Emotional Containment


KevRider

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Little to note on the physical recovery this week. I haven't noticed any improvements but advancements are slight at this stage. On the other hand I have noticed a reduction in my ability to contain emotions across the full scale. This has been true since my stroke but seems to have been exacerbated by events around the Black Lives Matter protests. So I have been a bit down this week. I went looking for some comic relief  and found on Netflix 'Douglas' which was a show by an Australian comedian which was funny but I found hilarious.  also found it hard to contain to the point on laughing so hard I had trouble breathing!

The virus continues to climb here in Arizona so Deb & I are still isolating, the days are generally coffee, breakfast , ride, garden, Treadmill, lunch, Tv and dinner then sleep, Repeat !

The weather did a first yesterday and froze after June 1st. killing a lot of outside plants it took out a bed of squash but weirdly left one unharmed. That was a major set back! By contrast the hoop house is growing into a jungle providing lots of greens and tomatoes are starting to come in strong. Tending the plants challenges my balance and can induce some headiness but for the most part the early headiness has all but disappeared.

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The greenhouse looks wild! The late frost is a downer but happens to farmers everywhere. Glad you found a comedy you liked, Aussie humour isn't to everyone's taste but if you get it you get it. I must look up Douglas. I think all cope with the Corona with a routine, ours is disintegrating now  as we are relaxing the restrictions but so far going back to our old routines is not possible and I am not sure I want to anyway.

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Kev the emotional control circuits loss or reduction is one of those very common things hit by stroke. I think we all get it to some degree.  Stroke tends to lead to some pretty raw emotional responses anyway but it also often damages the feedback loop we all use to remain "socially acceptable" in our physical responses to emotions.  In severe cases it is called PBA or Emotional Lability, and then the emotion expressed is not always the emotion felt, or its completely over the top. So sadness can come out as laughter, and vice versa, and once you start to laugh or cry it's very hard to stop.  If it's really bad you can get drugs to help control it, although for most people you can relearn the skill with time and persistence (sound familiar yet 😀)

Even with the drugs I occasionally find something that is actually mildly amusing completely hysterically funny and laugh 'til I can't breathe.  I still giggle a little when we use the collapsable cones at the gym. One evening I kept stepping on them and they way they moved, popping back to shape just set me off. My trainer was getting me to walk up to them and tap the top of the cone with my foot, and I would either barely touch it or I would smash it flat. So I was actually getting pretty frustrated at myself. But I ended up in hysterics and my trainer thought I was distressed and was seriously worried and I could not find the breath to tell him I was fine, just laughing really hard.

 

I am sorry that you lost some squash to the untimely frost. It is funny how sometimes all but one plant will be hit, it's something about where and when the sun or wind hits on the frozen leaves, watering the night before a frost is supposed to help, as does watering before the sun hits the leaves as this melts the ice more gently and stops the capillaries from bursting.

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