Suffering from an injury to the head can completely turn a person’s life upside down. Not only does it impact someone physically, but it can have emotional and mental impacts, too.
In fact, these injuries can even have an impact on a victim’s personality. But how do these changes manifest?
Frontal lobe damage and personality changes
As the Mayo Clinic states, brain injuries often impact victims in surprising and unexpected ways. Studies have only recently begun to understand these impacts and how they differ from person to person.
Most of the prominent changes to a personality will happen in incidents that involve the frontal lobe. This is because this area of the brain controls impulses and manages emotions and other behavioral regulatory matters.
When a victim suffers from a frontal lobe injury, they could see impacts on their ability to control what they say or do. This can lead to rash decisions and out-of-character speech that may seem insulting or even antagonistic to others.
Struggles for everyone in a victim’s life
Because of the lack of impulse control and also difficulties with emotional regulation, victims of these injuries may also begin to lash out at their loved ones in anger. This is often a surprising and unpleasant occurrence that can leave the loved ones feeling like they do not even recognize the victim anymore, especially if they were mild-tempered before the incident.
In many cases, a victim’s personality will stabilize and return to normal through the healing process. In others, however, it can last for months, years or even be a permanent change that everyone must learn to cope with. This is naturally a very difficult thing for everyone involved.