Self esteem Tuesday - (UBC day 8)

For years, I've studied and researched the affect that self esteem has on learning. (In case you don't already know, I have my masters in teaching and have taught adult and workplace education for over 20 years.) Since my stroke, I've pondered the impact improving self esteem can have on recovery after a stroke, especially having communication issues due to it.

Over the next 4 weeks, my plan is to tell you about my building blocks of self esteem, why they are important and how anyone interested in improving their self esteem can use these building blocks to do that. This hopefully help me organize an ebook that I will make available for free to anyone who requests it in hope that what I share may make their journey a bit easier.

The propose ebook might be entitled "How to re-BUILD self esteem after having a stroke with communication challenges. Obviously only a working title.

Let's start with my acronym- BUILD

So what are the BUILDing blocks of self esteem? Belonging, Uniqueness, Internal Control, Learn from the Past; Live in the present and Determination

BELONGING

Part of our personal identity is defined by the roles we play in others lives. (Community) We may identify as “mom”, “spouse”, “daughter or son”, “worker”, “volunteer”, “community member”, “political party member”, “member of a book club” etc.

When you first meet someone, they usually ask “so, what do you do?”. How do you respond?”

Just before I had a stroke, I usually responded with “I work at the Providence Housing Authority. I’m the Assistant Director of Resident Services.” Of course I was still a daughter, mother, wife, friend. But most of my identity seemed to be geared toward what I did for a living. Makes sense… I worked at the office for over 40 hours a week, spent many hours thinking about work, and I was extremely proud of what I was doing and accomplishing.

So what happens when your “identity“ changes in an instant. Like when you have a trauma such as stroke. These roles, which you normally identify with, can alter dramatically. No longer can you do everything you could before perhaps. In some ways you lose your independence, at least at first. You may have been a caregiver who now needs to be cared for. You may lose your job. There is too much to say here in a short blog. Needless to say, at this time, you may feel lost and alone. And your self esteem, the way you think about yourself, your ”sense of self- worth or personal value. In other words, how much you appreciate and like yourself.” takes a hit. It makes sense at this point to tell you the the 5 steps to ReBUILD self esteem are not sequential. They can be done in any order. I have learned recovery is not linear either. People have to be ready to try the strategies when they make sense to them. Just like I wrote about before, people come into our life when they are suppose to come and it has to be the right time for things to make sense.

One step to ReBUILD self esteem is to know that you still belong. "A sense of belonging or feeling accepted, liked, and included by others is a fundamental human need (Baumeister and Leary 1995)  And belonging is linked to our self esteem. We are social beings. The closest people to us are usually family and friends. So, connecting with family and friends is a natural first step. But how do you do this when you can‘t express yourself and your needs because of aphasia, apraxia or dysarthria.

Some people say that family and friends leave or turn their backs on you when you have a stroke and especially when you have aphasia. I did not experience this, but I can definitely say I’ve had have a difficult time relating to and communicating with others.

I have found that it is easier for me to communicate with others who have experienced what I have, a stroke with aphasia resulting. It's nice to know that we are not alone. There are many support groups for people who have experienced a stroke. I have found many support groups and other activities for people with aphasia. These have been so helpful to me and my journey so far.

UNIQUENESS

The U in reBUILD is Unique. Remember you are a unique, individual worthy of love and respect. Each one of us is a special, unique person with strengths and abilities, important thoughts and desires.

It's worth to note that self-esteem varies throughout life. Hopefully our parents and others in our life helped us to build a healthy self esteem where we feel good about ourselves and our abilities. So we have self love and a positive regard of ourselves. I have a lovely granddaughter. I want her to know that she is loved just because she is she. In the car, we play "who loves Kiera?" we start with Mommy and progress with everyone we know. I also want her to know that our love is unconditional.

Individuality - self identity is an important component of self esteem. As discussed last week, (in the B strategy, Belonging) part of our identity comes from the connection we have with others, i.e. roles we play - mom, worker, community member etc. Identity also comes from how we see ourselves personally. Our sense of humor, our physical image, our emotions, character, etc. How we view ourselves is shaped from experiences and situations we find ourselves in.

An important part of rebuilding self esteem is focusing on our uniqueness. What makes us special. It’s not just the things we are able (or not able to do). It’s the content of our character. The way we treat and respect other people and ourselves. I contend that we are still the same wonderful person we were just before the traumatic event. That event doesn't have to define us. It happened and we need to deal with the effects, sure.

There are many practical things you can do to help.

So I'll just leave you with this mantra.

 You is smart. You is kind. You is important.... You is very, very special!

INTERNAL CONTROL

Long, long ago, when I was in a college psychology class, I first learned about "Locus of Control" and that concept has stayed with me. Throughout my life and especially when I was teaching, I thought about how having an internal locus of control, or an internal sense of control, helps us be more successful in life and help us to achieve our goals. Or in other words, if I am more aware of what I CAN control and what I CAN'T, how does that make my life better, easier and perhaps help me succeed more.

Having an internal sense of control can even help us to create goals. For if I don't think something is under my control, how can I even think of this is a potential goal.

From Psychology Today

“What Is Locus of Control?

Locus of control refers to the degree to which an individual feels a sense of agency in regard to his or her life. Someone with an internal locus of control will believe that the things that happen to them are greatly influenced by their own abilities, actions, or mistakes. A person with an external locus of control will tend to feel that other forces—such as random chance, environmental factors, or the actions of others—are more responsible for the events that occur in the individual's life.

I tried to draw a chart of locus of control, or the sense of control. I did this in order to have something I could make more personal and explain more fully.

Next time I will change the colors a bit and add more detail. I now feel that the brown arrows should be green.

As you can see, there are things we can control in the green space in the middle. These are mostly things we can all agree we can control - our actions, our thoughts, our attitude, the way we treat people, our reactions. (of course there are some circumstances that affect our ability to do these things.)

I’m reminded of the phrase, “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.“

A person must want to do something. We have free will. However, if we want, we can try to influence them to do it.

In the outside circle in red are the things we can't control - the weather, the economy, the trauma we experienced when we had the stroke, our past......

But there is a big middle circle labeled "Things we can influence". It is there that I believe the people who think with a more internal sense of control can see more possibilities. And those who have a more external sense of control can only see the limits. They think they can’t control these things.

So what happans to many of us when we experience a debilitating stroke? Aphasia and apraxia resulting? When we lose control over some physical activities, walking or use of our hands? Can't communicate anymore?

Even if we formerly viewed life with an internal sense of control, we may struggle now because so many things seem out of our control because there are limitations.

Realizing that you could have more control than you thought is empowering! Looking at things in a different way and believing you CAN influence them can open many possibilities.

LOOK BACK, BUT LIVE FORWARD

“Remember the past for memories and achievements, have optimism and hope for the future, but live each moment in the present.” Cheryl Tondreau, “ReBUILD self esteem after stroke and to live well with aphasia and apraxia” 2023

"Look back, but live forward." Cheryl Tondreau, using my voice blog 2023.

"When driving you must look back from time to time, but focus most of your energy to the front because that’s the direction you are going in." Anonymous

It may seem counterintuitive to say that looking back will help you rebuild self esteem, but that’s what I’m going to suggest today. After I had the stroke, I was purely focused on my present - my present physical challenges; my present speech challenges, my present writing and reading challenges, my interpersonal challenges, mental health challenges, etc. You get the gist - I was focusing on challenges. I was also focused on what I had lost - lost abilities, lost chances, lost dreams. I was grieving the life I had. I was grieving the dreams I had for my life. I cried a lot of the time. I cried especially when I had negative thoughts about my abilities. I cried about my many losses. I cried because I had thoughts of not being good enough anymore.

But I was able to focus on speech therapy because I knew that without it I would not/could not, get what I wanted back - my ability to speak and write and express myself. My ability to work again. My ability to be an active member of my family, community and church.

I continued to cry even though I was progressing with my speech. I could then communicate effectively, if only tentatively and with a staccato voice. But people could understand me if I tried really hard and the listener was patient.

I still got very depressed and anxious about my life. That sounds so strange to me today. What did I have to be anxious about? I no longer had a stressful job. No one was pressuring me to do ANYTHING. That may have been some of the reason. There were little expectations. My family was just happy to have me alive. (I'm so grateful for this.) I felt that I had no direction anymore. I put pressure on myself to do more but I couldn't think of how to do it.

When I was moving on with my communication goals, I was at a standstill with my life goals. What was I going to do with my life? What would I spend my day doing.?

 I had been to two mental health counselors with no change in my situation. Thankfully I met the right one at the right time. I really needed to talk and get some things straight in my mind. Focus on what was really important. It was only short term counseling but I started to feel like I was able to make more decisions in my life. I could handle some of the really frustrating things in my life. This clinical psychologist used Acceptance and Commitment therapy. This helped me to focus on what was really important to me.

A while later, I still needed mental health help and I was finally referred by my speech therapist to a longer term counseling. This neuro psychologist was absolutely perfect fit for me. She used CRT primarily in her practice but und once again that ACT really resonated with me. She helped me to focus on my core values and see how these could be used to set goals for myself. We also talked about strengths, motivation, resilience, self esteem and core beliefs. Strategies for self care and being mindful were discussed and tried. All things that I focused with my adult students about all those many years ago. I had a revelation of sorts.  I knew all these things. Why wasn't I able to use the things I knew helped so many of my students. This focused me enough that I could remember the skills I had before. I needed to remember the skills and strengths that helped me throughout my life. I had to remember the times that I struggled but succeeded.

It's important to note that we all have experiences in our lives that we can learn from. We all have unique strengths and skills that we can use to overcome challenges. The first step is to look back and remember.

Here, I'll leave with some things to think about:

"The past is just "a conscious memory". Use it to your advantage.

Look at the past for the fond memories

look back to learn from the past

look at the past for achievements and successes

look at the ways you overcame challenges in the past

The only time we truly have is the present.

Live in the present

use the present to do what you can to recover

use the present and plan for the future to have your best life

DETERMINATION

The last BUILDing block of self esteem is Determination.

With my aphasia, I need to pace my cognitive activities. I also have to be patient with myself when I can't think of words and when I make grammatical and spelling mistakes. I needed to remember and use strategies that my SLPs taught me (breathe, categorize and summarize). I had to use technology to my advantage. Google and spell & grammar checker are my friends.

Part of improving self esteem is having the drive to get things done - to accomplish goals. Working on goals and achieving them helps to improve self esteem in a number of ways.

In order to achieve goals first you need to want something tangible - a result. Weight loss, a new job, a boyfriend, a new car, etc. As you commit and work toward this goal, you boost your self esteem.

Just wanting something new can mean that you acknowledge your wants and needs as a person of worth. You deserve it.

Sometimes, experiencing a trauma (stroke, debilitating illness, etc) can make us doubt that we still have a purpose. I say, Where there is life, there is hope and a purpose.

We have this one life to live right now. I believe that everyone is here for a reason. We don't always think about purpose in life. Our purpose changes through the years. Finding our purpose is not always easy. At times it's just doing the best job we can for the task that is at hand.

I have found that I progressed in stages with this step of improving self esteem.

1. making plans and setting goals - for recovery

first with support and then on my own

finding and using motivation and improving resilience alone the way

2. finding a new purpose

identifying my strengths and core values

3. moving forward to live my best life

It takes determination to get your goals achieved. Achieving these can help boost self esteem as well as get you to the place you want to be - living your best life for as long as we have left. I'm reminded of the song......When you only got a 100 years to live......