Betty.Draughon@p10.f1.n360.z1.fidonet.org (Betty Draughon) (06/29/90)
Index Number: 8985
Gary -
This message was misdirected to me, so I am sending it your way in the chance you did not catch it the first time around. Hope you are feeling better.
I bid you Peace.
Betty
In a message to Betty Draughon <19 Jun 90 20:48:00> Greg See-Kee wrote:
> GA>> I lost by hearing to Meniere's disease or sometimes called Meniere's
> GA>> syndrome when I was 36 years old. What a slam.
GS>
> GA>> My question is how can you learn to live with it after having my
> GA>> hearing for 36 yrs. and then have nothing.
GS>
> BD> I dunno, Gary.
GS> See if you agree with me, Gary.
GS> 1) Trying to live the "old-self"
GS> 2) Medical shock/ surprise that this can happen
GS> 3) Denying it, being angry, feeling guilty
GS> 4) Bargaining, experimenting, "magical" solution-hunting
GS> 5) Depression, resignation
GS> 6) Inward searching, vulnerable but passively accepting
GS> 7) New self-image, actively projecting the new-self
GS> 8) Outwardly focussed.
GS> It is like divorce. So you had twenty or so years living Stage
GS> One. But experienced counsellors know that the "formula" might
GS> be, say five years institutionalization takes one full year of
GS> de-institutalization.
GS> Put in plain language, it might take you four years to move from
GS> Stage One to Stage Eight of the above process.
GS> I have yet to work out what the "formula" might be if you became
GS> disabled, say, when you were fifty years old instead.
GS> Your disability has parallels to mine, which oocurred five years
GS> ago at the my age of 35 years.
> GA>> I don't have the money to go to a shrink and have felt like a
> GA>> shutin with all of my so called friends disappearing from me.
GS>
> BD> Okay, now listen. You are absolutely correct in calling them
> BD> your "so-called" friends. Friends wouldn't disappear.
GS> We both know that Betty's experiences are different to yours and
GS> to mine.
> GA>> Anyway I love you all and please talk to me.
GS>
> BD> I love you, too.
GS> Actually, we are not the first people to ever experience this
GS> Christopher Columbus voyage. The whole path has been very
GS> detailed in its entirety by millions of travellers before us.
GS> I feel sorry that you don't have access to the "Road Maps" as
GS> you start your new voyage, thirty or forty years ahead of any
GS> schedule that would normally be expected.
GS> If there is any room in this conference, I'll detail whatever you
GS> might need to know later.
--
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