I tend to be a smartphone critic.
Every time I see someone on their phone, I make a mental note of the case — “Gee, that case looks great, I wonder where they got it?” And sometimes it’s more like, “You spent a thousand bucks on that phone and put a five-dollar plastic ‘protector’ on it? Let me know how that pans out for you.”
But I’ll admit — I quickly judge people who walk around with cracked screens.
It drives me crazy. I find myself thinking, “How in the world do they navigate through life like that?”
That’s when the light bulb went off.
Living with a brain injury is just like living with a cracked screen on your phone.
The phone still turns on. It still rings. It still holds all your memories, your messages, your apps — the core of who you are — but the cracks distort things. Sometimes you press one spot and nothing happens. Other times, it reacts, but not in the way you expect. You try to swipe, but it freezes. You open one thing, and something else pops up.
That’s what it feels like inside an injured brain.
You know exactly what you want to say, what you want to do, but the message doesn’t always get through. The “touchscreen” of the mind just doesn’t respond like it used to. You can see what’s behind the cracks, but getting to it takes more patience — and sometimes, more grace than the world is willing to give.
And yet, just like that cracked phone, the heart of it still works. The music still plays. The memories are still stored inside. The soul is untouched — it’s just harder to access.
What we often forget is that we live in a world that upgrades its phones every year, but struggles to show patience for people who need time to heal. We’re quick to replace, quick to judge, quick to move on — but healing doesn’t happen on a fast charger.
So the next time you see someone with a cracked screen — or someone whose “signal” seems a little slow — remember this:
They’re doing their best to navigate through the cracks.
And even when the glass looks shattered, the light underneath still shines through.
Because both the phone and the brain — when treated with care, compassion, and understanding — can still connect, still function, and still bring light into the world.
Even a cracked screen can still illuminate the dark.