Mike's Path to the Third Level of Acceptance

I described here three different levels of acceptance. Like I said, reaching the final level took me over a year from my accident and I needed the help of a kind friend of my father to get me there. Funnily enough, he isn't even a TBI recoverer; instead he has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

First, a little of his background. My father's friend worked with him at an investment bank. The young guys there were tough, regularly working more than 80 hours a week! All of a sudden, my father's friend started suffering from unexplained fatigue. It gradually worsened and eventually he had no choice but leave his job. Years later, he has now recovered sufficiently to hold down a normal, 40 hour a week job while keeping a young family. I can only guess at how frustrating it must have been to lose so much ability in such a frustrating way without any obvious cause.

I was lucky enough to speak with him about a year after my accident. I continued to suffer a number of significant effects from my TBI. When it came to recovery, though, I felt very much like the young-buck learning from the old-hand.

Part way through our conversation, he said, you need to learn to let go of who you were. This was a real bomb shell for me; I quickly saw that I hadn't been doing that all. I'd been very focused on redoing the things I'd done before my accident. I was making common use of the phrases, "when I start doing this again" and "once I get back to that". I hadn't been thinking at all about letting go of who I was and what I used to do.

Learning that sort of acceptance certainly doesn't mean you can't try once more to achieve the goals you earlier had. But it does allow you to feel better about your progress in reaching any goal by better better enabling you to keep things in perspective. I can only regard what my father's friend told me as fundamental to my recovery.

Cheers,
Mike