[Klaus]

Before my injury I would grow restless and feel bad about myself any day that I felt I had 'wasted', by not doing something worthwhile, learning something new, or achieving something.

Needless to say since the injury there have been a lot of 'wasted' days. This feeling that my life is on hold, waiting for the storm to pass and that nothing can be achieved in the meantime is something I've really struggled with.

Not to mention the possibility that the storm may not pass.

I've caused myself a lot of problems by trying to do something 'useful' with all this enforced time off work I have had, and finding time and time again that these things I was trying to achieve were causing a return of my symptoms.

Clearly one solution to this problem is to be more accepting of how things are, which is something I'm getting around to. But I've also found a couple of things I seem to be able to do which make me feel like I really am getting on with my life and not just treading water. These are:-

1. Strengthening relationships with friends and family. Before my injury I was constantly doing this or that hobby, always trying to cram in as much as I could and get better and better at things. Now I can't do any of that stuff, but this has left me with much more time for sitting and chatting with people, which I can generally tolerate. This is an important part of life, and something I'm doing pretty well at right now.

2. Audiobooks. I used to love reading, both for pleasure and to increase my understanding of the world. I would also get a real sense of achievement from finishing books. Now I can't read a book without my symptoms coming back, which given that I want to get better, means I can't read a book.

I found this really tough, but have recently tried audiobooks. My brain seems to be able to process these better, and I seem to be able to listen to books or poems with quite complicated language or subject matter without overloading. This is great.

Perhaps if others have similar things they have found that they are able to do which make them feel like they are getting on with their lives you could post them here, to give ideas to the rest of us.