What it’s like to have a stroke at 29.

  Having a stroke on the precipice of a global pandemic wasn't one of my best moves in life; it meant that aftercare and support either wasn't in place or was drastically compromised. I found myself scouring the internet for help and support in other places.  One group in particular, Different Strokes on Facebook, provided me with a wealth of support from other people in a similar position to myself, it also gave me the opportunity to offer snippets of my experience to people at the start of their stroke journey which actually made me feel useful again.  I recall one day flicking through the group reading latest posts and seeing that a member had asked if anyone else felt like "the old me had died" and it struck a chord instantly with me. It was as if someone had put words to the way I had been feeling for so long and not been able to explain. I was grieving for my old self.  Being able to put a label on my emotions was a huge relief, once I was able to identify...

  My most prolific memory of hitting the 12 month post stroke milestone was the overwhelming sense of loosing control.  At this point, for me, was when the anxiety and depression came to a head, if you like, and became too intense for me to ignore any longer. I waved the white flag so to speak and finally approached my GP, initially I was prescribed sertraline in a low dose which over time increased to the max 200mg dose I am on today. Despite hearing a lot of mixed reviews about Sertraline, I felt like it was the right choice for me to give it a try rather than just flat out refuse, given the fact that I have an incredible amount of education and training regarding mental health and facilitating support for children who are experiencing problems in that area and having being unable to manage my own anxiety, I realised that maybe this issue was too big for me to carry alone and I needed help.  Since starting Sertraline I've also been given a low dose of Amitriptyline, whi...

As a 'disabled person' it is all to easy to fall down the rabbit hole of what you can't do anymore and forget what you can do, especially what you can do well.  For me personally, I feel that I've spent the previous 12 months filling in form after form for various organisations, for example when applying for PIP, Universal Credit and ESA, detailing what I can't do anymore or what I need help to do, god forbid you say something positive about your capabilities on the PIP form, the decision maker has an uncanny ability to turn the tables on you and turn your 'can do' into could do more... You have to be so specific and brutally honest about your lack of ability to carry out day to day tasks it can have a really negative impact on your outlook and self esteem.  Earlier today I was cutting Lee's hair, something I've done since before I had my stroke, something I feel I do a bloody good job of too. When I finished I was so chuffed with myself with how goo...

So, on the morning of my stroke, initially I went completely numb on my right side; it started in my foot and I actually thought that my new boots were too tight. Within minutes it had moved up my whole leg, hip, torso and down my right arm. I remember holding my pride and joy designer handbag and not being able to lift it up to put it in the cupboard at work. After about 2/3 weeks at home being completely bedridden I managed to get around using Lee or strategically placed furniture for support, but I couldn't scrunch up my toes on the right foot. This became my obsession; I would lie in bed day after day just staring at my toes willing them to move, after 9 weeks, by which point I had all but given up, I was lying in bed one night and felt a spasm in my foot, I looked down and I was scrunching my toes up. 16 months on, I can still scrunch them up, the only noticeable difference from my none affected side is that actions seem to be somewhat in slow motion.  The right side of my bod...

For a long time following my stroke I felt sad. In my head I told myself that it was okay to be sad, I had had a traumatic event and life had changed drastically, it was unfair and it was my right to feel sad. Other people conformed this, even my GP said "its to be expected after what has happened to you." So I just accepted that I was sad and that one day I might wake up and not feel sad anymore.  But as time went, on and my physical recovery continued, my mental health didn't seem to follow suit. I was still sad. So much so I felt consumed by my emotion, like it was suffocating me. I reached out to my GP initially - obviously when it comes to medication for depression and anxiety takes a long time to find the right one for each person and the right dose. I recall one conversation with a lovely female doctor at my surgery who spoke to me so nicely I almost cried. She was so sympathetic and she almost sounded choked up herself, which made me infinitely worse! I cried for ...

There is a certain level of acceptance, particularly amongst women over the age of 25, that we are expected to work like we are not parents, and parent like we don't work. We are expected to uphold the care of partners, homes, children and pets as well as ourselves and maintain a job.  Now, I am by no means an avid feminist, I'm not going to burn my bra in protest or anything drastic, I do think as a country we have moved in the right direction thanks to the suffragettes proving our right to vote and equal pay rulings. But part of me feels that we may have gone too far the other way in a sense, we are conditioned as women to 'keep house' and uphold the managerial role at home but we also hold those roles at work too. When is it too much and which one do you sacrifice, if any? I mentioned in my previous post 'Strong Women Raise Strong Girls' that my Mom was a Career Mom, she had me and my sister 10 years apart and then when I was about 2/3 she began to work her w...

Before I wrote this post I did a lot of research into the topic of therapy, mainly because although I know an awful lot   about psychology and why we might feel or react in a certain kind of way, I have no personal experience of being the other side of the desk so to speak.  Most of my support work in schools centred around CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) which I have to say, worked incredibly well for most of the students I worked with.  CBT focusses on challenging and changing cognitive behaviours, improving a persons ability to regulate emotions and teaching them to develop and use personal coping strategies. It is based on the concept that your thoughts, feelings and actions are inter-connected and that negative thoughts and feelings can trap you in a vicious cycle.  My initial response to my own anxiety was to go down the CBT route; so at first I tried recording my thoughts and feelings each day (journaling) to see if I could find out what was triggering my lo...

Nobody warns Stroke Survivors that, although physically they may completely recover and no outward symptoms that they ever even had a stroke, they will experience random attacks of the most vicious and depleting fatigue.  In the early days following my stroke I recall feeling tired, as though I needed to be held up by two bits of string, I simply thought that I had been through a stressful ordeal, I'd been hit with a horrific headache that lasted almost 2 weeks and I was having to work twice as hard to make my body do the simplest of tasks like going to the bathroom or feeding myself.  After several weeks I mentioned my exhaustion to my GP who assured me that it was completely normal post stroke, my body and my brain were trying to heal and recover and sleep was the best thing I could do to help.  Feeling somewhat reassured by my GP I listened and did as I was told. I slept whenever I felt I needed to, which was an awful lot between you and I.  I would love to say no...

I had somewhat of a 'normal' upbringing, both my parents were hard working and we were incredibly fortunate to be comfortable enough to live in beautiful homes and have beautiful things, none of which came without sacrifices, that was something I learnt about life extremely early on, if you wanted nice things, you had to work hard to pay for them.  My Mom was catapulted into the life of a career woman, almost, it felt to me as a 3 year old, overnight. I recall she worked in a local furniture store where she sold lighting and every now and then my Dad would take me there to drop off hairspray when she made the emergency call (it was the early nineties big hair was absolutely essential and the heat of all those lights used to make her curls drop 😂). I can't even remember how or when it happened but she rocketed through roles like nobodies business; from a team leader to management to lead generation roles and beyond. She passed her driving test on one day, was presented with...