I was reading a book when I came across this sentence which caused me to stop and catch my breath.

“In all of medicine, few conditions are as terrifying as a stroke, when a part of our brain dies.”

It was as if someone, but not just anyone, a doctor, had confirmed my darkest fear. Part of my brain died.

Of course I knew this on some level. I knew that my stroke had left me with brain damage. I had seen images of it with my own eyes. I had had numerous conversations about it and its residual effects with my neurologists.

Indeed, I should know this.

However, there was something vindicating about reading those words, in black and white off of the page. Reading this from a doctor, who had nothing to gain or lose, meant something implicitly different to me.

I read, ‘You are NOT GUILTY‘ instead of, ‘When you have a stroke, there is damage’.

It doesn’t blatantly spell out the difficulties that we stroke survivours have to deal with, nor is it an excuse for our, sometimes, bad behavior. It, however, grabbed my attention in a way that made me think.

MUD IN

The way that I, as a stroke survivour, process information is broken

The other day, my husband woke up on the wrong side of the bed. He was grumpy, bitty and cross. He kept raising his voice at me, as if I was the culprit of his bad mood.

I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong and his gruffness wasn’t aimed at me.

It was the complications of an international move, coupled with a strew of external factors that I couldn’t possibly be held accountable for. Nothing to do with me.

However that is not an easy concept for a stroke survivour. I tried to focus all of my attention on not letting him bring me down. Every coping mechanism that I had learned since my stroke was kicked into overdrive.

I was focusing on letting him express himself without rising to the occasion.

But still…. ‘Why was he acting like this? Doesn’t he respect me?’, I kept thinking.

And then, the old ‘I can’t let this go!’.

As I was spiraling downwards, towards despair, I kept saying to him that ‘I don’t like this’ and ‘Please, talk to me in a voice that’s a little less laden with fierceness’ and ‘I am a friend. Together, we can solve everything!’.

It was not enough.

MUD OUT

The way that I, as a stroke survivour, express information is broken

The next time he made a catty remark to me, I went apeshit at him. With the kids present. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, by the end of my tirade.

Shit.

As quickly as it started, it ended.

I dropped everything that I was carrying in my hands to the floor, creating a huge crash-like sound. I then proceeded like a woman possessed in a bee-line to our en suite, the quietest room in the house, turned down the lights and layed on the cool bathroom floor for 45 minutes.

I couldn’t deal with more inputs, least of all negative ones. I sought refuge in the bathroom. Laying on the floor, all alone.

I was no longer able to take all of the information in, compounded with the stress of the moment and the hurried-ness, and identify a meaningful way to handle it.

When I am on overload, my ability to handle life’s complications just dissolves and I struggle. To take it all in seemed impossible. My sensory processing had reached its limits.

So, I retreated.

Finding a passage in a book doesn’t absolve me from the work. It doesn’t mean that I can justify my behaviour by the fact that I suffered and survived a stroke.

Here are the things that I do when the mud in mud out theory has its claws in me:

Forgive Myself

I excuse myself for my less than perfect performance by reminding myself that I am a work in progress. I ask my friends and family to do the same.

Talk About It

Honesty is paramount. I cannot ask my children for their forgiveness if I cannot speak frankly about what I’m going thru. Sometimes I don’t even know it myself, but talking to them helps me to frame it in a simple way.

Get Plenty of Rest

In order to grow, in order to teach my brain the right way to handle such circumstances, I need to give myself a proper night’s sleep. Sleep affects our brain’s ability to consolidate learning and memory.

Relax!

Thru meditation, yoga and running, as well as cooking for our family and sitting down to a big ole supper together I find my happy place. Lighting a candle, taking a hot bath or going for long walks in nature also work wonders on my mood.

Reading that passage in my book gave me the same strange feeling I had when I read that ‘Aphasia has greater negative impact on a person’s quality of life than cancer or Alzheimer’s disease’.

It was less a feeling of satisfaction and more a feeling of aha! A short glimpse into the awareness that it is not me!

As I too suffer from aphasia, it caught my interest and I began to dig around in the facts.

Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds!

Every 4 minutes, someone dies of stroke!

Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability in the States.

So, yeah, I am deeply ashamed about my behaviour over the weekend and its consequences. Instead of beating myself up over it, I am trying to learn from it.