So what now?
Frustratingly a fantastic conversation about the loss of self post-stroke on this site, I now cannot find! But regardless it has inspired me to write a bit about this subject. I have previously written about things that could be loosely defined as work related and this topic has morphed into mix of thoughts about exactly ‘who’ I am now after my stroke.
The reason this question is so strongly related to my thoughts about work are that the journey back to work has been littered with constant questioning about what it is I can actually do now. I am not at all proclaiming that I had associated my working life with some sort of larger ‘who I am’ determination – I work in marketing analytics! But there is no doubt in my mind now, that you spend so much of your waking hours at work (doing whatever job we are lucky to have) that invariably you begin to associate your job with a feeling of purpose. When, after my stroke, that working ability was taken away I am now left trying to work out exactly what it is I can do and hence a little bit of pondering who exactly I am.
Sure I am not naïve enough to be ignorant of the fact that my ability to work at all is something I should be massively grateful for. I am. I also appreciate deeply that when I first ventured back to work 3 years ago I could only manage 2 hours a week. My current 18 hours is clearly a massive improvement on that, but I cannot see a future where I will be able to manage the effort of full time work. Like many stroke victims, both physical and cognitive fatigues are hindrances to getting back to being able to do the work I previously did. So what now then?
I thought I was searching for meaningful employment that could satisfy my capabilities and make me feel like I am still contributing. But maybe the question is a bit bigger than that? Given the physical and mental limitations of my post stroke life, regardless of my employment – who am I now?
I fluctuate between feeling like this is an opportunity to try doing something new and almost reinvent myself and feeling somewhat despondent that I wont be able to continue doing the work I was doing (and I would like to think I was quite good at!) I am very surprised at the amount of importance that work takes in my life given I had spent most of my working life telling anyone who would listen that its all ‘just work’. But it appears it is actually much more than that!
It is fascinating to me that comparatively the physical challenge of learning to walk again, and the extensive physical rehab over the last few years turns out to be the easier task when compared to the mental challenge of re-establishing a 'working’ life.