Miranda is a 24-year-old fulltime psychology Honours student at Victoria University. Miranda was a young person fully into life, study and travel until four-and-a-half years ago when she suffered an aneurysm. A blood vessel burst in her brain and she now has a brain injury that leaves her with fatigue, concentration and attention-span deficits and high anger levels.

On one hand it is good that it is invisible so I can lead a sort of normal life but it is frustrating in that people don't recognise that I have a problem. You have to try so hard to get support. People aren't saying, 'How can I help you?' They are saying, 'Why do you think you've got a disability?'

I did research on hidden disabilities last year and presented it at a conference in Melbourne. I also appear on a poster promoting disability support services at Victoria University. I have had some pretty good feedback on it. It has been interesting - some people that know me and then have seen the poster have asked, 'Are you just a model?'

The whole visible/invisible discrepancy is really difficult. For example, if you see someone in a mobility car park with a wheelchair you don't question it. However, if someone doesn't have a visible disability you might question them, mainly because so many non-disabled people use the designated parks.

We don't wear a badge saying we have a disability, but that's exactly what I wanted when I first had my injury. I looked relatively normal and healthy to those who didn't know me.

My disability affects how I live. I can't lead the kind of life my friends and family lead - my life is much more limited. I need to have a lot of support. I don't have the financial ability to live where I like. I am limited in what I can do to earn money because of the fatigue I suffer. I generally can't work. I need to live reasonably close to the university because of the time it takes to get back and forth. I would find further travel too tiring.

In the future I want to study clinical neuropsychology and to do that I need to go to Melbourne. The course is not available in New Zealand, but there is no financial support in Australia for someone who can't work unless I get some kind of scholarship. I need to work out how I am going to deal with that.

I can only do my studies part-time. The Disability Support Services (DSS) at university are fantastic. I don't think I would be where I am now if they hadn't supported me. If I have a bad day and I am at uni there are people there who will help me out. There is a bed there where I can go and have a rest.

The DSS will come and advocate for me with course coordinators - this is really important for me because the psychology course coordinators are the most sceptical - they know so much about the brain. One of my coordinators questioned why I was getting support but once DSS came and sat down with me and spoke to the coordinator about why, then he couldn't do enough for me. I had to explain myself because my disability is hidden, my exam results were good and I looked normal. That was frustrating for me.

"The most frustrating thing about my impairment is the invisible nature of it."

Last year I volunteered for DSS and became a team leader, coordinating a team of note-takers. At the end of last year I started tutoring first year psych for five hours a week. It's not a lot but I couldn't cope with any more than that. It has been a good experience and helpful having a little bit of extra money.

It is difficult to find things to help with fatigue and stuff. I can understand why a lot of people get addicted to drugs through fatigue - they want to take something to relieve the fatigue and then they get even more exhausted so they take more and more.

One of the problems I have is irritability common with frontal lobe dysfunction. If I get irritable I have to call someone to help me. I get stuck - I can't work out what to do next. I call on a DSS person or a friend, flatmate, parent or sister and generally they stop what they are doing and help me out - that can be frustrating, having to call on them.

"Last year I came off my scooter and I took the skin off my knees. My skinned knees were there for everyone to see. Some nice ladies offered me a ride across town. I don't get that with an invisible brain injury."

There are a lot of things that I would love to do but can't afford and don't have the time and energy needed. I enjoy hanging out with friends but I can't do as much and last as long as everybody else.

My mum lives in Tauranga and when I go to stay with her, supposedly for a rest/holiday, I get tired and irritable because it is a different place. It takes me a long time to get used to a place and to have the confidence to do things like cross the road by myself. It seems such a simple thing to do but… Before my injury I went overseas and did my big OE and it was fantastic. But when I went to the conference in Melbourne after my injury it was very frightening because it was all so different.

I bought a motor scooter so that I wouldn't have to catch a bus, because catching a bus was causing so much stress. Because of my disability I have a discount card for the bus - the same as pensioners. Some drivers would ask me why I had the card because I look normal. I would get very, very frustrated and because of my irritability and not being able to control my anger, sometimes I would lose my temper and start jumping up and down shouting and swearing. I get angry with close family and friends too. Fortunately my relationships have all withstood this, but it has been really difficult at times. My friends and family are understanding so they will still love me afterwards, but things could be made easier for them if they had some support in how to deal with issues. It is really embarrassing. I searched high and low for some kind of support with anger management.

"I would like to be able to be doing a lot more than I am now without getting too stressed - it's probably a lot to ask but that's my dream. I would also very much like to be able to wake up and think, 'I haven't said I'm tired for some time now'."

It's four-and-a-half years since my injury and I have only just found a course to help manage my anger. It is a mainstream course that helps people deal with abusive relationships - it's not a course for people with brain injuries. There was another brain injury group and a suitable course that I tried to get into, but because I was on a Work and Income Benefit and not ACC I wasn't allowed. That was one example of hitting brick wall after brick wall.

Bus drivers and Work and Income staff need to be trained in how to deal with people with impairments. On my Work and Income file it must say a zillion times, 'This woman has a brain injury. She can be prone to angry outbursts'. People need to be trained in how to deal with people like me. Every time I try to talk to people at Work and Income I get so stressed I have to wipe that day out, and these are the people who are supposed to be supporting me. They actually make me sicker. I have had some really good and some really bad case managers at Work and Income. They just change case managers on you. It's really frustrating, having to start again and explain yourself and your situation - the stress is just so debilitating, it destroys you.

The Brain Injury Association is very supportive - especially when you are asking, 'What's wrong with me?' I was referred to them by my doctor. I found it frustrating getting different information from different doctors. Different stories make things confusing. I think some brochures about what to expect with a brain injury would be useful. Lots of information is available on the internet but it's better that information is given to you rather than for you to have to go looking for it.

"It's just a few people that have negative attitudes and I would like to think that people's attitudes to mental illness will improve in the future, with more openness and public advertising about mental illness."

If I'm having a good day, I feel great and I can achieve anything even though I still need to make sure I am super organised. On a bad day, particularly if I'm tired, I'll feel stink, I won't be able to concentrate, I'll probably cry several times throughout the day, someone might say something that annoys me. If I don't have too busy a day, I might buy a big block of chocolate and get into bed and watch a DVD. It's very frustrating on those days. Recently I had a bad day at uni. On those days I think, 'Why me, why can't I do this, why am I so tired, why do I have to get these headaches?' and I get scared because next year I want to go into full-time study for my Masters. I get scared about how I will cope with full-time study and worry about whether the support will be there in Australia.

In 10 years' time I want to be married and have kids but that concerns me. I want to be able to have children but I don't think I should if I am going to have angry outbursts every now and then. I need support to be able to go through the anger management programme and relearn how to be assertive instead of aggressive.

I'm never going to be 100 percent again, and there is a huge grieving process - grieving for what I could have been and where I could have been if this hadn't happened. I need to know that in the future there will be support to help me lead a semi-normal sort of life without the stress that I have at the moment.