Mattering After Brain Injury

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When I saw the Psychology Today post, “Why So Many People Feel Like They Don’t Matter,” I read it immediately. According to the author, Zach Mercurio, mattering is when another satisfies our fundamental need to be seen, heard, and valued.

Mattering is when we feel significant to others.

“Mattering is different and more elemental than ‘belonging’ or ‘inclusion.’ Belonging is feeling welcomed and accepted into a group. Inclusion is being invited and able to take an active role in that group, but mattering is feeling significant to its members.”

Mercurio’s description explains my — and many others’ — experiences after the fallout from brain injury comes to its fullest head. You learn you may belong; you experience being invited by people who don’t recognize your limitations and so your injury precludes inclusion — which tells you they haven’t seen nor heard you. You learn you matter little, if at all.

In the midst of the daily struggle to survive, you explain away the feeling of not mattering. People are busy; it’s normal that they help you only at their convenience. But when you encounter a different attitude or a crisis, you cannot look away from the fact of how little you matter to your loved ones. I wrote in Concussion Is Brain Injury: Treating the Neurons and Me:

“I arrived in England to discover that however I wanted to communicate was fine with everyone. I could text if I wanted to, phone if I wanted to, or email if I wanted to. I didn’t have to pretzel my way around other people’s preferred twentieth century communications. Instead, they in their normal lives, busy work, and relationships said, ‘Let us know what works best for you, and it’s all right.’

All right?

I almost wept.”

Communicating to others in my preferred way didn’t happen back home in Canada. Everyone had their different preferred ways and refused to accommodate mine. If I didn’t accommodate them, then they deemed me inflexible. Rigid. The irony of their attitude.

What does it mean to matter to others after a traumatic brain injury?

People take the time to learn about brain injury and about your specific injury.

They know injury means you process slower, react hours or days later, can be unable to make a decision within the time a crisis requires, and have difficulty problem-solving, such that you need others to tell you what to do or at best help you talk it out until you can decide what to do and then help you execute your decision.

Knowing all that, when a massive power outage hits, they call you to ask how you’re doing. You don’t need to call them.

When a widespread public crisis hits, like the 2013 ice storm, they call you to ask how to help you stay warm. You don’t need to call them for help. Nor negotiate when to receive it at their convenience, not your need.

When you have to clean up your home after a crisis such as flooding, they come over without being asked, and they help you at the time that works best for you. Some may pay a third party to help, but money, though gratefully welcomed, disconnects the relationship. You belong enough to their “group” for them to spend money on you, but you don’t matter enough for them to come to you.

Mercurio states, “When people feel they matter, they flourish. Studies show they’re more motivated, grittier, and healthier. But when people feel insignificant, they languish. Disconnection, disengagement, anxiety, and depression often follow.”

I instinctively understood that my lack of social support hindered my recovery. My book chronicles my experience of not mattering when I was forced to fight for survival after a serious health scare.

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In contrast, a jazz musician regained his piano playing and compositional skills because he lived within a social web that sustained him. Because he mattered to them, he could once again record an album. They received the joy of knowing that their support made his accomplishment possible. I wrote, “Those who don't support us see only the challenges, the difficulties, the distortions brain injury creates and translate them into personality defects that don't deserve compassion and help, worsening us in the process.”

What I described as social support is really the effect of still mattering to your family and friends:

• They accept your injury
• They listen to your health care team
• They seek to understand the ramifications of your brain injury
• They ask what they can do to support and sustain you and to help you problem-solve during a crisis
• They reach in and don’t wait for you to reach out and then negotiate how they’ll help, assuming they’ll agree to help when you make your desperate plea.

When you matter to no one, how do you summon the will and the grit to do the gruelling work of recovery?

Healing neurons is like training for a marathon. Even with neurostimulation, you cannot heal the brain successfully without pushing yourself to the limits of your neurophysiological ability. That results in immediate zombie-level fatigue, yet with radical energy-giving, ability-restoring rewards down the road. But how do you keep going toward the rewards when no one checks in? For me, it was desperation and faith. But they drove me for only so long.

As Mercurio notes, “We won’t solve our loneliness, disengagement, and mental health crises through more programs, platforms, and initiatives alone. We’ll solve it by showing up in our next interaction and ensuring the other person feels seen, heard, and valued.”

For people with brain injury, it’s not only about being valued, it’s also about being given the chance to recover to our full potential and being protected against suicidal thoughts. It’s about being allowed to live, not just survive.

Mattering means we’re still loved despite the worst aspects of our brain injury.

Mattering means we receive a chance to recover fully.

Copyright ©2025 Shireen Anne Jeejeebhoy.