Dark Days

In some of my posts, such as my last one on mountain running, I fear I might give the impression I'm something of a recovery machine, that I'm an astounding success at recovering from my TBI.  If I have, that impression would certainly not be correct.  I have made mistakes (such as those discussed in Mike's Regrets), but what I think are more important from a day-to-day perspective are dark days,

I think all recoverees, myself included, sometimes face dark days, days where the weight of recovery seems too much to bear.  As an example showing how not to recover, I'm writing this post to talk about what I think helps for dealing with dark days: don't give in to them.

The ability to feel sorry for ourselves is a common human trait.  Whoever we might be, I reckon it's only natural for recoverees, myself included, to sometimes stand back and think, "man, this really sucks!"  A TBI can cause so much stuff to go wrong, there will likely be much to remind us that life is so much more difficult than it was before our brain injury.  It's natural that sometimes all of us will want to pack it all in, to give up and retreat into some deep cave somewhere.

Therein lies the biggest risk posed by dark days.  Do we give in and retreat from them?  That deep cave seems safe from the outside world.  Why not just head in there for a bit of nap?  The thing to remember, though, is that the deep cave provides little shelter from the effects of our TBI, it's actually quite cold and damp.

I think the trick with dark days is know they come, but don't last forever.  As we're experiencing them,  I think it helps to keep in mind that, while not much fun, things could always be worse.  What's important is to stay out of the cold, damp cave, instead standing in the sun as we keep getting into stuff.  Know that dark days come, but don't give into them!

Cheers,
Mike

Mike's Regrets

On this blog, I've tried to write about the lessons I've learnt. I know that many of them are things that have worked; things that have gone well. That might make it seem that my recovery has all been plain sailing. I can assure you that, unfortunately, that's not the case.

Awhile back, I talked to friends of how, if I wanted to, I could call this blog, How NOT to Recover. One friend asked me what I regretted and what I would have done differently. I've reflected on that quite a bit since. Most of my regrets relate to times I simply pushed too hard - I ignored the constraint of my TBI and more or less tried to do stuff as I had previously done it.

In the list below, I've written examples of me doing that followed by posts or post labels discussing what I've learnt about each.

• trying to work for four straight hours well before I was even close to being able to (Fatigue);
• almost getting another TBI by trying to body-surf dumping waves at a surf beach I went to (Brain Lock);
• doing a new piece of work without having regular conversations with my boss about it. I subsequently embarrassed myself by having my work fall well short of expectations (Let's Talk About It);
• falling off my bike because of fatigue during a cycling trip and scarring my chin (The Hardest Thing of Mike's TBI Recovery? Acceptance!); and
• most critically, falling over and badly breaking an arm whilst out hiking when I knew I had poor balance, but hadn't bothered to use walking poles (once again, The Hardest Thing of Mike's TBI Recovery? Acceptance!).

So my recovery has had its downs as well as its ups! The whole way along, though, there's been lessons to learn and I've done my best to learn them.

Cheers,
Mike