@MrsA. Thank you. Yes. She probably was jealous of me. She definitely is the sort of person who gaslights and lies to draw attention back to herself when the attention is not on her. She is the type who uses her appearance and false compliments to manipulate other people. She love bombs people until she hooks them. She did not like the attention shown to me during my time in the hospital or how people in our drum circle showed me compassion and kindness during my recovery from my TBI that year. It's especially insulting because when we met, it was at a community center drum circle. We had become friends (or so I thought) before we joined the larger drum circle.

I babysat her daughter so she could go to counseling with her partner at the time. I hung out with her socially. So, for her to spread those vicious lies about me -- while I was first in an ICU with an occipital fracture, a portion of my scalp had to be stapled back on to my head, and I had swollen eyes due to the fluid in my brain from the TBI injury, and memory and speech and gait problems from the accident -- that I had intentionally rode my road bike into an oncoming mobility van to kill myself, and that I was faking my brain injury for attention.

This seemed vicious to me, especially since I had helped her out with her daughter and thought we were friends. Years later, do you know that she became a certified life coach? When I found that out, I couldn't believe it. A life coach! What the hell!

This happened 19 years ago. I am fine but worry that I will develop temporal lobe dementia as a result of the TBI. I worry that I will develop schizophrenia, or that I will have a stroke related to my TBI. I worry all the time about my brain.

Your school counselor at your middle school sounds like she was really misguided to bully your entire class into supporting her own personal, dysfunctional agenda against that suicidal student. I don't blame you for hating that counselor.