“Ernest Hemingway – TBI Sufferer!”

I was aware that Ernest Hemingway suffered from depression and his death was the result of suicide.  I remember reading “For Whom The Bell Tolls” when I was in college.  Since I am a quote hoarder, I came across the above quote and I wondered just what made him think like this…so broken.  I dug deeper.  My attention span isn’t what it should be just yet so I’m still reading, but I have learned that he suffered several concussions.  Could this have contributed to his depression?

I found the following:

“The Paris Wife” is a New York Times Bestseller written by Paula McLain about Hemingway, his wife and their life in Paris during the 1920’s.  From the website:

http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/features/paula_mclain/fact-vs-fiction/

she states:

“Ernest was notoriously accident-prone. In his lifetime, he suffered no fewer than ten concussions for various reasons—trench mortar, auto accidents, plane crashes, jumping from a motorcycle into a ditch. Some of his mishaps had comic elements, like pulling a skylight down on his head, or dropkicking a mirror, or shooting himself in the legs while gaffing a shark, or being clawed while playing with a lion. Some were quite terrible. Following two successive plane crashes in Africa in 1954, he was even presumed dead. In his biography of Hemingway, Jeffrey Meyer lists the various injuries sustained: “His skull was fractured, two discs of his spine were cracked, his right arm and shoulder were dislocated, his liver, right kidney and spleen were ruptured, his sphincter muscle was paralyzed by compressed vertebrae on the sciliac nerve, his arms, face and head were burned by the flames of the plane, his vision and hearing were impaired…” Days later, Hemingway was amused to read his obituary in a café in Venice. Nevertheless, the injuries continued to plague him and probably shortened his life considerably. Jack told Denis Brian, one of Hemingway’s biographers, that his father was never the same person afterwards.”

Traumatic brain injury isn’t new.  There is more being learned about it, as with any injury or illness.  Much is being learned about prevention and treatment.  However, like I’ve stated before, I wasn’t even aware of it before my own brain injury.  We have to break the silence and raise awareness.  Too many suffer from the depression and other debilitating effects that follow.