Surviving vs Thriving
The way I look at it surviving is learning to live with half a life and thriving is living at full steam. so you are living at full steam one day and out of the blue boom you are taken down by "it". You are taken down in so many ways you can't even describe it. So you lean over pull up your boots and try to go on. i at a " soul level " i don't understand the attitude of OTs. everything is geared towards adapting to your new life, to learning how to survive. and they encourage you in this new way of looking at the world. They encourage you to do things no matter what the risk and to feel proud of all the clumsy attempts at being normal.. The first time i went to my closet and dressed myself without anyone assisting or watching out for me i fell into the ironing board and ended up prone on the floor tangled in the ironing board and iron and waited for hours for someone to find me. my OT thought this was wonderful because I "tried". Never-mind I could've broke my hip, or wrist or leg, or hit my head and had another bleed. Because of this I have been encouraged to do normal things no matter what the risk. Yesterday i picked up my dog and took her to the door squirming away in my one good arm to put her outside to go potty. Now a normal person should be able to do this with one good arm so why can't I. as i bent over to put her down my balance was off and I fell on my hip. i tried to remain calm and getup. my plan was to hold onto the wheelchair and get up on my knees and get up. I locked the wheelchair or so I thought i made it up only to have the wheelchair roll away from me and i fell a second time on my hip. the next time I tried to get up i had lost my strength. No matter how determined I was to get up it was not going to happen . Yes I could do it in therapy under perfect circumstances with a mat beneath me and not a hardwood floor. the normal people in the house thought i should be able to do it since I am getting stronger and I did it in therapy with a gait belt on. Often i know when my body can or can not do something, i know when my balance is off and I feel unstable but I keep getting told it is all in my head (yup) when I say I can't do something. today, I won't go into the whole story, but I tried to do laundry and ended up with a half gallon of liquid detergent, allover the floor and wall and closet door. i do not feel proud of myself for this. Why should I? yes, I can get by, I can survive but i Don't want to settle for survival. i want to thrive. no one encourages thriving. i know it is hard work and I work hard but i also need to listen to my own body and stop letting others push me to trying things my body is not ready for. Why doesn't anyone else "get it"? Frustrated. Am I rambling? Getting back to surviving and thriving. I have an overwhelming urge to be creative and no practical outlet. It is like I have this hurricane of creative energy inside of me waiting to be released, to express itself with no tools to do it. Guess I need to get out the coloring book again. I want to go and do and feel like I am in a straitjacket. There is a soul inside of me screaming to get out.
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