Q&A: On Forgetting & Feeling Disappointment with Who You Are Now vs. Who You Used to Be

A special thank you to Celeste for her vulnerability in opening up & reaching out while trying to make sense of so many things going on.

Q.

"Okay, so I just need a place to cry a bit...

This a.m. I excitedly showed my husband the white grout in a small section of our dirty shower, explaining I ordered a new dish scrubber just for this job.

He looked at me and said, "but you already bought that big battery powered scrubber for the tile. I'm worried about your spending."

I just stared at him. He was right. How could I have forgotten?

Returning to the kitchen... I completely broke down. He rushed to me apologizing for hurting my feelings. Hugging me as I cried into his arms.

It wasn't that he pointed out my error. I was crying because I am no longer that high-powered, self-employed, Advanced CranioSacral Therapist of 2 years ago.

The hard part is coming to terms with the fact that I am no longer as "smart" as I was. Instead I now have to second guess every decision I make, double check everything I do. Even then... like my dsylexia... I don't always know when I've made a mistake.

Thank you guys for the "ear" as I explore how to work within my greatly reduced cognitive functioning. I feel better just writing this out. Thank you!!

(PS I am at 25 months of LC.)"

~Celeste

A.

This resonates so much; know that it's not your fault & there's not much you can do that's immediately effective (if at all) in the immediate short-term to get that cognitive functioning back.

There are times where I have moments like that, too, where I suddenly am reminded how things are different, especially for something that I used to be able to do so easily and without much, if any, conscious thought & feeling that loss & wave of grief is palpable. It sucks. There's no way around that.

Try as best you can to focus on the tiny wins, whatever they may be, however small & insignificant they may seem.

Self-love can feel tricky when the person we are at the moment isn't the one that we recognized previously, especially if we really want to get back to who we once were.

Something that my OT said that I found really helpful was that you've got to mark that difference, in who you once were as separate and as a chapter that closed and grieve it, so that you can focus on the person you are now, to learn & discover the new things about yourself as you slowly start to move forward on your recovery journey.

I know how hard that can be to do that. It's a sharp difference.

If you broke a bone, there's the way you were before you broke that bone, and the way you are after --- it's that kind of a monumental sharp difference.

How far your path diverges according to what you had thought of as planned will vary from person to person and from the extent of injury.

It can be helpful to try to develop a natural curiosity & use this time to explore other facets of who you are, at your core.

I've found that when you focus on your core deep values, in a lot of cases (at least for me), they're often the same, even if superficially or the way they're expressed or obtained differ now, and focusing on who you are as a person, and not what you can or cannot do at the moment, can be helpful.

You, as a person, are so much more than what you physically or cognitively can or cannot do at the moment.

I find also sticking the suffix, "at the moment" or "right now" helps it feel less definitive, and more in flux with an element reserved of hope.

Try as best you can to be gentle with yourself & know that you're doing exactly everything you can and need to be doing right now, and know that that is enough.

You've got this.

Have a good cry & honor your feelings so that you don't suppress them & where they'll then artificially grow into more than they are, acknowledge the disappointment, pain & grief privately, and take a moment of self-care to do something, just for you & know that you deserve good things.

All the best.

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