Relapse

“Recovery is not linear.” Something I’ve been told repeatedly. It’s ok to go with the ups and downs, some days are better than others, progress is slow. Two steps forward, one step back. All of that.

What’s harder is when the genuine sense of turning a corner - for me a week of glorious mental clarity - then leads to a rapid descent, head first, back into the fog, fatigue and headaches. It feels disheartening, tedious, suffocating.

I sense that recovery from post concussion symptoms is fought on the battlefield of the mind. Specifically, I can see that my mindset is the lense through which I make sense of my symptoms. The symptoms are very real but how I interpret them, and the meaning I give them, is what will make or break my recovery.

I know why I’ve had a relapse; the pre-Christmas event where I forgot earplugs and the social events where I stayed too long. I know what I need to do to recover; rest and continue all my usual rehab. But most importantly, I have to view this phase as part of the recovery, part of the learning, part of the process. It’s tempting to blame myself and see it as a setback, as a failure of some sort, as something I could have avoided.

No, instead I choose to fix my eyes on what I KNOW - that I will fully recover and it will take time. This truth has not changed. So I let myself have a cry, wipe away the tears, get back up and carry on.

This too will pass.