Two Reasons to Get Some Counselling After Suffering From a Stroke
If you had a stroke recently, here are two reasons you should get some counselling.
To discuss death and your mortality
Having a stroke forces a person to consider death and their mortality. This can be even more upsetting and difficult than the health implications of this experience. If since the stroke, you've been ruminating on this subject, you should reach out to a health clinic and arrange to talk about it with one of their counsellors.
The reason for this is that, if you don't talk this out, the experience of coming so close to death may make you do drastic or perhaps irresponsible things. For instance, you might feel like maxing out all of your credit cards to travel to an exotic island, or you might suddenly decide to do some very extreme decluttering, where you get rid of almost everything you own, except for the absolute essentials.
Before these impulses become too irresistible, you should have a frank and thorough conversation with a counsellor, where you explore the fears that the stroke brought to the surface and find out what is driving your new impulses. For example, your sudden interest in de-cluttering might be because you're worried that if you die, your spouse will have to clear out your possessions on their own whilst also making your funeral arrangements. You can then have a conversation with your partner about this and create a less drastic plan for your (hopefully far-off) passing that will make handling your death as uncomplicated as possible for your spouse.
To help you to cope with the after-effects of the stroke
Unfortunately, having a stroke often leaves a person with side-effects that they may find challenging. If this has been the case for you (for example, if your speech or mobility has been affected, or if you generally feel weaker and more tired than you did before this health event), then counselling could be worthwhile. During your counselling appointments at the clinic, you could not only chat about the big and small issues these side-effects cause in your life (something that might not be easy for you to do with your loved ones, who may think that you should just be grateful to still be alive) but you can also get advice on how to stop dwelling on these negative things all of the time so that they don't colour your view of your life in general.
