The Masks

Name: Paul

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: A car hit me and put me in a coma for six weeks. I acquired a traumatic brain injury.

Explanation of Mask: I have post traumatic tremors, seizures and depression.  “Spirit” is my service dog that I have for depression.

Name: Jacob

City: Indianapolis 

Brain Injury: In 2011 I fell off of a long skateboard fracturing my skull.  After several major surgeries, a 10-day coma, and a month in the hospital I was discharged to rehabilitation.  I then returned to college to finish my final year and earn my degree.

Explanation of Mask: This mask shows how my mood can change daily thanks to my injury.  Some of this is directly due to the injury, some is the effect of all the medication I must take.  In addition, emotions brought about by the consequences of the injury.  One day I might be excited, energetic and open a new business.  The next day I am depressed and worrying about my money and my future.  This bipolar tendency has unfortunately described my life for the past 7 years.

Name: Tanner

City: Martinsville

Brain Injury: I was a passenger in a car accident and suffered a brain injury, so the broken neck, six broken ribs, collapsed lung, and a paralyzed vocal cord resulting from problems during an emergency tracheotomy.

Explanation of Mask: This mask is a representation of my life before and after the brain injury.  I have multiple words and pictures around the mask showing my love and interest for music both before and after the injury.  The words and the pictures on the left side of the mask tell about me after the injury, while those on the center line of the mask tell of things that remain the same after the injury.  You might notice the cannabis leaves on the left, those are to say I was a cannabis user before the accident, and almost never drank alcohol.  The cannabis leaves on the left of the mouth tell it was my drug of choice before the accident and the pills on the right side of my mouth tell that regardless of choice those are the only drugs I consume post injury.

Name: Rachel

City: Greenwood

Brain Injury: My injury was the result of a car accident.  In a coma for 10 weeks.

Explanation of Mask: I love pink… and, now with brain injury I feel confused and by myself!

Name: Aaron

City: Brownsburg

Brain Injury: I was involved in a single car accident, thrown from the car 20 feet.  I was in a coma for over a month, then to rehabilitation and have been in some kind of rehabilitation to maintain my progress ever since.

Explanation of Mask: The left side of my mask is my life before the accident.  I was a student at Purdue University, I was excited to build a career.  I was the happiest I had ever been.  Life was great!  After the accident, I was heartbroken.  My dreams changed, time was different.  I feel frozen in time to right before my accident.  On the other side of my mask it shows how I feel that time was stolen from me.  I had to transform my thinking, my life.  I have no friends and feel alone.  I have learned to accept my new life – but I regret I don’t have the life I thought I would have.

Name: Andy

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: On an early February morning in 1992, while returning from a college road trip, my friend who was driving fell asleep at the wheel.  We went straight on a curve and hit a tree.  I sustained a traumatic brain injury and spent the next month in a coma, rehabilitation over a span of 168 days.

Explanation of Mask: My mask is intended to represent a (harleq-vin-esque) style in which half is shaded by the state of Indiana where I was born, raised, and educated.  It is intended to suggest a quality of nature, as indicative of  a life both pre-injury and post-injury.  I am now a much different person, both with personality and emotionally.  Since my injury, I have returned to school, eventually graduating Magna Cum Laude, completing most of a graduate degree program.  I am now a recreational therapist with experience working with others who have sustained brain injuries and people who are dealing with threats to their mental health.

Name: Ben

City: West Field

Brain Injury: I was hit by an SUV while crossing the street over a year ago.  I was visiting a friend and there was two construction companies that had machinery that blocked the view of the driver that hit me.

Explanation of Mask: I acquired a traumatic brain injury and was in a coma for a long time.  I am gradually progressing from being non-responsive to looking forward to grad school. I am still working on improving my speech and walking.

Name: Beth

City: Evansville

Brain Injury: My brain injury is Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI) with five brain bleeds.  Suffered January 16, 2016 during an auto accident.

Explanation of Mask: Red, Orange and Yellow colors because I am a fire fighter.  Crack down the middle to show how my life has been split since the brain injury.  But I am not giving up!  I know it is a long road to recovery, but I am determined and believe it is mind over matter!!!  I will beat this so I can get back on that big red truck.

Name: Brandon

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: I was in a car accident in 2002 on spy run.  In coma for 3 weeks.  

Explanation of Mask: The only reason I survived my injury is because of the natural protection that THC provides the brain.  I owe my recovery to an illegal plant.

Name: Brigette

City: Carmel

Brain Injury: One day after my 20th birthday I was in a car accident.  I was a 3.5 nursing student and a scholarship student for St. Louis University.  No drugs or alcohol were involved in this accident.  It was black ice going 35 miles per hour that robbed me of my life as I knew it.  Life is not fair.

Explanation of Mask: The hardest part of the injury, that has also been the most enduring of the negative residuals….miserably is loneliness.  Then years loneliness is still a daily cross I must suppress to stay happy.  The blue side represents the loneliness and the one question that was chronically inflicting my mind: WHY??  These feelings and situational depression was most traumatizing within the first year.  Although they continue, it becomes less, and less severe.  The pink side of the face represents the hope and positive attitude that help me make it.  In a word, (MOM).

Name: Daryl

City: Greenwood

Brain Injury: Brain injury is a left front temporal lobe, four concussions in two years.  Medical treatment needed each time.

Explanation of Mask: My mask reflects aa life before my accident as serene and orderly.  After the last concussion, things became chaotic and frightening.  

Name: Elaine

City: Indianapolis 

Brain Injury: My husband had a car accident on ice about 40 years ago.  I had 4 children under the age of 4 years old.  

Explanation of Mask: I then became a caregiver for my husband and my children.  My closest friend didn’t always know me.  There were no support groups at that time and it took four years until some of his personality returned.  God has been amazing!  Brain injury affects the whole family.  We now lead a support group here in Indianapolis. 

Name: Eric

City: Zionsville

Brain Injury: I was hit by a car after getting off the bus and crossing the street to head home. 

Explanation of Mask: I have had a transition that has happened after my injury.  Where there was once missed opportunities, new opportunities have opened up.  That being, returning to school and getting my second degree.  Recently found out that I will graduate in the Spring of 2019.

Name: Erica

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: I was involved in an automobile accident on March 15, 2013 in Kansas City, MO

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Jacob

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: In 2011 I fell off a long skateboard crushing my skull.  After several major surgeries, a 10-day coma, and a month in the hospital I was discharged to rehabilitation.  I then returned to college to finish my 5 years and earn my degree.

Explanation of Mask: My mask reflects two distinct states of being.  During my hospitalization, luckily either immediately after the injury or during the major surgery I passed into my afterlife.  This gave me a brief vision of what is to come and completely changed my perspective on life.  Time is different, religion changed from belief to knowledge, and everything is beautiful.  Prior to my accident, I was an extremely shy, perfectionist, type A, focus person, with only one track for my life – to become and airline pilot.  After the accident, I still finished my final year at Purdue University, but the original plan is no longer a possibility due to the fact that I have experienced seizures as a result of the accident.  Now, it is my job to find new paths for my life, and so far since the accident I have held five different jobs.  I have also applied for countless others, but  unfortunately, it has become clear that companies tend to discriminate that answer “yes” or “I do not wish to disclose” to the disability question on the application.  Also, a few, if any filters left in my head control my voice, so I sometimes struggle when speaking with others.  The background colors of my mask are intended to show that prior to my injury I was unsure of myself, occasionally committed questionable acts, but now I feel clean and know I have an eternal life.  Due to the combination of the injury, near death experience, and numerous medications, I have a far different personality and view of the world now than I did prior to 2011.

Name: John

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Julia

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Julie

City: Mooresville

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Kameron

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Karina

City: Avila

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Katie

City: Greenwood

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Katrisha

City: 

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Kristina

City: Indianapolis 

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Lawrence

City: La Grange

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Loretta

City: Brownsburg

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Maria

City: Kokomo

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Michael 

City: Noblesville 

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Monean

City: Indianapolis  

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Nancy

City: Clinton

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Nic

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Nick

City: Whitestown

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Paul

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Peter

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Rachel

City: Greenwood

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Rebecca

City: 

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Rhonda

City: Martinsville

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Roger

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Ryan

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Ryan

City: Westfield

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Samantha

City: Indianapolis 

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Sara

City: Brownsburg

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Sara

City: Brownsburg

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Sara

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Sara

City: Lafayette

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Shawn

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Sonya

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Stephanie

City: Knox

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Steve

City: Indianapolis

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Susie

City: Lebanon

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Tanner

City: Martinsville

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Thomas

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Tim

City: Martinsville

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Trent

City: Fort Wayne

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: 

Name: Wendy

City: Carmel

Brain Injury: 

Explanation of Mask: