Debby Ryan reveals 'life-altering' brain injury: 'there are some things that just did not come back'

Debby Ryan has revealed she suffered a “life-altering” brain injury that left her out of commission for six months — and that some effects never fully went away.

The former Disney Channel star, 33, opened up in a September 15 appearance on Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals, describing herself as a “migraine warrior” for whom “quite often the world is really loud. It’s really too bright … there’s a lot going on,” USA Today reported.

Ryan said she has suffered five concussions in total: the first four were blunt-force “incidents,” while the fifth involved “sustained shaking over a minute of time” — the injury she calls life-altering. “I had a pretty crazy, life-altering brain injury a few years ago, and I was out of commission for six months,” she said. “I went to this neurological rehab for six months, went and did this fringe science treatment that was really sci-fi and crazy … and it kind of got me back online.”

But the recovery was incomplete. “There are some things that just did not come back,” she said, adding that she now thinks in terms of “pre-incident Debby and post-incident Debby.” Her migraines “significantly worsened” after the injuries, she said, and she sometimes has to close her eyes to think clearly because “the visual data that I’m taking in can be so distracting and so loud” (Entertainment Weekly, People).

“I feel really fortunate that I have an amazing team of people around me who sort of reminded me who I am and was and also held a lot of space for that to change, potentially permanently, and love me through that,” she added.

Ryan, best known as the title character of Disney Channel’s Jessie (2011–2015) after The Suite Life on Deck, later starred in Netflix’s Insatiable.