more from A DYSTONIA DIARY
by Sue Cullen
If somebody had told me where I would be at the age of twenty five, and how my life would change, through illness, I probably would have wished to live only until the age of twenty four, if I'm to be honest.
The truth is though, nobody did and the bigger truth is, of course, nobody can.
When you find yourself in a dark place, dealing with something you never thought you would have to deal with you have only two choices.
One of these choices is to give up and lose direction, hoping that time will be forgiving and stand still for you, while you sort out, in your mind, how you are going to deal with the problem.
The other is to pick yourself up, out of a self pitying mode, and see what strength you can gain from the bad experience you are going through.
You see time does not and will not stand still.
You have only one life and you have to go on living no matter what it throws at you.
Bad experiences have to be turned into positive actions.
You lose far more by focusing on the bad, and you don't have that time to waste.
Each day is a gift, you have to make the most of each moment you have.
Somewhere within all of us there is an inner strength, designed to help each and everyone of us to come through bad experiences and carry on.
If we find this inner strength then each bad experience we encounter in our lives will carry us through and help us see bad experiences for what they are… just experiences.
Experiences be they good or bad, are great.
They make us reassess the direction our lives are going in.
My experience brought with it heart ache and pain, but it also brought about a new beginning. A new beginning I embraced with open arms. A beginning I looked at through wide innocent eyes. I didn't have a heavy heart as I let go of the past, I realised my life would be different and hold more meaning. It made me appreciate the beauty around me, made me jump out of bed and want to take on the world.
I didn't get knocked down and I'm glad I went through what I did and I'm glad I couldn't take a look into the future at the age of twenty four. For now, I'm glad to be alive.
There are many lessons to learn in life. School will teach you everything you need to know about geography, physics, math and history.
There are many more important lessons to learn in life too, but I'm afraid these are not the ones you will be taught at school.
These are every day subjects which you will learn simply by living. How you excel in these lessons is up to you as an individual. I can give you no advice on these apart from always be armed with a positive attitude.
If you love and lose, grieve but grieve quickly and choose to remember not miss.
If you hurt, cry quickly and set about finding the happiness inside of you.
Remember, always, time waits for no-one, and time is something we'll never have enough of.
Life experiences encourage us to make choices. And choices bring about chances.
Choices and chances are beautiful stepping stones on the path of life.
Beneath the path there are two sides of a river one free flowing and clear, the other murky and unsuspected.
Both are good to dip into as each side will fill you with strength.
… you see strength is power and it is inside all of us.