer’s, struggle for words. I saw his frustration. I felt it later in myself.

Except I passed. I could still say “I’m fine.” I could still mask. I wore dark glasses indoors. No one expected much. There was grace. I gave myself none.

That’s the noise: not volume but distortion. Misfires. Glitches. Knowing what you want to say and losing it in transit. The panic of not being able to speak what you feel.

Pain language is useless: sharp, dull, throbbing, stabbing. None of it fit. I was trying to explain a full-body system crash with a box of crayons.

So I used stand-ins: “headache.” “tired.” “overstimulated.” They weren’t true. Just shapes.

People took me literally. Thought I meant what those words usually mean. They didn’t know I was walking around inside a howling, flickering error code. And I didn’t know how to tell them.

Because the words didn’t exist. And even if they had, I wasn’t sure anyone would believe me.

That’s the cruelty of brain injury: it messes not just with what you know, but with how you know. And how you say what you know.

The world saw me as competent. I could still string a sentence. I still sounded “fine.” I wasn’t. I was glitching.

So I wrote. Alone, in a dark office, with a desk lamp and a half bottle of Albariño. I started, not for clarity or for an audience, but to tell myself: I’m still here.

The noise didn’t stop. It hasn’t. But writing gave it shape. Shape is salvation. It has edges. It takes up space in the world.

I couldn’t silence the noise. But I could name it. And in naming it, I made space for others to hear the truth buried inside.#TraumaticBrainInjury #ChronicIllness

#PTSD
#ChronicIllness
#hopeless
#PTSDSupportAndRecovery
#braindamage
#Anxiety
#EMDRtherapyhorror
#Flashbacks
#ChildhoodSexualAbuse
#TraumaticBrainInjury
#losinghope
#Exhaustedfromfighting
#ChronicPain
#BrainInjury

How am I supposed to keep going, when I have no hope left?
Because of doctors refusing to listen, my quality of life has been taken away from me.
Because of a psychiatrist who forced me to remember being raped when I was 9 years old, I have been reliving those rapes over and over again since 2019
She did the 4th stage of EMDR Therapy to me without explaining anything about EMDR therapy.
She put a crack in the wall I built when I was a kid to force myself to forget 💯.
That wall began to crumble away, and the memories became longer and more detailed as time went on, until they became actual flashbacks.
Literally reliving being raped by him over and over again since 2019.
I filed a complaint with the State Medical Board of Ethics and Professional Services about it, and explaining everything she did.
They have powerful lawyers, and I don't.
Those lawyers used my brain damage against me, and twisted everything I explained and made it look like it didn't happen.
The State Board closed my case, and decided that she didn't violate Ethics laws, completely ignored everything I explained.
They ignored multiple requests to call me so I could explain anything better.
I am NEVER going to stop reliving being raped by him until she tells the truth about what she did, and is punished accordingly by the State Medical Board.
I need her to tell the truth about what she did, so I can start to heal.
What am I supposed to do to get her to tell the truth when I don't have any money to hire a lawyer to help me?
How am I going to start to recover from the damage I'm going through?

Hi everyone—just wanted to share something I wrote about what it feels like to live life as a work in progress after TBI. It’s called Now in Beta. Would love to hear if anyone relates. Now in Beta