Sorry mate – I did have a quick skim read through it last night and I’ll read more in detail when I get more time later.

Sorry to hear about your problems getting to see your kids. That must be fucking difficult – I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t see my daughter (she’s 9 next week). She’s pretty much the only thing that keeps me going if I’m honest.

I have her two nights a week (Tuesday and Saturday) and spend most of the day Sunday with her. To be honest I spend half my life feeling suicidal but the thought of her, keeps me from doing anything silly like that….

Was thinking of you today. Time flies and at the same time stays still. I don’t understand why shit happens. My daughter  nearly died last week when a woman ran a red light and t-boned ***** and her trailer full of her beloved horses. Everyone walked away but barely. I have seen so much trauma and yet have skirted it for some reason.

Yet you will not walk again. You are meant to be here. You have a purpose. Only the strongest would be given the hardest. I cannot believe all of your suffering is for nothing.

All I can do is let you know I’m thinking of you and hoping for better days that must be ahead.

This was posted by another paralysed person -a girl in her 20’s.

I obviously won’t say her name.

It demonstrates that it’s definitely not ‘ just me’ that suffers mentally, because of a physical problem.

She wrote –

I HATE feeling so bloody vulnerable, I HATE that my body doesn’t seem happy unless it’s malfunctioning, I’m TERRIFIED I have to rely on others, I’m TERRIFIED of hospitals, I’m TERRIFIED I’m going to die and everything is totally out of my control.

Antibiotics kicked in. Phew! Avoided the mental torture that i get if a UTI goes untreated for 48 hours.

You can buy them over the counter here, so I shall stock up.

X

I still message my son once a week and wish him a great weekend. I always ask him if he is up to anything and only recently after 4 years has he started to tell me what he’s up to. I know from experience with able bodied friends that have been in this situation that they all lose contact and the kids can’t be bothered. It’s more that the mother makes them feel like they are doing something wrong and being disloyal. That’s why you don’t hear from them. I now give him £20 a week into his bank so at 14 he’s probably the richest kid in the area. But I’m not there for him at the moment but I do think that at some point in the not too distant he will have a spat with his mother and call. Then I will be off to collect him. As time goes on children develop and realise that what they are told is not necessarily the truth. It brings my own hurt to light when I read this on your blog on Father’s Day. Have a drink like I will Russ and continue to be who you are. No one can understand the mental pain that a spinal injury can bring to someone that had it all and lost it in a second.

Having had little contact with my children for 14 months, I’m taking legal advice.

I read that it’s extremely common to lose all contact with your children after an absence of 2 years and I do get that.

In my situation it’s far better for ‘ my head ‘ if i don’t think about the sadness of not seeing them, as, in combination with all the other challenges I face almost daily, it’s enough to ‘ tip me the wrong way’

Advice to me from clever and good people varies from FIGHT FOR THEM to give them space… after 14 months of very little, I don’t think the space approach is working. Regular messages don’t work, not messaging them doesn’t work, pushing for contact doesn’t work either, and backing off is no more successful. Being generous gets me nowhere, and being non generous even less so. Should they actually be rewarded with generous gestures for ignoring me? Money can’t buy love, can it?

Asking friends to talk to them get’s the ‘ ooh it’s not my place really’ but no attempt to is presumably interpreted as not caring?

There doesn’t seem to be a winning tactic other than a legal route. Given they have walked past my house twice a day for a year means that they aren’t exactly hindered by proximity, yet won’t call in? I can’t go round to where they live as it’s not wheelchair accessible.

Its been suggested i wait outside their schools in the wheelchair and hope they talk to me, too, but I don’t think they would.

Lord knows what they are told about me, and Lord knows what is told to my ex friends, as no one says. Well, one did, and it was a tissue of untruths.

Im at a crossroads- do I carry on ‘being stressed ‘ about it, or do I let them go ( like the 40% in the UK that lose all touch after 2 years ) ?

The more settled I get, the easier it becomes to not think about them, as it’s in times of stress that my mind goes to them most ( as in ‘ Christ, I don’t even have my kids anymore ‘ ) For my own mental state it’s far better that I’m stress free, as I have so much every day to ‘ cope with ‘, far more than a normal person does, for disability reasons.

What do you think, out there? The way forward?

Jeez, now I have a UTI. Spasms, jerks etc etc.

Thank God I brought antibiotics with me.

Yeah, so it sounds. All that “celebrate… still alive!” malarkey lost on me, tho I appreciate the sentiments for those who feel that way. Unlike you, I fake it, so credit to you for honesty!

I hate this injury. Resent those that squander good health/luck so mindlessly. And miss Me. That’s the bottom line, I so miss my life…. and the whole “disability is all about attitude” bollocks pisses me off. It’s shit. The anniversary is like rubbing one’s own face in said shit but feeling powerless to stop it.
I hope you get past it. Sometimes I read your blog and think maybe, just maybe, you can. And will. I really wish that for you. Fuck, back in YOLO ( You Only Live Once ) Land 🤣
But seriously, I reckon you might just pull it off!

I can’t imagine a ‘ different day’ that could be more different from yesterday.

I decided that we’d go back to the same place ( 15 miles away ) and see the same things as yesterday.

Today the sun is shining ( in my mind ) and the emotional horrors of yesterday are not here.

The rebounds that I go through/ am capable of, are remarkable ( even to me, and I ought be used to them )   I am not ‘ in control ‘ of them, yet I am responsible for them.

I’m not altogether looking forward to next June 14th though! 🙂

The moment at which my composure completely broke today was at around 3.45 pm. I found myself completely unable to quell the awful sadness that broke from me. I was by myself, having wheeled somewhere quieter, thinking that I was going to vomit, when I just couldn’t stop the collapse from occurring. I haven’t had this happen to me so suddenly before, having thought those feelings  of such sorrow and regret   were well behind me, buried somewhere.

Thinking about it, it now occurs to me that 3.45 was perhaps almost exactly the time of the day 5 years ago when I went over the handlebars and my life went into reverse. I don’t believe in superstition but perhaps it was more than a coincidence that I broke at that time? Now, 9 hours later, although still subdued I’m far less upset than I was.

I’m truly grateful to all those that remembered to say something today.