10 years in credit

 

3654 consecutive days alive!

My Supports

 This is how I function on any given day, 

Music is the best Medicine

 As a teen, I was lucky enough to meet and work with an amazing music teacher. He changed my life.

Life - In Nine Parts - Part One

The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change. The challenge of life is to overcome. The essence of life is to care. The opportunity of life is to serve. The secret of life is to dare. The spice of life is to befriend. The beauty of life is to give. 

William Arthur Ward

CCP Saves Lives

In 2003 I was diagnosed with an ‘inoperable’ brain tumour. It was a devastating blow to our family. We had 4 small children, the youngest was 5 years old.

Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)

I have been diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)

So many questions!

Flooding through the forest, filling it completely with thick, wet, heavy, fog.

Social and Cultural Psychology - The self: social and cultural perspectives

Having to relearn my life and gain a real sense of self after brain surgery and intraoperative hemorrhage, has been a challenge and at times it has been quite frightening. As time passes and I learn more about myself through daily life as well as through my studies, I often have 'ah ha!' moments which inspire me to think about the things I have gained or lost along this trail.

My brain and memory were so injured by the tumour, hydrocephalus and surgery so much that for some time I was not able to tell if I was awake, asleep or dreaming. I was dissociated and felt like I was floating around outside my body at the same time I knew I was 'in' my body because I could make it move etc. My short term memory was impacted such that I could not remember eating let alone what I had eaten, minutes after a meal.

When I started exploring study, initially to see if I could remember anything long enough to be assessed on it, I had to learn how to learn. I started off by linking things to things I already knew (mostly about myself) to that extent the Self schema was my basis for consciously forming new memories. It is still something I rely on quite heavily. While studying 1001PSY I was able to remember a lot of content because I could relate the things we were learning about the brain, to the injuries and side effects I had experienced with my own brain. The same could be said for Bio psych. 

In the early stages of my recovery and rehabilitation I kept a blog and filled it out each month so that I could evaluate myself and my improvement. I often found that I would be thinking 'Oh! I'm better now, I can take on the world' a month later I would be looking back and realise how deluded I had been. I was 'not' better and could not take on the world. I continued to blog monthly for my own benefit for the first 5 years. It gave me a basis for comparison when I had no 'normal' to use as a yard stick.