My bicycle accident left me with a crippled mind and a broken, painful body. There was trauma from the near death accident being hit from behind by a van while I was riding my bicycle not far from my home. Almost 25 years later, I am still recovering and rehabilitating, a crippled mind at work busily trying to repair itself DIY even as I write this narrative.
I have healed and repaired as much as I can mentally and physically, but friends and family still notice I am not as good as "new" or even as good as I once was (plus I am a quarter of century older now). I realize and accept my new mental and physical limitations having reconciled to living out my life compensating for those residual impairments of my mind and body as best I can.
We all have pretty much the same physical entry to life but differ greatly how we exit. Most like to have good memories of past times, live happily as possible in the present, and look forward to better-luck-the-next-time futures. A crippled mind at work is better than an empty mind or an idle, useless, maybe wasted one. A crippled mind has no crutches, it has to make the most of what it can do and with no excuses. A crippled mind is not a visible injury and others do not understand their own brain let alone mine. A crippled mind is challenged to be better than yesterday, best for today, and advance further tomorrow. Most consider a crippled mind the worse fate imaginable, but it is not. A crippled mind has had to cope with its faults, deficiencies, and inadequacies and as a consequence is more considerate of those in others. It is not the fact that my mind is crippled, imperfect, and challenged, but the fact that I am a mind at work, living in harmony with my friends and family, my community and most importantly by my self and the graciousness of God and government.
**********************************************************************************************
I have healed and repaired as much as I can mentally and physically, but friends and family still notice I am not as good as "new" or even as good as I once was (plus I am a quarter of century older now). I realize and accept my new mental and physical limitations having reconciled to living out my life compensating for those residual impairments of my mind and body as best I can.
We all have pretty much the same physical entry to life but differ greatly how we exit. Most like to have good memories of past times, live happily as possible in the present, and look forward to better-luck-the-next-time futures. A crippled mind at work is better than an empty mind or an idle, useless, maybe wasted one. A crippled mind has no crutches, it has to make the most of what it can do and with no excuses. A crippled mind is not a visible injury and others do not understand their own brain let alone mine. A crippled mind is challenged to be better than yesterday, best for today, and advance further tomorrow. Most consider a crippled mind the worse fate imaginable, but it is not. A crippled mind has had to cope with its faults, deficiencies, and inadequacies and as a consequence is more considerate of those in others. It is not the fact that my mind is crippled, imperfect, and challenged, but the fact that I am a mind at work, living in harmony with my friends and family, my community and most importantly by my self and the graciousness of God and government.
**********************************************************************************************
Being reduced to mere vegetable waste and recovering as much as you can of your former self is an enlightening process ..... you can imagine... as to being stronger, I doubt that since I could have advanced from where I was before the accident to be much further along than where I presently am ..... the accident was a professionally, financially, emotionally, mentally and physically crippling event and required reserves to recover, I doubt that full recovery is possible .... but perhaps I have other potentials I would not have had if the accident had not happened.
I was motivated in part to write the above narrative to close the whole accident, but that might be impossible now that I have in written record and in conscious explicit fact rather than concealed in emotional muck. I also wrote it to perhaps convince myself, if not others, that mental heath is a relative attainment to one’s individual normalcy, at best, and that everyone can and should improve their own state of mind and all would benefit thereby. Mental health is no different than any physical health issue, just more misunderstood and frightening.
To what extent the soul is injured or improved by life’s mishaps, misfortunes, and mistakes remains to be discovered. It is not something that can be removed or examined easily by self or others. They do say a person learns more from their mistakes than their successes and perhaps that is also true spiritually. To what extent a sin, mistake, and error in choice are the same is questionable, but to correct either one and learn from the experience is developmental. In a school environment we are given a safe learning surroundings, but in real life there is no safety net for sense and sanity that might suffer as a consequence.
I was motivated in part to write the above narrative to close the whole accident, but that might be impossible now that I have in written record and in conscious explicit fact rather than concealed in emotional muck. I also wrote it to perhaps convince myself, if not others, that mental heath is a relative attainment to one’s individual normalcy, at best, and that everyone can and should improve their own state of mind and all would benefit thereby. Mental health is no different than any physical health issue, just more misunderstood and frightening.
To what extent the soul is injured or improved by life’s mishaps, misfortunes, and mistakes remains to be discovered. It is not something that can be removed or examined easily by self or others. They do say a person learns more from their mistakes than their successes and perhaps that is also true spiritually. To what extent a sin, mistake, and error in choice are the same is questionable, but to correct either one and learn from the experience is developmental. In a school environment we are given a safe learning surroundings, but in real life there is no safety net for sense and sanity that might suffer as a consequence.
No comments:
Post a Comment