This website is not about doctors, therapists or scientists. They have their own agenda, but I have mine. I guess I do have an agenda, but I would rather say I have a strategy and it worked for me. For too many years I tried to wait, trying to find a way to "come home" but it never happened. I learned, or relearned how to tie my shoes, found a way to find a different word when I couldn't find the right one. I learned to be able to "get around" even if I couldn't find the right name, noun or number. I did it, but I didn't like it! There was something missing and it took me a long time to find it...but I did.

The Problem:

We are not the same people that we use to be. People are not born with aphasia...we get it. Typically, we are afflicted after a stroke or other kind of brain problem, but we change because of it. Most of us think the problem is aphasia, but I don't think so. Most of us believe that if we keep working long enough, playing around with the quarters and dimes, try to talk or read as often as we can we may "come back", but I'm not so sure. Most of them don't.

The problem is not aphasia: the problem is depression! The problem is not physical, it's emotional. As long as we wake-up every day with depression we may never go forward. As long as we wake-up at 3:00 AM, remembering that we can't do something right we may never go forward. As long as all of our family and friends know that we don't care enough to stop using the depression as the explanation it becomes the motive. The problem is the depression, not aphasia. The problem is emotions...our emotions!

The Plan:

This plan will not work if you don't care enough to have a quality life, and you must like yourself.

Now this seems a little strange, but think about it: how many times have you said that you could "just die", or how many times did you say that you could not ever have a "normal" life? How many times did you say that you don't like yourself anymore? Before you want to try the plan you must get over that junk! Take some time, and remember that you are the same person before the stroke, or before the aphasia. It does not matter if others do, or don't...you are: you are the same person and you know it. Life is precious, and if you have already been to the edge, you should know how precious it is. Enjoy every single day, with or without your disability.

My plan does not have to be "my plan", create you own. Mine works for me, and it has given me a way to get rid of the "mirrors and smoke". I had to get a clean blackboard so that I could go forward. I had to stop listening to "everyone else", that kept telling me that they couldn't do anymore for me. The therapists run-out of time or money or both. Family or friends typically had to do "something" else" or had to go "somewhere" else. Ninety-percent of the time I was alone and depressed. I decided that this was unacceptable. If I was going to be mentally healthy I had to do it by myself...and I did.

My life changed when I first created My Plan, built my "Code of Life", grabbed my computer and Microsoft programs and starting to work. First, I had to focus: I had to stop trying to do everything and take only one thing at a time, attempting to put each item into the right slots or boxes...mentally.

Secondly, I had to create two different lists in my mind: some were critical and kept them, and most of the rest were simply unimportant. I stopped worrying about the things that I couldn't do and started doing the things I could. One of the things that I could was starting to write again. I decided to create my "Code of Life" and it took some time, of course, but I had my computer, so I started…

I thought I needed to have a way to clearly focus and I knew that I had to write it down first. The easy part was starting my computer...I should have been doing that a long time ago…