Redefining Disabilty Project: Post #22

http://rosebfischer.com/2014/07/01/redefining-disability-an-interactive-blogging-project/

Time to answer another question.


  What would you tell someone who has recently been diagnosed with your disabilities or disabilities that you are familiar with?

Finally, an easy question for me. I'm actually familiar with quite a few.

1. Never give up hope.
2. Keep fighting and never give up.
3. Take as much time as YOU need.
4. Make your own list of all successes and refer to it often.

The reasons...

1.  Hope is easy to give up but hard to get. Yes initially hope takes a hard hit when faced with insurmountable odds. It's an uphill battle. Isn't life always? It's harder to maintain hope when you battle long enough, but once it's gone, it's gone. It is far easier to keep it simmering on the back burner. That way, all you have to do is turn up the heat (successes) to have it to a rolling boil again.

2.  Keep fighting and never give up. Remember Thomas Edison tried 700 to 10,000 (depending on the source) times to invent the light bulb before actually inventing it. If survival and recovery mean anything at all to you, keep
battling uphill. Once you stop, it's hard to get your momentum back.

I want this shirt from Zazzle.com

3.  Take as much time as YOU need to make it happen. You'll hear all sorts of helpful (harmful) stories and statistics for and against you based on other people's response. "My Aunt Gertie had the same thing and she was up and around in a month."

This is happening to YOU and YOUR body. Everybody and every condition is unique. You may be like me or a thousand others that do not fit in a neat, little category box. Even if you recover faster or slower than me, so what! I'm getting there and so will you. I'm doing it in MY time. So long as you follow #1 and #2 that is.

4.  Make a list of all successes and refer to it often. Keep a diary of firsts so you will remember if you have to. For me, it's this blog. It is so easy to forget how far you've come over time when the "poor pitiful mes" strike. Yes, I still have them and so will you. Each success is a milestone and something to be cherished and celebrated. No success is ever too small. Keep reminding yourself of how far you've come and do it often. There is nothing so revitalizing as looking back down the hill and seeing how far you've come.

That's my take. What's yours?

See you next Tuesday.