Limited answers - relationships
My Thoughts
Since suffering my stroke, I pretty much feel like I’ve been stuffing up relationships. This feeling comes from not reading the cues or signals then staying up a fair bit of the night, wondering if I said or did the right thing. I know these are very negative thoughts, I'm just being honest about my feelings
The Ride
While we were moving from place to place during the 4 points ride, I had little opportunity to interact socially. If there was any interaction it was via dating apps. I’d start a conversation and it would just fade cause generally we’d be moving on the next day. In saying that, there's probably a handful of times when we still keep in contact via Instagram which is cool!
A Hypothetical One
I recently watched The One on Netflix and the synopsis is: there is a perfect system that matches your lifelong partner to you via a DNA program, and you live happily ever after. But the kicker is it's intertwined with a murder and a cover-up. It certainly intrigued me!
Right at the end of the first episode one of the characters gets hit by a car when she walks across the street to meet her future match (they’ve video-chatted) for the first time.
In Ep. 2 her partner is processing with her friend what has happened to her future partner. She says ‘What if she's brain damaged, what if I have to look after her?’ Her friend asks ‘what about her parents?” She replies ‘both are dead’. Later she also says ‘I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling’. It ends up with her staying with her future partner and the potential ongoing effects of the crash. She turns out fine.
It made me think on this and really question because, the other day a mate of mine, who lives with an acquired brain injury (ABI), said “Able women don't go out with us”. Now that is a blunt as fuck comment and it caught me by surprise.
I’m living with a disability more than ever (due to the car crash) and some of the thoughts that go through my head are:
Why have I struggled to form a solid connection in a relationship?
Is it because of the disability?
Are the assumptions that I'm incapable?
Is it because of the assumed dependence on living at home?
Is it sympathy, not empathy, that the other person is feeling, pity?
Is it harder to get a rewarding job living with a disability and from there, being financially stable?
The mobility, the slowness?
The fact I don't drive?
The physical intimacy?
There are limits to finding answers here. Should I be able to find resolutions in the inner depths of my mind? The best chance here for me to get any answers is to listen and understand where the other person is coming from.
My curiosity has got the better of me. Please do enlighten me on this hypothetical question (I love 'em’)
If the Netflix show, The One, was a real concept and you could really just put some hair in a test tube, and match it with your life partner. Would you get the test done?
Another question, what happens if you match with a person living with a disability, do any of your immediate thoughts fall across any of the questions above?
Or maybe your thoughts are completely different to any of the above, please let me know what you're thinking?
You do need to see the TV show to gauge the whole storyline but watch the trailer to get a sense.
Interesting Find
This is a super interesting YouTube Ted Talk, It is probably the longest-running study of all time, Here are the three main themes they learned from this 75-year Harvard study:
Good social connection leads to better life outcomes. Loneliness can be toxic and lead to worse health outcomes.
That it’s the quality of social connection and relationships that lead to better health outcomes.
That healthy, loving relationships give the other partner's memory a protective coating. Good relationships protect your brain as well, less memory decline
‘The good life is built on good relationships’
My Key Takeaway
The key takeaway for me from this TED talk is that having good friendships and/or partnerships is so important for all of us both physically and emotionally. None of us thrive on loneliness. and I will make the assumption that I'm not the only person reading this who feels this way.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts done for today.
Feelings
I was super lucky to work over the two days with the Stroke Foundation Childhood Lived Experience advisory group face-to-face meeting. Some great outcomes and directions were made and gained for the next 12 months.
More news to come in this space as we grow, learn, and evolve together. I love the group that I work with (2+ years) and I see us as a pivotal centerpiece for pioneering change in the area! That area being childhood stroke.
My feelings over the past few days if I were to sum it up in three words would be, Empathise, growth, and honesty. There could be so many more in there but they’d be my top three.
To be honest it has rejuvenated my beliefs even more on what we can do, and be, in the future!
I will mention that there was a fair bit of talk about the Tassie 3 points ride in March 2025 and the potential, opportunity we have there in speaking.
That’s an inside scoop!
This image was legendary with all smiles and if you want any linkedin info just click the image.
Dare to be Brave
Final week, drum-roll please!
It was the crunch time, the roll-up, the calm before the storm and surprisingly I wasn't nervous, I was more like let’s do THIS, I’m itching!
Jason and I did two run-throughs and we got slightly creative Eg throwing in a few extra lines and emphasising certain points, we emphasised to a T!
When we got into the studio, I kept thinking of ways to adjust and flow, essentially transitioning from one action into another, I quickly learned that that wasn’t the best way for me to act and I don’t think it will ever be…
The build up was killing me cause I wanted to give it a go early and get it out of the way but at the same time I was thinking, mulling over which way to attack the scene.
I famously over cooked myself in overthinking as the previous mentioned, realised this fast and promptly stuffed up my lines, or more to the point skipped ahead to my last line, which made it very difficult for the other Tom, a professional actor to adjust, we had to restart.
I did hold my composure, so I was happy about that.
The second go was good till I forgot my line towards the end, again my composure saved my ASS. I held in the moment and rethought my line from the depths of my inner brain and finished off the scene.
We gave it another go and we bloody nailed it, absolutely BLOODY nailed it!
I think the key takeaway message for me is to try and stay present with acting but also beyond acting. I think controlling the uncontrollable and worrying about things that is outside your powers is a thing that I do too much of in life.
Primed example paragraph two.
So what’s next?
Well, there’s a little bit of a gap in classes and then I’ll be moving on to level two at Brave. In that gap time the actors and I in my class are going to catch up for a social BEV, should be grouse fun, might do a recap of the scene!
Stay tuned for round two.
TQ over and out!
The expectation
Week five in the brave studio.
It was an interesting week in terms of my filming world, with learning my lines and then when it came to the ‘crunch time’ in fine form, fucking it up!
I reckon every line I had to say to someone ‘line’ as in to tell me what my lines were, every time…
It was painful. But a real awakening to reality.
Interesting the thought process to find that real awakening was:
Is your processing speed still as slow as you were back in the first few years of your stroke?
From thinking about it to comprehending it to spitting it out. It felt like time had slowed down to half speed.
The reason why I say this is when I was concentrating I was concentrating solely on the script lines nothing else mattered and when I said one line and then the partner (who was awesome) said the other line, I would still be registering and searching for my next line…
The teacher (also awesome) and I discussed it later and it worked out it was mainly the nerves, not my processing speed, well it might be a bit but not as much as I read into.
I’ve watched the playback, there were some wickedly good acts and all I'm going to say about mine is it can be improved, it wasn't as bad as I originally thought.
One thing I will say about my lines, and I feel this goes across the board with speaking, I never want to get too reliant on them, they limit my confidence.
Book baby!!!!
Turning a collection of stories into a book.
There's me telling the story of my life but who is doing the actual hard labor, putting pen to paper?
Now I'm going to give him some shit right now because one of his catchphrases is ‘Don't you know who I am?!’ (a bit cocky, ya think) and this is a perfect opportunity to say ‘nope sorry, who are you?’. His name is Heath Ryan, 1: he's Canadian, 2: he's written a bloody job lot of books, 3: he loves cycling, 4: he only picked cycling up about 8 years ago (or so he says) 5: he has been in Australia for 25+ years and hasn't lost the accent and 6: he's done the triple crown, which not a hell of a lot of people have done. What is that you ask? I'll let his site The Dark Knight explain it.
I'm telling you a lot about him but how did we meet?
So, one of my friends, who lives in the local area and I met down at lord Somers community camp a few years ago, started talking about me doing the 4 Points Ride in 2021 and he said “I know a bloke who is an ultra rider who goes by the name The Dark Knight.” I thought it was an odd name to go by but never judge a book by its cover, great pun to use in this blog!
Eventually, we managed to catch up and yer my first impression was a lovely bloke who talks underwater!
We got to ride together from Seymour to Euroa, before he went away to ride in Europe, and then again from Hopetoun to Ararat, it was a lot of fun. It was both the stories as well as the riding!
What's going to be encompassed in the book?
Well, it'll be about me, it'll be about the 4 Points Ride, it'll be about the crash and what I had to go through, and there’s a lot about my feelings from personal challenges to achievements.
Will there be an audio version?
That's my plan, how we shape it and how it works is still yet to be discovered, we are just mulling the ideas over at this stage.
Funny story about the diary.
I was handing it over to Heath so he could photocopy it and get a printout he could use as both a guide and the timeline of how we rode the 4 points of Australia.
We were sitting up the back at Little Byrd and we both agreed we should read a piece from the diary as I’d never really ever read it because it had mainly been written by Mum. Heath opens up the diary and starts to read, ‘The date is the 17th of November….’ I knew straight away it was the crash date, I gave a little chuckle thinking fucking hell of all the dates why did it have to be that one…!
Heath didn't realise the extraordinary importance of THAT date and when he did, it silenced him - no mean feat!!!!
The 3 points of Tassie.
This'll be interesting, I mean Heath can talk underwater so….
It’ll actually be a lot of fun and I can’t wait for it to happen! We have sat down and mapped the route (he loves doing the mapping, so I just let him finish it) though collaborative is best, in all senses!
The dates we are thinking about are mid-March till the start of May - May is the Month for Pediatric/Childhood Stroke.
We will also have Glenn, another stroke survivor, joining us to pedal the entire 3 Points of Tasmania.
Sometimes when talking with Heath I get on a rant roll, they can be ruthless.
In reality, these aren't all rants but can just be stories with feelings. I can assure you these aren't aimed at Heath, he just has to listen, luckily he’s a curious fellow.
The last one he had to cop started with my early school days and evolved to CTP (Compulsory Third Party, S.A.) and the LSS (Lifetime Support Scheme S.A.), NDIS, and Services Australia. I think we got onto that topic because later that day I had a phone consult to discuss my ongoing support from Centrelink. Over the years some of these conversations had been pretty Shit, to put it bluntly. I think this vent was heard by a higher power as I can tell you now that this one was actually a very positive experience!
Anyway, I think that's enough for now. These blogs are getting longer and longer so I want to downsize a bit.
Early days in the planning. If you have any useful information feel free to chuck them in the comment section.
Thank you!
For now,
TQ signing off.