If your loved one suffers flat affect symptoms, I urge you to seek help from a professional. His flat affect lasted nearly three months before we began to see significant improvements, but every minute felt like a year. I wanted him back whole and complete and able to love me in return. These days, when I wake up each morning, I am grateful for the light that has returned to Hugh’s eyes, and for the meaningful life he now enjoys. So it’s worth having a neuropsychologist figure out this part of the equation. It is not only caused by the physical trauma of TBI to the brain but can result from depression. It’s hard to accept a truth you don’t want to tell yourself.įlat affect changes the dynamics of a person’s relationships to everyone in his or her world but quite often, it doesn’t last longer than six months.
But what if he never changes? What if he stays this way? Can I live like this? These questions hounded me because I feared the answers. Of course, I still love him, I told myself. I remember speaking to a psychologist about my disturbing inner thoughts and no matter how much she told me that my feelings were normal and warranted, they felt reprehensible and unforgivable to me. These kinds of questions make family members feel shameful and blameworthy. Why am I feeling sorrier for myself than for him?Īm I selfish for wanting more from him than he can give? It can lead family members to grapple with harsh self-judgments: TBI incorporates so many symptoms into its repertoire that it’s impossible to understand the scope of havoc the injury wreaks on relationships, and flat affect, in my opinion, is one of the hardest symptoms to accept. They didn’t delight in the sound of his daughters’ voices or soften at the sight of those he loved.
They didn’t register, light up, or drink in the world around them. His face didn’t register emotion, and he didn’t respond to the emotional cues of those around him.īut I remember his dead eyes more than anything. He rarely spoke, and when he did, he spoke in a monotone voice. My husband, Hugh, experienced the “flat affect” after his TBI, and it lasted several months.
How do you love the man who can’t express emotions the way he did when you first fell in love with him? How long do you continue to gaze into eyes that don’t see your heart? How many times do you say, “I love you” to someone who doesn’t respond?
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