The emotional highs and lows of loss can be much like riding an unfamiliar roller coaster. You just never know when the peaks or the valleys are going to crop up. Most of us have experienced loss and grief in some form or other. It might be the loss of someone or something we hold dear that brings about a sense of sadness. For me, it has been the loss of my normal speaking voice. It has been a confusing and frustrating time.
I have always been a fairly stable person when it comes to emotion so I have been somewhat surprised at my current state of emotional fragility. In many ways, the grieving after my stroke has been similar to the loss I felt with my vision loss. Both losses have been a part of my self, my identity so to speak, and both losses came about without warning. I think that the suddenness of both has contributed to the feelings I have experienced. There simply hasn’t been time to adapt to my new self.
As well as the similarities between the two losses, for me there has also been a subtle difference between them. My sight neither improved nor declined when I had the occasional emotional outburst. With the speech loss, intense emotion has triggered a traumatic decline in speech. Thinking about this, I don’t know that with the vision loss I was so intellectually analytical of my feelings, but time has added a certain perspective.
Strong emotion certainly affects my ability to speak. For instance, last week I was upset or even angry, by a fairly minor incident. My speaking went from nearly normal to nearly zero in an instant. Then the other day, I received a gift. I was overcome with appreciation. I burst into tears and my speech suffered an immediate decline. It didn’t seem to matter that one response was a negative reaction and the other was a happy and heartfelt one. I was intensely emotional about each situation although neither reaction was proportionate to the occasion.
I have never enjoyed roller coaster rides at amusement parks, and this roller coaster ride of emotion is no different. Hopefully, soon my body will adapt. I can report that with the daily speech therapy, the up days are becoming more frequent than the downs. I am on the road to recovery. One day I hope to get off the roller coaster and head on to a more sedate and predictable ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment