Anxiety and fear about having another stroke are not unusual—in fact, they’re a very normal and common emotional response. Many, if not most, people in our community have experienced or are still working through that persistent sense of dread that can come with adjusting to life after a stroke and facing the unknown. It’s something to be met with care and understanding, not self-criticism, and talking openly about it can bring comfort and avoid isolation.

Stroke ripples through every aspect of your life and you don’t get a say in that, which can make us spiral when we consider our choices being taken away. We like to feel as though we’re in control of our lives, but stroke teaches us the reality of how that control can be suddenly taken away from us in a flash. It can bring an awareness of your own mortality, which may lead to all sorts of maudlin and mixed up thoughts—feelings that don’t simply disappear overnight. 

Learning how to cope with the dark cloud of uncertainty takes time and patience—especially with daily access to content and information that may be triggering. There is no quick fix but there are ways to gently shift the direction of how you respond to it, so the fear becomes more like adjustable background noise rather than something all-consuming. Familiarizing yourself with your body and mind, understanding the complexities of stroke and how this impacts your mentality, is a really helpful tool in moving forward.

A good place to start is sensitively exploring why the stroke occurred in the first place. If you have been informed of the cause and can identify your personal risk factors, it allows you to regain that sense of control and peace—you’re then able to actively manage any contributing conditions that have contributed towards it, reduce any further risks, implement preventable procedures such as medication, surgery and lifestyle changes, and lower the chance of it happening again.

If the cause isn’t clear, can’t be changed, or if you’re still waiting for answers, it’s completely natural for that precariousness to feel stressful. In those moments, it can help to focus on seeking perspective; reflecting on the realistic likelihood of it happening again while also noticing how our thoughts can often lean toward worry than rationality. When you take a step back and weigh things up, you may find that those anxious thoughts carry more weight than the actual level of risk.

Finding the right balance between being aware of your own bodily symptoms—including the sensations that come with a brain that’s recovering and rewiring—and recognising stroke warning signs can take a bit of practice, but it’s something to stick with and to keep learning from. 

Spending too much time over-researching and dwelling on what can be—especially based on other people’s experiences—can be unnecessarily harmful. Catastrophising will only feed the anxieties, so it’s best to stay mindful and continue to make small mental adjustments to the overbearing thoughts—paying less attention to the worst-case scenarios and bringing your focus back to what you know, rather than what might happen.

Many stroke survivors find that nighttime can be the hardest, with anxiety and fear often feeling more intense—especially when going to sleep can bring another sense of losing control of your consciousness. It becomes a difficult cycle, as disruptive and poor sleep may raise stress levels and make those feelings even harder to handle.

Finding ways to gently relax your mind, both during the day and in the evening, can assist in soothing your worry in the long run. Alongside applying any rehabilitation activities and advice to your routine, using simple distractions can be a godsend in interrupting the cycles of being so caught up in your ruminations—things like playing your favourite music, looking through photos, reading, or listening to an audiobook. Light escapism in media consumption or even using humour as a coping strategy can also offer some relief.

Grounding techniques can be helpful too, bringing your attention back to your external surroundings and internal sensations in the moment. And having a creative outlet—whether that’s art, photography, or journaling—can provide a safe and supportive way to process what you’re feeling.

You have to do what you need to do to get through the hardest chapters of your life—and there’s no shame in that. At the same time, try not to bottle things up and let them fester beneath the surface. When our founder, Bridie, had her stroke at 17, she shared a bed with her mum for months due to the fear of having a second stroke whilst sleeping alone; that closeness was what helped her feel safe enough to rest, until she developed healthier ways of coping by seeking professional support and attending CBT and neuropsychology sessions, and was able to sleep independently again. While following medical advice is an important foundation, it’s equally important to recognise when you need additional psychological support to keep going.

Fear will only go away when you are prepared to loosen your hold on it. You can go one step further in accepting that fear is a natural reaction to trauma, and challenge it by focusing on the present rather than the past and potential future crises.

By staying connected to your day-to-day activities and carrying on as usual, ordinary moments can gradually start to take up more space. Over time, calmness will slowly take the place of the fear—still there at times, but becoming less noticeable, and easing further into the distance.