"You can't possibly know of my struggles and I cannot know yours - as goes the human condition, wanting to share but unable to compare. "

 

Hey, this is just brilliant. Most of what you said in your blog is what I have been trying to say in mine from time to time over the past twelve months.

 

We are all in this caregivers and survivors alike, struggling with the EFFECTS of stroke rather than the actual stroke event. All survivors have had a stroke but each one is different, no two alike. While we all struggle to understand each other, maybe seeing others as "better off" or "worse off" than ourselves or our loved one, there is no way to form a scale to compare and if there were, what is the point?

 

The task here is not comparison but encouragement, support, ongoing concern etc as everyone struggles with some of a long list of residual deficits physical and emotional. We all hope that by documenting our progress through all this we can help others. And maybe by adding to their knowledge they will not fall into some of the traps that have delayed progress in others.

 

As a caregiver I struggle with it all one step removed, Ray has deficits, I make up the difference in what he can't do and what he needs to do to experience and live a full life. I am able bodied but am giving my strength and support to him to enable him to survive in a world designed to be a place for people with both arms and legs fully operational.

 

Hope that all made sense.

 

Sue.

 

Thank you - I'm glad that rather than frustrate or offend, you understood the message as intended: "there is no way to form a scale to compare and if there were, what is the point?"

 

 

Well put.

 

I guess that I am saying that while we can't compare, it is important to acknowledge and include.

Sherri, What you're saying is true and sometimes very hard to do. The word "stroke" covers such a broad spectrum of conditions. I must say that since I've come to know a lot about MS through our niece who has it, the same can be said of that diease as well. Her MS related support circles have the same kinds of frustrated between the mild and severely effected as we sometimes see here. Plus, a lot of their issues are the same as those in the stroke community. It's a human condition that will never change that we compare. When Paris Hilton cries over a hang nail, the person with no hand is shaking his/her head in frustation or struggling to understanding that everything is relative.

 

The task here is not comparison but encouragement, support, ongoing concern etc as everyone struggles with some of a long list of residual deficits physical and emotional.

You're right about our task here is to encourage and support. But I believe that on rare occasions the comparisons/tough love approach can be very useful to snap a person with a mild stroke out of their self-pity mode. Until they do that, they can't move forward with their recovery process and to make changes in life style that can prevent another one.

 

Jean

But I believe that on rare occasions the comparisons/tough love approach can be very useful to snap a person with a mild stroke out of their self-pity mode. Until they do that, they can't move forward with their recovery process and to make changes in life style that can prevent another one.

 

The only part that I disagree with is that I don't believe it is anyone else's responsibility to determine when it is time to take someone out of "their self-pity mode". Who gets to decide the worthiness (severity) of a stroke and time in self-pity mode? The 'pity pot' is useful in some ways - it allows for introspection and reflection. While I agree that too much of it is no good, it is not up to me nor you to determine how much is too much.