The importance of getting together and talking about spaghetti on toast

"Yay, I just ate spaghetti on toast with a knife and fork, b****y thrilled."

"It's finally nice to read something and know I can relate and that others may be able to relate with me. Finally a good feeling"

I've taken those words (with permission, of course) from a couple of posts today on Different Strokes, one of the several stroke-survivor Facebook groups, internet forums and websites I use and contribute to. I've chosen them because they sum up the importance to strokies of feeling that they are not alone. 

Like, I'm sure, lots of disabled people, stroke-survivors can be prone to bouts of low mood and even depression. Heck, The Warrior even gets it occasionally. It's the 'why did it happen to me?' syndrome.

The fact is, of course, that it was just as likely to happen to you as anyone else and now that it has, you can't stuff the genie back in the bottle. So it's important to keep your spirits up, to feel that you're not alone, to feel supported in as many ways as possible by your fellow strokies, wherever they may be. 

Last week, a lady stopped me in a shop in Tamworth and introduced herself. I'd never met her in person but we feel like old friends because of the relationship we've built up online as stroke-survivors. Through the internet, we encourage each other (the lady with the spaghetti on toast has had 38 messages of encouragement as I write; today spaghetti on toast, tomorrow, who knows?); we give each other advice about how to deal with the minefield which is the Department of Work and Pensions; we tell each other that no, you're not the first person ever to have had that symptom, it's perfectly common and there's no need to worry about it. 

And our carers also find support in this way. There is next to no help available in the UK for carers of strokies; for the people who didn't sign up for this but who now find themselves living with a totally different person, both mentally and physically, to the one they first met. That's not fair, it shouldn't happen, so the more help and support we can give each other, the better. 

My support network of these groups stretches right around the UK and across the Atlantic to the West Coast of the USA. It's vital to me and it helps me if I can feel I am supporting other people, whether strokies or carers. 

Many strokies are stuck at home all day and night, staring at four walls, because of their mobility problems. Anything which can help them get over the loneliness should be supported and encouraged. I hope that by drawing attention to groups like these, I can do my bit.