silverlara

It is considered a fairly treatable disorder by psychologists. I encourage you to seek out some help to overcome it!

That's such a shame. Rehab is so physically focused that the emotions don't really get a lot of attention often. I hope you get the chance to see somebody in the community if you feel you need it. SCI is a huge thing for anybody to go through and friends and family are often dealing with their own grief and loss for you so it is hard to talk things over with them.

I did notice you mentioned having some anxiety and concentration difficulties - both of which are totally normal and understandable. If you haven't already, I recommend looking into mindfulness meditation practice. It is a bit weird at first but can really help with pain management and emotional regulation.

I hope I'm not coming across as too preachy, it is just a real shame you didn't get that support early on. It sounds like you're doing great though, and I wish you all the best in life :)

[deleted]

That's a tough one as there are so many causes of crummy sleep and I am betting you have a lot of factors not working in your favour at the moment like pain and repositioning problems.

One type of mindfulness meditation is mindfulness of the breath where you focus your attention on your breathing whenever you notice it has drifted off. If the breath focus conflicts or exacerbates any physical issues for you, you could try "leaves on a stream" where you imagine yourself sitting by a gentle stream and placing each new thought on a leaf as it comes to mind then watch it drift down the stream.

There are some good recordings online for free if you google them and over time you can probably do without the recordings. It sounds deceptively simple, but it is actually pretty challenging. Like anything, with practice it gets easier and I promise there is a good evidence basis for it in research studies. :)