Adapted Cycle; Adapted Laptop; Adapted Life

Life is never the same after workplace bullying.

The target/victim will never be able to go back to what they were, who they were before the assault on their value, their integrity, their personality was launched.

However, that's not to say that it can't be as good in its own way - or even better.  It just won't be the same.

It depends on how the target/victim adapts their life to meet their present challenges.

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Just as when my laptop got "baptized" a few weeks back and damaged some of the connections on the keyboard, it will never function the way it did before the "baptism"/injury; however, it can be functional again - with some adaptations.

In this case, I took the (at that time nonfunctional) laptop to a who tech reconnected things inside so the laptop would turn on (Yay!) and then advised me to purchase a new keyboard/mouse set as a workaround for the now defective keyboard.  Which I did.

Unfortunately, without thinking I went for the cheapest keyboard/mouse set I could find.  It was a cheap fix but that keyboard is one honkin' big thing. My grandson says he's never seen one that big. Then there's the presence of two mice: one for the desktop and the one for the laptop.  Have you ever tried sitting in a chair with the laptop on a desk in front of you, two mice (one for the laptop and one for my desktop) trying a balance a huge keyboard on your lap?

Clumsy does not adequately begin to describe the new set up - especially if I continue to use the desktop as I've used it in the past - to do two things at once like watching a DVD on the desktop and writing my blog on the laptop.

I've also discovered that picking up the desktop mouse when using the laptop does not work - and vice versa.

Final solution in this case: buy an affordable laptop.

Of course then, I have the challenge of learning to use a new laptop with a different operating system.

I think I can do that.

Actually I know I can do that because I am writing this blog posting on the new laptop.

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Similarly, when my balance became seriously disrupted along with cognitive skills, and other things like high anxiety in the fall of 2011 and continued on for months, either I had to give up cycling period or find another way to do something I enjoyed.

My Adapted Bike Freedom Hope
in a victory moment at the top of a steep hill

Me being me, I chose the latter - to find a way to make cycling safely a reality in my new life.

Solving this problem involved a different process than adapting the laptop.

The existing bicycle, a 10 speed mixte frame Raleigh Grand Prix, could not be adapted for my needs.  So I had to construct a whole new set up from the ground ... er ... should I say from the wheels up?

I did some preliminary research on the net and discovered some options: a trike - either a regular adult trike or a recumbent trike; stabilizer wheels which are about the same diameter as the bike's wheels and set close to the rear wheel; or adult training wheels - similar to a child's training wheels but bigger and sturdier.

I chose the latter.

Again, it works.  Again, there are adaptations involved.  Again, there's a new way, a different way of doing things.  Again, like the laptop with the huge keyboard, it's a visible adaptation. 

It's not the same as riding a regular, two-wheeled bicycle.  For one thing with the additional set of wheels, it's heavier than the normal bike.  Also, with the additional wheels, it's clumsier than a "normal" bike.

But it works.  Like the adapted laptop and a workaround in the workplace, it's not optimal but it works and it's giving me a piece of my life back.

Freedom Hope all ready to participate in this year's
Great Cycle Challenge

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And now we get to the part about the adapted life which is something else altogether.

Since all the damage/injury is internal due to stress from the bullying, there are no appliances I can add like a cast, crutches, wheelchair, artificial limb or other device that's visible.  It's all internal. Nothing visible.

In this case, the adaptations are called coping mechanisms: alternate ways of dealing with situations; alternate ways of looking at things; alternate ways of making things work.

For example, I used to cook almost exclusively using a recipe.  Now I've learned to be more creative and throw things together.  When the cognitive skills won't cognitate (I think I made up that word), the creative skills have kicked in.

For the times when I'm too weak and shaky to function (which still happens on occasion), I try to keep frozen entrees from the store on hand.

When all else fails, hubby makes a mean chilli. 

For me, it's also meant reinventing my self plus my lifestyle.

It's meant walking with a therapist during the duration.  Learning my strengths and weaknesses.  My value.  Accepting myself for who I am; for what I am ... and also for what I'm not.  Realizing that I'm human.  I'm not perfect ... and neither is anyone else.  I'm learning that I cannot control anyone else and at that same time that I should never allow anyone else to control me.

Recently I tried to sign up for a local group ride with the Great Cycle Challenge only to be told that if I'm the one with the training wheels, this ride is "appropriate" for me.  Two things: (a) I hate the word "appropriate" because it was continually being thrown at me in the workplace during the bullying years and (b) go back to the paragraph above about not allowing someone else to control me.

It's meant realizing that there are chronic sometimes debilitating affects which appear to be here for the long term although they are significant better than seven years ago when they first not only appeared but took over my life.

The weakness and shakiness I've referred to earlier is not only an ongoing concern, but is currently a very real and present concern.

You, my reader, cannot see it in action; however, it has kicked in viciously during the writing of this post.  I've writing it - slowly a few sentences, a paragraph at a time.  That's why there was no post on Monday. 

But I've also learned to be gentle with myself.  To not kick myself in the butt when I cannot do things.  To treat myself with grace - just like God does.

Fatigue, lack of balance, cognitive disruptions along with other affects come and go.  Every year though I see a piece of recovery. 

I've challenged myself in ways that I could never have imagined when I was still "healthy".

I'm not the same person who had the energy to go places and do things.  Not the same person at all.

Yet in many ways, I'm a new person.  Able to enjoy life in ways that I never could before.

Victory after Group Ride #2 in the Great Cycle Challenge

For that I am thankful.