Introduction.

[Stroke14]

Hi I'm stroke14,I'm hoping to start a anger management course soon to Help me control my anger,since leaving hospital 2yrs ago I've had no help or support from my local health authority and found it difficult to adjust since my anurism.

[cat3]

Hi and welcome to you. Lack of aftercare is something most of us have to cope with, and it can be pretty demoralising at times.

And anger is common amongst us too. I had a haemorrhage 4+years ago and now have a very short fuse, but I've learned to walk away from disagreements/confrontations as soon as I feel the anger rising !

Well done for taking the intelligent option of getting professional help ; I hope you'll learn to recognise the triggers for your anger and find an efficient way of diverting or alleviating it.

Please keep us updated on how you feel it's going .............good luck.

Cat x

[Stroke14 in reply to cat3]

Headway are going to help me out thank God,I've opened up to my family and admitted that I need specialiesed help,I hope it a start of a better quality of life for me and my family.

[cat3 in reply to Stroke14]

Well done for making the difficult (and brave) decision to bring your issues out into the open. You deserve respect for such proactive moves ; I hope your family will support and encourage you throughout the programme.

Good news too having Headway on board ; sounds like you're all set for that new start. But remember, with any amount of help it's you who must do the hard work, and it won't happen overnight.

It might be one step forwards & a few steps back for a while, but stick with it ; like you said, it could massively improve your quality of life once you get the hang of it !!

Best wishes........................... x

[Gaia_rising]

LOVE the shirt.

As Cat has said, anger is very common, as is the shocking lack of readily-available aftercare- when I had major surgery on my wrist, it was automatic that I was booked into physio; after the brain haemorrhage, I had two sessions at a local 'rehabilitation' centre, and then the lady discharged me, because memory/timetables were her thing, and my memory wasn't an issue.

I'm without-services again, the neuro-psychologist I persuaded my GP to refer me to after the obligatory anti-depressants didn't work (because I wasn't depressed) discharged me after two appointments as well. "There's nothing I can do for you that you're not already doing."

My super-power appears to be not punching people in the face. Sounds ludicrous to anyone without a brain injury, but, for some of us, the struggle is very real. The ex-mother-in-law tagged along with the ex-father-in-law picking up my son yesterday. The ex-husband had asked the boy to find a particular shirt he'd left here, I found it, screwed up in a ball, unwashed, in one of the cupboards. (Disgusting man, used to insist that clothes "didn't need washing" if he'd only worn them once, and then throw enormous tantrums when he came to wear something for the 17th time, and it had curry, and dog-hair all over it.) Anyhow, the shirt ended up in the hands of the cleaning-mad pensioner, and she sniffed it, and looked disappointed. Wanted to punch her in the face. (He's 50 years old, and never quite grasped how to do his own laundry, she's doing his laundry now, no doubt ironing nice creases down the front of his boxer shorts.)

See the brackets? They're the flash-angry thoughts that happen pretty much all the time. My son will finish a package of something, and just leave the empty package wherever he happened to be at the time. (Do women's thumbs work differently to men's, or is there an anti-testosterone force-field around the bin?) Next door had a garden party for their daughter's birthday yesterday evening. (Now I STILL can't mow the lawn, or vacuum, because it's too early, I've been up since half past two, because that's when they stopped being noisy.) My new manager at work takes stupid little gasp-breaths part way through sentences, I want to punch her in the face. One of the women who shares my office BATHES in perfume. I want to punch her in the face....

I'm roughly 18 months since the original ruptured aneurysm, and just about four months since the second round of surgery to coil an incidental aneurysm they found while they were in there. Day to day, I get by using a phrase we use to justify physical intervention with students, 'reasonable, proportionate and necessary'.

Is it reasonable for me to be annoyed by someone slurping tea, and then smacking their lips? Nope?

Is it proportionate for me to want to hit a colleague with the fire extinguisher because the noise of their breathing is grating on every nerve in my body? Nope.

Is it necessary for me to want to throw my manager out of the window, because she doesn't think women should be 'physical'? Nope. (Also, I'd probably hurt my back, she's so un-physical she causes a minor earthquake every time she walks down a corridor.)

Mostly I just laugh at myself now, or, if it's really bad, I remove myself from the situation, because, in my mind, "Can you not make that noise, please, I have brain damage?" weakens me.

[trishy63 in reply to Gaia_rising]

love this dry sense of humour, I get Exactly what you are saying here, Well done on being able to remove yourself from these challenging situations, not mastered that bit myself, (much to the chagrin of my grown up daughter) She has to keep grabbing me by the arm and physically dragging me away. She worries that someone will punch Me in the face once I am 'up there'. I really want the Gaia version superpower t-shirt. 😆. Great post, thank you for it .... Trishy x

[Gaia_rising in reply to trishy63]

Hehe, I have an 18 year old son, who says "Mother!" quite a lot... I was 'difficult' before, but now I'm an absolute nightmare- keeping myself mostly-out-of-trouble.

[malalatete]

Welcome here. Great gang.

Glad you are getting help. We all need it, sometimes it takes a while to get our heads round it....all part of the journey.

[Dottiejay]

I had an sah in December and apart from 2 visits to a support group at my hospital I've had no offers of any kind of help. My g.p. at the time just said 'you were very lucky to survive this' as if I didn't know! A friend I've made since has said that she went for counselling and it is something I am seriously considering. I am slowly learning to hold my tongue and walk away from a lot of situations. Good luck with your anger management

[Gaia_rising in reply to Dottiejay]

We get 'you were lucky' and 'but you are still here' a lot... I can see the point, my GCS rating was 6 when I was transferred to the big hospital from the little one, and the husband and son were taken into one of the quiet rooms, and effectively told to prepare for the worst. We're changed, though, things that used to be almost-automatic take extra processing, and non-BI people don't understand that, because they're not living in it.

I'm an absolute cow for hating other people imposing their view of how I should be/act on me, I always was. Just another sad fact, with most brain injuries being 'invisible', that I've had to let certain people know, and then bite my lip HARD when they decide to pull the oh-but-you-CAN'T card on me. I can, and I will.

[Dottiejay in reply to Gaia_rising]

I can sympathise with leaving people behind. In my case I left my house behind too. Living alone in a large place was making me feel worse than I was. Too many of the memories I'd held on to were sad. And newish 'friends' have been dropped, partly for the cooing sympathy they show. I don't want to be told what an 'inspiration' I am just for surviving and trying to get on with my life. It was down to prompt treatment and an excellent surgeon.

Thank heaven for this forum, where we mostly understand what we have in common and can give and get encouragement from others who have similar experiences.

[Hidden]

Sadly, the struggle in managing anger is quite challenging as we are not informed/educated on how to deal with it and ought to be mandaratory prior to discharge home from hospital/rehab. I too have learned to take a deep breath and walk away when my anger is rising. Previously I was rather combative (verbally) and it was exhausting for myself and others. This went on for over nine years. It was only 12 months ago that I tapered myself from antidepressants that were contributing towards my hostile behaviour. Then, I had regular counselling with a good psychologist and finally feel like I am in control of myself now.

Sounds like you are on the right track in participating in the anger management course and if I dare say, you seem quite mature beyond your age. I like your T-shirt too. Claire

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

ps. I am guessing that your are 14 years old? If not, dismiss my previous comment!

[cat3 in reply to Hidden]

Claire, (hope you're doing ok) do you think the '14' might refer to 2014.............. hospitalised 2 years ago ? Just guessing really.

[Hidden in reply to cat3]

Hi Cat, I am well thanks and hope you are too. It does make sense....14 as in 2014. You now know that cryptic words/nos...was never one of my strengths. Matter of fact I used to avoid doing cryptic crosswords and that was before my brain haemorrhage! Hope you are not too hot over your way. It is very cold over here.😬

[Stroke14 in reply to Hidden]

I'm 52 in November,I had my anurism in 2014.lol

[Hidden in reply to Stroke14]

Right. thanks for clearing up my confusion!

[MXman]

Hi Stroke 14 and welcome.

Yes as others have said the aftercare for bi survivors and stroke sufferers is not great. I too didn't know what to expect and wasn't warned of what may happen after my accident last year so your not alone. Great friendly bunch on here. Nick

[Stroke14 in reply to MXman]

Hi Nick,I've got a holiday coming up soon with my family,I'm hoping that it will relax me and give me peace.me and my partner are taking a party of 8 up with us.

[Stroke14 in reply to Stroke14]

Ps whats a bi survivor?

[DawnD123 in reply to Stroke14]

Brain Injury survivor. 😀

[MXman in reply to DawnD123]

Thanks Dawn.

[JasonH99]

Hiya stroke 14 I hope you're well? Just wondering how old you are now? And where are you from? I'm 24 from England an I suffered from a brain Hemorhage back in August 2007 aged 15 xxx

[Stroke14 in reply to JasonH99]

Hi Jason I'm 51 and from s/Wales,I'm an anurism survivor.

[Hidden]

As usual some useful replies already! My only comments would be to note that depression has been described as anger turned inwards and there is some truth in this. i.e. if your anger is being directed out it is avoiding the pit of depression. However 'happy pills' as I call them can assist in letting some steam off - they damp down emotions. If you are on too high a dose you care about nowt! Sadly our GP system is not conducive to their optimum employment - GPs put patients on their favourite pill at a standard dose and it is up to the patient to experiment to get the best dose, change until they find a pill that suits them and then find the optimum dose - and that all takes months. It is not a substitute for addressing issues just a tool that can be useful at certain times!

I recently came across a book that gave me a new and surprising perspective on anger: The Positive Power of Negative Emotion amazon.co.uk/Positive-Power...

Best wishes as ever.

[Gaia_rising in reply to Hidden]

Amen to the flavour-of-the-month SSRI! (Or whichever company are giving away the best free pens.) I bit the bullet, and asked for the chemical crutch in December last year, because there were external circumstances I knew I was going to struggle with, and needed to 'fog' it out a little bit. The first one made me sh*t my innards out for the first fortnight, and then didn't really alter my mood anyway. The second one gave me a devastating flash-blind half-day headache; given that I had two noted aneurysms still lurking, I couldn't deal with that.

I'm free-range, off all meds now, because I changed the circumstance that was causing the emotional turmoil.

I do have a local Headway, and they were utterly fantastic at sorting out a situation where a student had a Brain Injured parent, haven't approached them for support for myself, because I'm mostly getting-by.

[Hidden in reply to Gaia_rising]

I love your use of the term ' free-range' - I will def use that - and I have FR hens too! Medics know that we are all different but our NHS system makes them give up on the tailoring task as basically too time-consuming and thankless. One can see their point of view. Perhaps there is scope for patient feedback/pooling if only to illustrate to newbies with expectations that they are embarking on a complex exercise. Oh and they can also depress sexual emotions and that is tough on partners too...

[Gaia_rising in reply to Hidden]

Yep, I wrote a blog on the sexual dysfunction side of things this morning- doesn't apply to my single-self, but a LOT of people are feeling the strain of the lack of libido. Yes, it IS better than jumping under a bus, or being consumed by anxiety, but GPs don't seem to be explaining things to people. I know it's on the leaflet, but, for some people with acute anxiety, that's like a shopping list, and for those with significant depression, they might not take the pills, thinking it's 'not worth it'.

I had a two-year period about 8 years ago, where the doctor had to keep changing my anti-depressants, as the symptoms crept back in, they were a stepping-stone then, to get me through a bad patch, and they got me through.

[Hidden in reply to Gaia_rising]

I think you sum t up well - but we have come to this conclusin through experience and experimentation. There surely must be scope for doctors briefing patients more thoroughy and getting them to manage and monitor themselves! That is a skill for getting back on top emotionally too. Take care.

[Dottiejay in reply to Hidden]

I think gp's should be put on this forum to learn! My old doctor told me I knew more about things than he did, but he didn't even ask me how I felt, just wanted to record my hospital discharge letter.

There is a wealth of information here from people's experiences. When I told the nurse specialist at the support group about it he came and had a look and was amazed.

[steve55]

stroke ( sounds rude that ) yep ive got t shirt and from what i can remember the only help i got from the stroke association was raffle tickets......sent mine straight back.....oh forgot to say mine was 41/2yrs ago.

for my anger i take epilim twice a day or you maybe offered carbamazapine.....both are used in the treatment of epilepsy but is also effective in anger management.

also find out where your local headway group is and meet new friends who really understand any problems you maybe having.......because they been there and can point you in the right direction.

steve

oh by the way forgot to say welcome to the family

[lisa85]

Welcome to this crazy forum, don't be scared just join in and be as mad and bonkers as the rest of us.

Lisa1985 xxx

[2stroke]

Know how you feel ,mate.Seems the same here in BRIDGEND,glad to say i have no anger issues ,but depression getting at me often.putting up with bereavement and results of 2 strokes.not always glad of surviv ing them.hope you get better results.