Ups & Downs of Recovery

The first week of April I began aquatics therapy three times a week. What hurt in "land" therapy, did not hurt in the water. Even though I was sore between sessions, I was able to do the work. We all agreed that I would "ride out" the pain between sessions as long as muscles were building while working out in the pool. Aside from focusing on my one shoulder (the reason for the therapy initially), the pool allowed me to work on rebuilding all muscles that had atrophied while recuperating from all my pelvic prolapse surgeries in 2007-2008.

Because of my art therapy group on Polyvore, issues kept coming up in my art even though I wasn't focused on them consciously. Just before the move to aquatics therapy, my mood had crashed...feeling lack of ability to heal, angry that I couldn't deal with the pain to get better, frustrated that my partner was more of a caretaker than an equal.

The first week of May we vacationed a few days in Washington DC and I was able to walk the entire day for sightseeing. Was so proud. I've continued the aquatherapy three times a week and just this past week ran into a problem with too much pain. Another crash but have spoken to the physical therapist and we are going to adjust the exercises to go backward on the painful one and progress much more slowly.

My goal for this year is to heal physically...rebuild my body...not be limited by my lack of muscle or strength. I can see how sense of body ability and sense of worth are strongly intertwined for me. When I crash into depression I still have the default of "the world would be better without me. BB would be better without me." So I struggle through that until I'm "up" sufficiently not to be fighting that message.

I can only wonder if that will ever not be my default. Between the surgeries in 2007 and the year of my trip to Italy (2005), I had changed the default. It is possible. It just was knocked back down so quickly with bad things happening.

I see the vulnerability in all survivors through art by members of my group. Constant struggle. Healing, even at my level of functioning, is still a roller coaster. Such traumatic beginnings are indeed lifelong at some level. I'm fortunate to have new friends and family who know me for exactly who I am and love me. Good times are in my life to help balance out the bad times. Surely that's a good thing. I wish that for all survivors...balance in all areas of life.