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Several years ago I had a "serious" stroke and I believed (and others did too) that I would never be able to communicate "properly" again. I did not believe I could communicate using a pen and paper, or using a computer again. I could put a pen in my hand, or, of course, I could start-up a computer, but everything was a mess. Some words were not really words. Some words were words, but most of the time they were the wrong words. There was not much difference between trying to write or trying to speak...it was a mess. I was a mess.
The doctors told me that my aphasia may get better, or may not, but...that's not what they do: they kept me alive and they told me I should talk to the therapists, so I did. In the first few weeks or so they started the typical therapy, which means they listened to try to find out how bad my aphasia was. Perhaps a half-hour, two or three days a week in the hospital, listening to me, trying to talk. They told me that it may get better overtime, but...only maybe. They really didn't know.
Over the next several months, and several different therapists, we did the same thing...listen, talk, use different blocks of colors, dimes, quarters and pennies to make change and put the numbers in the right sequence. Months and months we did this. Most of the time I could have an hour, two or three days weekly. I got "a little better", which means I could find the names for a few people and knew the difference between quarters or dimes. They knew that I had "serious" aphasia...they knew, but they didn't tell me. They just told me that it may get better eventually...perhaps.
My aphasia didn't get too much better overtime, but I did get to be good at depression! I read everything that I could find about this disability, and the more I read the deeper I got into my depression. Everything I read told me that the first three, or perhaps six-months were critical: if it's going to get better it will be in the first six-months, and I had been working at it longer already. The last therapist told me that he could not do anything else for me. I believed my communication systems had been permanently "trashed" and I would never "come back". I believed it. I honestly believed it...I would never be able to talk or write properly again.
Of course, I was wrong. This is my primary website, although I have created others. I may tell people that I have aphasia, but I don't have to. I can talk to people that I have never met and they do not know that I have a communicate problem. I may tell people that I have aphasia when I choose to, not because I have to. Today, I can talk to people and I write. I may never be "100%" again, but I'm not sure about that either. I get better every single day. I have done this because of the following three critical factors:
Accepted the fact that depression is a part of a disability and got over it.
Created a plan to get a healthy mind-set and I use it everyday.
I use a computer like it is a part of me.
After years of deep depression I created my own strategy. I had to. I wanted to have a quality life, but without my communicate systems I almost didn't care. There was no one that could help me. I knew that I had to do it myself, so I did. For many years I assumed that my biggest problem was aphasia, and that I would never be able to communicate properly because of it...but when I decided that my fundamental problem was depression, not aphasia, I could go forward, and I did.
For me, this is critical: get rid of all of the smoke and mirrors and start with a blank page...a clean blackboard. I, and everyone else, cannot "fix" aphasia, but we can fix the depression. It's an emotion, and we can change that if we want to. When we get rid of the depression we can go forward, including learning, or relearning, our communication systems. I can't say this too many times: the depression is the killer, not the aphasia. I don't know, but I believe other kinds of disabilities may have the same problem. When depression is the uppermost thought in our mind it is impossible to think clearly.
Depression, and the smoke and mirrors in the mind are close relatives. The most important emotions in our minds and hearts are secondary: the uncontrollable depression counteracts learning. Before we go to the next page, remember my disclaimer...and I'm going to say something critical:
Learning, and more importantly, relearning, is impossible if the depression is the primary thought everyday and every minute, and medications used to get rid of the depression also gets rid of clear thinking. Throw the pills in the garbage, take on the depression and fix it and start to learn, dream and create again. Of course, I could be wrong...but I don't think so.
In order to have a clean page to start, we must understand what it is, and what it isn't. Do you know what it is? Are you sure? You may be surprised…
Next is "what it is"...according to most people and "according to Ghosters",
and that is not exactly the same!
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