Sunday Stroke Survival: The Pity Pot

Are you on the self-pity pot again?! I'm on again and off again these days. It seems that nothing is going my way again. I kick myself from time to time about my first stroke. Especially when I read statistics like 80% of all ischemic strokes are preventable.

Did I really do this to myself? Why did I play Russian Roulette with my way of life? Didn't I know that my combined family history was slap full with other relatives with this catastrophic condition? Didn't I know the risk factors like obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking? Yes, I sure did. So why am I kicking myself six years later? I asked for it, didn't I? I sure wasn't living the 20%.

Hindsight is 20/20. I can really do a number on myself when I get in this kind of mood. So why am I sitting on the pity pot. I got what I deserved, didn't I? But even people who don't have these risk factors have strokes. There is only so much medicine can do after the fact and every day that passes the odds of recovery slips a little farther away.

Normally, I can get outside and do something, but it's really rainy and wet right now. Too wet to do anything even in the breaks between hard showers. We are going on the third day of rain here which makes matters worse. I've already completed 99% of the busy work that needs done so my brain slips into the doldrums. I used to write away on rainy days. That ability is gone. That's my problem, a too active brain. Without activities to keep me occupied, my thoughts turn inward. My favorite/most hated boredom pastime is kicking myself when I'm down. Nobody does it better than I can. Isn't that true for most of us? Living post stroke is so much fun, isn't it? Everyone needs extra challenges in their lives. Let's have some real fun and have a stroke, or two, or if you are a real overachiever like me...three.

Depressed yet? Me too.

Snap out of it, Jo! Your readers want solutions, up beat blogs, and inspiration.

Okay, what can I say here. Hm, zero, zip, zilch is coming to me. I'm thinking harder. The rain is good for the garden. It has rained in a week, and you did say it needed to rain instead of having to water it all. No? Hmm, thinking harder. You could talk about how much your back ached picking 10 lbs of bush green beans this week and how you should have planted them in an elevated raised bed to make it easier. No, readers are tired of reading about the garden. Hmmm, thinking of another subject. How delicious your Cherokee tomatoes were that you sliced for dinner the other night. No, that's more gardening stuff. Something about surviving and living post stroke.

Nope. Nothing comes to mind. Well, I tried. Sorry y'all. The weather report shows these showers moving off tomorrow. Thank God! Nothing like getting out into sunshine to get off the pity pot for me. In the mean time, I'm going to get up and do the 1% I haven''t done yet... put clean sheets on my bed, and put on some music and dance with the vacuum cleaner a bit. If nothing else, I'll start tomorrow with a clean slate.

Nothing is impossible.

 

Sunday Stroke Survival ~ The Pity Pot

Yep, I've been really hopping up and down on the pity pot for the past month with all that has been happening at home and abroad, and it's okay. I allow myself the time so long as it doesn't consume my life totally. Although I have to admit I've got an angry, red ring on my derriere from my long stint on it this time. I said all of these statements on the balloons over and over again over the past month.

Quite a few months ago, I told myself I wouldn't get on it again, but I was only fooling myself. Hey, I'm honest. I usually limit my time on the pot to fifteen minutes but this time I couldn't. Somethings are beyond my control. I have to go with it and ride the wave until it's over. Accepting things I can not change, but this is a hard lesson to learn. I'm fast approaching, the 25th, the one year anniversary of my stroke. What a year it's been too. There was no cop out of "look how far you've come" that would console me.

The truth is while I have achieved great progress, this is not where I wanted to be by now in my recovery. I'm terrified that this is all the recovery I can achieve and will be like this FOREVER. I'm afraid of failure. The stakes are too high for me that this may be my life forever more. There I said it.

 I expected more out of myself. Remember I'm the over-everything. I do not settle unless forced to and let me tell you, that's always a fight to the death. Recently, I've been reading anniversary blogs of other long term stroke survivors- five, ten, fifteen or twenty years post stroke. It truly boggles my mind. The courage it takes to be a survivor not just a year but YEARS! To not lose hope along the way and not give up.

Many of the words to the left have been used by others to describe me. Yes, they are all true to the persona I show to the outside world. Many have written me about being an inspiration or being a hero in their eyes.

 I'm not any of those things. Okay maybe, a fighter, outspoken, and intelligent, but the rest is conjecture. I fight to recover daily because there is a possibility. I've seen glimpses of what life can be, wouldn't you do the same? I don't want to admit that this is all there is. Given fifteen years there might be an inkling of acceptance. I'm stubborn.

I speak out because it's not in my nature to keep quiet anymore, even when it is in my best interests to do so. Would it be better to stuff my feelings and not give them a voice? I did that for a lot of years and it made me feel worse not better. It explodes in other ways such as drugs and alcohol...been there- done that- and don't want to go there again!

I shouldn't be a role model or hero to anyone. Everyone has it in them to do the same thing. It is their choice not to. Any excuse in a storm, right? And boy, are most people full of excuses. I taught myself and my children to take ownership of their faults and try not to repeat them. It's left some of their bosses with that opening and closing mouth like a fish in the fish bowl look when they take ownership of their mistakes because they are so used to hearing excuses. I don't make excuses I just tell it like it is in my perception.

I choose to live my life as an open book. Well, maybe not totally open, but as open as can be. Because self preservation beats out total honesty every time. In this age of identity theft, I'd be a fool to divulge everything on the net. But still if asked a question, I'll answer to the best of my hair-brained ability from my point of view.

So if I don't keep to my regularly scheduled blog time table, you know why. Real life is just getting in the way. But I'll get there.

Nothing is impossible with determination