Saturday, August 22, 2015

ANGER: It helps recovery!



Quick funny stroke survivor story. This comes from an OT who told it at one of my stroke recovery seminars.

"I had this guy, he was a right hemi and totally expressively aphasic but could understand everything. I kept telling him that he had to move his right arm. "You gotta move it or it wont get better.' 

He got so frustrated with me he would just keep giving me the finger. "It wont get better unless you use it!' Finger. 'How are you going to get it back if you don't use it?' Finger.

So finally I said, "Tell you what: You can give me the finger all you want, but you got to do it with your right hand."

So, apparently he goes home and spends all night trying to get that finger up and sure enough... the next day he walks in to the gym and gives me the finger with the right hand! And I was like, "THAT'S GREAT! Now we have something to work with!'

And everyone looked at us like we were crazy."

4 comments:

Tamara said...

Anger sure helped in the beginning of my recovery, but I'm 6,5 years out now and stuck in anger. That doesn't help, because it increases my painful spasms (which gets me even angrier and more frustrated) My right amygdala is nearly coming out of my nose kicking and screaming and the left has covered himself in a corner. I recently read about research done by psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, he says in PTSD you need to learn to feel safe again in your own body. Interesting is that this psychiatrist doesn't promote pills, but things like meditation and yoga. I've done a lot of attempt to meditate, trying to calm myself down, but it just gets me angrier and more frustrated.

Peter G Levine said...

I know you know this Tamera, but i was talking about small, very directed interactions with anger, not sustained!

Joey1247 said...

i'm 1 and a half weeks out from my stroke. I still feel fatigued and weak and I am weepy, For no reason at all I will just start crying. Did anyone else out there experiene this?

Peter G Levine said...

Joey1247: join the FB young stroke survivors group. Now!

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