Book launch Sun 13 Dec · Port Kembla · RSVP

A true story. A broken brain. An unbreakable will.

Surviving and reclaiming life after traumatic brain injury. A memoir by Kris Picker.

Book cover of After The Impact by Kris Picker. Kris smiles with eyes closed in the sun, golden butterflies rising from her hair, a surfer in a yellow helmet riding a wave behind her.

Coming soonJoin the list for launch day

Kris in her yellow helmet riding a green wave under an apricot sunset sky.

They said if I recovered, I'd be severely brain injured.

Eighteen years later, I learned to surf.

The book

For everyone who looks fine on the outside but feels lost on the inside.

One moment changed everything. After The Impact is my honest account of a traumatic brain injury, the person I lost, and the long, unexpected road back to myself.

  1. The day everything changed

    The impact, the hospital, and the strange quiet of not quite knowing who you are anymore.

  2. The invisible injury

    What it's like when your scans say "healed" but your brain, your energy and your sense of self say otherwise.

  3. Confusion, fear and loneliness

    The parts of recovery nobody warns you about, and the people who stayed when it got hard.

  4. Finding the ocean

    More than 18 years after the accident, I paddled out for the very first time, in a yellow helmet, and found the place that feels most like me.

  5. Becoming me, again

    Not the old me, a new one. Finding strength, hope, purpose and freedom on the other side.

The journey

The words that filled my head after, and the words that replaced them.

  • Confusion
  • Loss
  • Anxiety
  • Fear
  • Forgotten
  • Lonely
  • Strength
  • Hope
  • Healing
  • Purpose
  • Freedom
  • Me
Kris riding a wave toward the camera at dusk, hair flying, a grassy headland behind her.

Hi, I'm Kris

I survived a brain injury they said would leave me severely impaired.

Now I help other survivors reclaim who they are.

After my traumatic brain injury I was functional on the outside and completely lost on the inside. I didn't recognise my own mind. Getting my life back meant rebuilding my identity piece by piece. Many years later I found surfing, and the ocean has become my world.

Today I write, coach and speak so that no one else has to feel as alone in their recovery as I did. I'm also a gut health coach, so I bring the gut-brain connection into my work, because a brain injury doesn't only affect the brain.

  • TBI survivor
  • Author
  • Identity coach
  • Gut health coach
  • Keynote speaker
  • Surfer

Free for survivors

"Am I still me?"

The post-TBI identity recovery workbook

A guided workbook for survivors who are functional on the outside but lost on the inside. Six gentle modules. Do one a day, or one a week. There's no wrong pace.

  • Name what changed, and what didn't
  • Prompts you can fill in by hand or on screen
  • Built for tired brains: short, clear, no jargon
  • Yours to keep, no email needed

PDF · 60 pages · 2.1 MB

Be first to read it

Start with the prologue. It's on me.

Join the list and I'll send you the opening chapter of After The Impact today, then let you know the moment the book is out.