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Home / Thoughts / Sean's Thoughts / Suspicious mind

Suspicious mind

Written by Sean on Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Thinking of the dog (see January 11 update) made me think something else. What if my partner was trying to place me in "enjoyable" situations where I am walking, in a strange way to make me enjoy walking more? Oh, I don’t really think she’s doing that, but wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in the back of her mind, it hadn’t crossed her brain.

The dog used to really enjoy going for car rides. Then, she got really sick, and had to go to the vet, which turned out to be a really unhappy time, to say the least. Ever since, the dog frets, whines and trembles every time she’s in the car. To the point that we can’t bring her anywhere in the car. But she’s always keen to get in the car, and is apparently feeling a mix of being happy to go for a drive and being extremely unhappy to be in the car. My partner said to me that she was hoping that by making car rides enjoyable, and not always ending up at the vet, the dog would start to enjoy herself more, and be less terrorised by riding cars.

So, my suspicious mind can’t help thinking that if my partner is using that "training method" on the dog, she might not be thinking something along the lines of "let’s give Sean enjoyable walking experiences so he comes to like walking more". The concept may be sound, and probably not that far out from some genuine therapy methods.

The flaw, the fly in the ointment is that it’s not working.

If doing enjoyable things while walking had changed how I feel inside, then I’d never even reached the stage of becoming a full time wheelchair user (that stage has been, obviously, left behind me now, but that’s another story entirely). I’ve done tramping, which I really enjoyed. I’ve gone bush for weeks on end, by myself with a backpack. I loved it. I cycled quite a bit, so much so that I was training for competition, I guess I enjoyed it, eh? Heck, I really enjoy sex (no, I’m not having sex while walking, but things would most definitely not be the same if I had an SCI). I could keep on listing things I really enjoy that associate walking with pleasure. But all these things don’t make me feel better about walking.

Never easy, and it doesn’t seem to show sign of simplifying!