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.
