Writing By Laura

Earlier I posted about managing my own expectations of myself and what I am capable of doing post-Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). In that post it seemed like I was going to lay out a plan to manage my own high expectations of myself and then I didn’t… the blog post went live before I EXPECTED! Ironic, I suppose.

So in this post I would like to lay out a plan for managing my own high expectations of myself.

How I plan to manage MY expectations:

I find myself in an odd situation being that Fibromyalgia and daily chronic migraines dominated my 20s and 30s and now that I am in my 40s those two conditions have taken a backseat to the severe Traumatic Brain Injury and severe hearing loss and aural distortions. The odd part of the situation is that even though now I am living with a more prominent condition (disability), this brain injury has given me perspective. Now I can see pre-TBI me and all the mistakes I made trying to meet my own expectations. Now I can see what will make things more manageable and what won’t. The key is to pay attention to those prior mistakes and for a reminder I have made myself a list of how to manage my expectations:

• Plan Ahead: When I was in the thick of Fibromyalgia and daily chronic migraines I used to plan a lot into the days that I felt decent. What happened after one of these jam-packed days? Predictably I would have a major pain flare up because I had used up all the energy that I didn’t have to spare.
• Be Reasonable in the Planning Stage: Don’t make a mile long to do list (even though this was something I always did before).
• Listen to my body: Don’t push myself past my limits and pay attention to signs of exhaustion, fatigue, and stress.
• Achieve WHAT I can WHEN I can: Since surviving this accident and overcoming many injuries and disabilities I am better at seeing when I need to rest. The key is to pay attention to that. It’s still a work in progress for me.

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