Nige I had an online session today with the Bristol After-Stroke team. The aim was to introduce us all to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. All of the stroke patients in attendance were out of hospital, and therefore we didn’t have the behaviour you’ve described, not by any means! It would have been terrible otherwise. The cynic in me wondered how many fell asleep during the mindfulness session!
It seemed to me that the very first thing that we can reasonably do when we have had a stroke is to acknowledge that it has happened. That frees us up psychologically to proceed to the next phases of what we can do about it. So in a sense I have accepted that it happened, but I am not accepting of how I am right now - this also provides a strong motive for the many hours of apparently mindless exercises, therapies etc in order for us to learn either the new me or to re-engage old habits. If one tries to unpack the message given, one eventually can get to that, but no-one seems to be willing to state it. Possibly a generation/regeneration of this kind doesn’t happen for some, who knows why, but again these are members of the charity making pronouncements and perhaps they have to toe some party line. Obviously that is my view, but I am sufficently motivated to do what I consider to be correct. Perhaps that is an academic thing - take no-one’s word for it - or perhaps I am correct. In either case, we do what is right.
So I am not bitter that the stroke has happened. Don’t get me wrong, for I definitely do not want that experience again. But there is little point going over things and wishing. We can of course, sort out things like diet, blood pressure etc, but the doing of that now lies in the future. We have now decided to do something, rather than wishing we had.