“I Didn’t Feel Like Myself Anymore”

One of the hardest parts of surviving a brain tumour wasn’t the surgery itself.

It was figuring out who I was afterwards.

People often talk about recovery as though you simply return to your old life once treatment ends.

But after brain surgery, I didn’t feel like the same person anymore.

Some parts of me were still there.
Some parts felt stronger.
And some parts felt completely lost.

“Survival changed more than my health. It changed who I thought I was.”

At 25 years old, I suddenly found myself navigating exhaustion, anxiety, memory struggles and emotional overwhelm whilst also trying to pretend everything was “normal” again.

From the outside, I probably looked okay.

Inside, I felt uncertain about almost everything.

My confidence changed.
My relationships changed.
Even the way I saw myself changed.

There were moments where I genuinely grieved the version of myself that existed before my brain tumour diagnosis.

Not because I wasn’t grateful to survive.

But because survival changes you.

And I don’t think we talk honestly enough about that part of recovery.

Recovery isn’t always about “getting back to normal”.

Sometimes it’s about learning how to build a completely different version of normal instead.

That takes time.

For a long time, I felt pressure to act as though I was fine because people understandably assumed the difficult part was over once the surgery ended.

But emotional recovery doesn’t follow a neat timeline.

Neither does rebuilding confidence.

Over the years, I slowly started learning that healing wasn’t about becoming the old version of myself again.

It was about accepting the version of myself I had become.

And honestly?
That took far longer than I ever expected.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt during life after brain surgery is that identity can survive even when life changes completely.

It might evolve.
It might look different.
But it’s still yours.

Tomorrow I’ll be sharing another lesson from the last 18 years of surviving, recovering and rebuilding life after a brain tumour.