From the moment I hit my head and was diagnosed with a concussion, my symptoms consumed my life.  With time, my symptoms improved.  One, I believe that time helped me to heal.  Two, I learned to respect my symptoms.  There was no magic wand!  This meant I really had to tune into what was happening inside my body. I couldn’t ignore it….trust me I tried!  I would do anything to be ok, to be my old self and to be “normal”.  I was angry at my symptoms, I was mad, I honestly hated them and I fought them every day.  Pretending that I could ignore my symptoms only ended up hurting me in the end.  My symptoms would be screaming at me to where the only thing I could do was to lay down in a dark room, no sound, no light and no stimulation of any sort.  I was feeling defeated.   I tried really hard to be ok for others, to say that it was getting better, but in reality it was eating me up.  This was not working!

My take away: I had to stop worrying about what others thought and focus on myself, my needs.  Once I was honest with myself, that’s when I could give myself permission to do what worked best for me and my symptoms.  I had to feel the symptom and figure out what made it worse or better.  For me it was hard accepting wearing sunglasses and a hat all of the time, but it’s what I needed. These are my survival tools!  It meant asking friends or family to turn lights down or off.  It meant explaining to my son I couldn’t watch him play soccer and I couldn’t watch my daughter dance.  With learning to listen to my body and respecting my symptoms, I saw my symptoms start to calm.  I learned that this took daily practice, patience with myself and self care.  Today, I am proud of how far I have come and continue to respect my symptoms.