TBI One Love Survivor Dr. Anna Huysse-Gaytandjieva

Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Anna and I am from the Netherlands.

It was a day in April 1991. A friend had just bought a race bike, and we were both full of energy. I was dressed for a regular day - in high heels, which I wore often at the time. I asked, playfully, if I could try the bike. He said, “Of course.”

That was almost the last thing I remembered before waking up in the hospital. I had fallen - hard, on my head. No helmet. I couldn’t unclip my feet from the pedals. There wasn’t a single mark elsewhere on my body. All the impact went straight to my skull.

I was diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury. I spent months in the hospital and more time recovering in bed. The scans and EEG showed abnormalities. I was advised not to engage in mental activity - no reading, no stress - and was granted a lifelong pension.But I never registered for it.

At home, I felt restless, even trapped. Despite the pain, I pushed myself to read. Strangely, moving my eyes deliberately from left to right brought a sense of relief. I didn’t know it then, but I was instinctively doing what we now call bilateral stimulation - a core component of EMDR trauma therapy. My body was already trying to heal.

I hadn’t yet started university. I knew nothing about neuroscience or psychotherapy. But something in me had awakened. The injury didn’t just affect my brain - it disrupted my emotional world. I had always been rational and reserved. But after the accident, I could no longer suppress my emotions. My nervous system, like my immune system, had no regulation. I began experiencing breathing difficulties, anxiety, and isolation. Panic attacks became familiar territory. Still, I started medical university. Highly sensitive, overwhelmed, searching for answers. Medical tests couldn’t explain my symptoms. That’s when I began psychotherapy - and that changed everything.

How it shaped my life’s work:

That injury and the long, lonely recovery was not the full answer, but it was the beginning. The beginning of slowly coming into contact with an emotional world I had needed to shut down in childhood. The beginning of learning to listen - to pain, to symptoms, to the body’s wisdom. My physical struggles became a compass. They pushed me to search for answers for myself, and over time, that search transformed into a calling: to support others whose symptoms carry unspoken stories. For over two decades, I’ve worked as a clinician, scholar, and innovator, developing and applying an evobiopsychosocial model of autoimmunity - one that integrates evolutionary theory, immunology, neuroscience, psychology and social science to explain how a lack of safeness can shape immune function and trigger disease.

My upcoming book, Autoimmunity: The Price of Belonging, builds a new understanding of autoimmune illness — one that goes beyond symptom management to address the deeper roots of immune confusion. The book introduces the evobiopsychosocial model of autoimmunity, integrates insights from leading scientists in fields like immunology, neuroscience, and psychology, and brings theory to life through real clinical cases.

It’s about becoming who you were always meant to be - once safeness becomes possible. We are born to live, not just survive.

A message for others healing from brain injury:

Recovery is rarely linear. It’s physical, yes - but also emotional and deeply unconscious.

Our brain and body store memories from trauma in ways we don’t always realize. These memories can quietly shape how we breathe, feel, and relate. That’s why I believe so strongly in EMDR. It helps process what couldn’t be processed at the time of the injury — the fear, helplessness, and fragmentation held in the nervous system. Sometimes, when we look inside, we discover a younger part of us that longed to be seen or protected, even before the injury. That part might not have caused the trauma, but it may carry old pain that finally surfaced. Work with it. Be kind to it. Integrate it.

Mental training is real training

Mental training refers to intentionally using your imagination to rehearse movements, regulate emotions, or visualize healing — even if your body isn’t ready to act them out yet.

It may sound like wishful thinking, but it’s backed by neuroscience. The brain doesn’t strongly distinguish between real experience and deep mental rehearsal. Whatever you consistently focus on, your brain begins to wire for. That’s why fear is so powerful — and also why imagination can be a tool for healing. Visualizing yourself walking again, breathing with ease, speaking clearly, or simply being outside — all of this activates the same neural pathways as actual experience. It prepares the system. It sends a signal of possibility. Even if your body cannot yet follow, your mind can begin. And that counts. Your system is already trying to reorganize. Keep listening. Keep trusting it. You’re not broken. You’re adapting. And there is wisdom in that process.

To learn more about myself: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-anna-huysse-gaytandjieva-7951423/

Learn more about my work: https://balancedminds.com/cft-autoimmune-conditions/

Thank you TBI One Love for the work you are doing.