It’s a fact that someone with cerebral palsy uses 3 to 5 times more energy to do the same things as someone without cerebral palsy, so it stands to reason that because I have cerebral palsy, I will tire more quickly when I over exert myself.
It also stands to reason that the older we get, the more tired we will become so living with cerebral palsy means I will tire 3 to 5 times more as I age, than someone ageing without the condition. Over the last few months I have noticed more of a dip in my energy levels and although I still manage to take walks, when I do walk for long periods it now takes me a lot longer to recover.
Taking a walk, results in me having to rest for between 3 to 4 hours, only then do I begin to feel normal again. Mentally and physically it takes me time to recover. The scary part about cerebral palsy is that I’m struggling not only to keep up with the condition, but also to understand the enormity behind what I deal with.
Also, not being able to live a normal life and when new things crop up, having to understand and deal with those too. It's emotionally and mentally tiring.
I get tired a lot when I do a lot of walking, too. A surge of frustration takes hold of me that I just feel like screaming and feel like just collapsing onto the ground. Even household chores like vacuuming are like a workout for me.
I have had those moments when I wish I could live a normal life. To be able to do stuff that others do easily. For example, a few days ago I went to a party that had dancing. Just watching the people dancing made me wish I was able to dance so freely.
Even though we might accept having CP, we still have our struggling times and wonder about the what ifs.
Yes I have had too and know how you feel and it's at that time when we do tire ourselves out. We begin to question why a lot more.
It's taken me too long to stop thinking about the what ifs, but us both letting go will give us more emotional freedom, so that we just get to live our lives.
I am more emotionally free than I have been, like a weight has been lifted. In order to have that I tend to look for the reason behind why something happens (like why I was born with Cerebral Palsy) and that does help, but agree it can also make us feel bad also.
I believe our thoughts will always depend on how we choose to see our lives. We must try to see and live our lives positively, without the what ifs. They don't help.
Knowing that is harder for me to move and can get discouraging. I have to dig a little bit deeper to motivate myself, it is getting harder as I've grown older and what used to take me one day to recover from a gym workout, now takes me two or three.
I do believe that we have a higher tolerance for pain than the normal individual and that they would have even a greater difficulty dealing with the same proportional pain and discomfort. So in fact we are not weaker, we are stronger, we can work and move through it.
Hi Jonathan and welcome to the site. I also have to dig a little deeper to keep myself motivated and agree with you about pain tolerance. That would explain why as a child my tolerance to pain was high.
In some respects as you suggest we are stronger, but in other areas we will probably be weaker and struggle more. I know emotionally it's often harder to stay strong, particularly with what we have to deal with physically. In my own case having had little to no support has made it even harder.
It would be lovely to see you back on the site soon. Thanks for posting today.