Positive People Survive Post Polio Syndrome

09/03/2026

The UK health system hasn’t figured out how to care for its roughly 50,000 polio survivors, a problem soon to be replicated around the globe.

09/02/2026

PART II — THE CHANGING SELF
When the Body Changes, Who Am I Now?

Aging, Identity, Emotional Regulation, and Living With Post-Polio Syndrome

By Kenneth Fuller

There is a question that comes quietly with aging.

Sometimes it arrives when we look in the mirror.

Sometimes, when we attempt something, our bodies do it without thinking.

Sometimes when we realize that an activity we once considered ordinary now requires planning, assistance, adaptation—or cannot be done in the same way anymore.

The question is:

Who am I now?

It sounds like a question about the body.

But it is really a question about identity.

Because we don’t simply live in our bodies.

We construct part of our identity through them.

We remember what we could do.

We remember how fast we could move.

We remember working, dancing, traveling, lifting, climbing, walking, performing, carrying, reaching, and participating in life without having to calculate the physical cost of every decision.

Then something changes.

And suddenly, the person we remember and the person we encounter in the mirror don’t always feel like the same person.

For those of us living with Post-Polio Syndrome, that confrontation can become particularly profound.

⸻

The Body We Remember

I have lived with the consequences of polio for most of my life.

For decades, adaptation was simply part of living.

You learn how to move differently.

You learn how to conserve energy.

You learn how to negotiate environments.

You learn which activities require preparation.

You learn how to compensate.

You learn not to make your limitations the center of every conversation.

And perhaps most importantly, you learn to develop an identity that extends beyond what your body can or cannot do.

But Post-Polio Syndrome introduces another layer.

After decades of relative stability, some polio survivors experience new or increased weakness, fatigue, pain, decreased endurance, and other symptoms.

The medical literature recognizes PPS as a condition that can emerge many years after the original poliovirus infection. Its causes and mechanisms are complex, and symptoms can vary considerably among individuals.

The challenge isn’t simply physical.

It is psychological.

Because the body has changed the terms of the relationship.

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This Is Not About Blaming the Mind

I want to make something very clear.

Post-Polio Syndrome is not a psychological disorder.

And the psychological experiences discussed here should not be interpreted as causing PPS.

The neurological and physiological realities of PPS are real.

What I am interested in is what happens psychologically when a person has to live inside a body whose capabilities are changing.

That distinction matters.

Because there is a long history of telling people with physical disabilities, explicitly or implicitly, that if they could simply think differently, try harder, remain positive, or overcome their emotional barriers, they could overcome their physical limitations.

That is not what I am saying.

Sometimes the body says:

No.

And no amount of positive thinking turns that no into a yes.

The psychological work is not convincing the body to do something it cannot safely do.

The psychological work is learning how to live meaningfully within the reality of the body we have.

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When Capability Becomes Identity

Most of us don’t consciously decide:

“My ability to walk is part of my identity.”

We simply live.

Our capabilities become invisible because they are so familiar.

Then one day we lose some of them.

And something strange happens.

We don’t just lose a physical capability.

We may feel as though we have lost a piece of ourselves.

This is why physical decline can produce grief.

Not because we are vain.

Not because we are weak.

But because loss of function can represent loss of identity.

The person who was always the traveler may have to reconsider travel.

The person who was always the provider may have to reconsider what providing means.

The physically active person may have to redefine activity.

The independent person may have to accept assistance.

The person who always said, “I can do it myself,” may have to learn a new sentence:

“I can do it differently.”

And sometimes:

“I need help.”

Those are not easy sentences for an independent person to learn.

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The Grief Nobody Sees

There is a particular kind of grief associated with physical change that can be difficult for other people to understand.

It isn’t necessarily grief over losing a person.

It can be grief over losing a version of yourself.

You may still be here.

Your memories are still here.

Your personality is still here.

Your intelligence is still here.

Your creativity is still here.

Your spirituality is still here.

Your relationships are still here.

But something you once did without thinking now requires enormous effort.

Or perhaps it is no longer possible.

That can create what I would call identity grief.

And identity grief deserves to be acknowledged.

Because when we refuse to acknowledge it, it can emerge in other forms:

irritability,

anger,

withdrawal,

depression,

shame,

frustration,

or a constant internal battle against reality.

Sometimes what looks like anger is grief that has not yet found its proper name.

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The Emotional Regulation Challenge

This is where emotional regulation becomes particularly important.

Emotional regulation does not mean suppressing emotions.

It means developing the ability to recognize, understand, and respond to emotional states rather than automatically being controlled by them.

Psychological research has demonstrated that the ways people regulate emotion are associated with psychological well-being and functioning.

For someone living with a changing body, this can become an everyday practice.

The body becomes fatigued.

The mind becomes frustrated.

The frustration becomes anger.

The anger becomes self-criticism.

The self-criticism becomes shame.

And suddenly, what began as physical limitation has become emotional suffering.

Breaking that chain requires awareness.

Instead of:

“My body is failing me.”

we may eventually learn to say:

“My body is giving me information.”

Instead of:

“I can’t do anything anymore.”

we may learn to ask:

“What can I still do, and what needs to be done differently?”

Instead of:

“I shouldn’t need help.”

we may learn:

“Needing assistance does not erase my competence.”

Those are not merely positive affirmations.

They are cognitive reframings.

They change the relationship between circumstance and identity.

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Energy Is Not Character

One of the most important lessons PPS can teach us is something our culture often gets wrong:

Energy is not character.

Fatigue does not mean laziness.

Rest does not mean weakness.

Using an assistive device does not mean failure.

Changing an activity does not mean giving up.

And conserving energy does not mean that we have stopped living.

The medical literature on PPS recognizes fatigue as a complex symptom influenced by multiple interacting factors. Research has examined physical, behavioral, and psychosocial contributors, including pain, sleep, stress, mood, and self-efficacy.

That matters because it reminds us that the experience is multidimensional.

We cannot always control fatigue.

But we can sometimes change how we interpret it.

And interpretation matters.

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The Old Baseline Meets the New Reality

This brings us back to the idea of the Baseline Self.

The person I became over a lifetime developed expectations about who I was.

I learned what I could do.

I learned how I survived.

I learned how I adapted.

I learned how I presented myself to the world.

I learned to be independent.

I learned to keep moving.

I learned to figure things out.

Then the body changes.

And the old baseline says:

“Keep going.”

The body says:

“Slow down.”

The old baseline says:

“You’ve always done this.”

The body says:

“Not this way anymore.”

That conflict can become exhausting.

The solution is not necessarily to destroy the old identity.

It is to update it.

⸻

Adaptation Is Not Defeat

One of the most powerful lessons I have learned is that adaptation is not surrender.

A cane is an adaptation.

Crutches are an adaptation.

A scooter is an adaptation.

Rest is an adaptation.

Planning is an adaptation.

Changing the route is an adaptation.

Asking for help is an adaptation.

There is no shame in adaptation.

In fact, adaptation may be one of the clearest expressions of intelligence.

Nature adapts.

The nervous system adapts.

Human beings adapt.

We should not confuse adaptation with defeat.

The question is not:

“Can I live exactly the way I lived before?”

The better question may be:

“How can I live meaningfully now?”

⸻

The Older I Become, the More I Understand

Age gives us something youth cannot provide:

context.

We begin to understand that identity is not a finished product.

We are not one person forever.

We are continuously negotiating between memory and reality.

Between what we were and what we are.

Between what we expected and what actually happened.

Between independence and interdependence.

Between loss and possibility.

That negotiation can be painful.

But it can also be liberating.

Because if identity can change, then physical limitation does not have to erase the self.

It can require us to redefine the self.

⸻

What Remains?

So I return to the question:

Who am I now?

I am not merely the body I remember.

I am not merely the limitations I experience.

I am not the diagnosis.

I am not the mobility device.

I am not the fatigue.

I am not the things I can no longer do.

Those things are part of my present reality.

But they are not the entirety of my identity.

I remain a thinker.

A creator.

A husband.

A father.

A friend.

A spiritual being.

A storyteller.

A musician.

A human being still capable of curiosity, love, laughter, frustration, discovery, imagination, and growth.

The body has changed.

But the self is still becoming.

⸻

We Don’t Have to Win Against the Body

Perhaps one of the deepest lessons of aging is that life is not always about winning.

Sometimes it is about negotiating.

We negotiate with time.

We negotiate with memory.

We negotiate with our bodies.

We negotiate with loss.

We negotiate with our expectations.

And eventually, we learn that acceptance does not mean approval.

I do not have to like every limitation.

I do not have to pretend that loss does not hurt.

I do not have to call every difficulty a blessing.

I can be frustrated.

I can grieve.

I can be angry.

I can have a bad day.

And then I can begin again.

That, too, is resilience.

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The New Question

Perhaps the question is no longer:

“How do I get back to who I was?”

Maybe the better question is:

“What can I become from here?”

That question leaves room for grief without becoming imprisoned by it.

It leaves room for the past without requiring us to live there.

It leaves room for limitations without allowing limitations to become the whole story.

And it leaves room for something that becomes increasingly precious as we age:

choice.

I cannot choose everything my body will do.

I cannot choose everything that happened to me.

I cannot rewrite my history.

But I can participate in the meaning I give it.

I can choose how I speak to myself.

I can choose when to rest.

I can choose when to ask for help.

I can choose what deserves my energy.

I can choose what relationships nourish me.

I can choose what dreams remain worth pursuing.

And I can choose to recognize that adaptation is not the opposite of living.

Adaptation is living.

The body may change.

The circumstances may change.

The baseline may change.

But the story is not finished.

The question is no longer, “Who was I?”

The question is:

“Who am I becoming now?”

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Selected Professional References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About Polio in the United States. Current information concerning poliovirus infection and post-polio syndrome.

Lorig, K., et al. Research and clinical reviews concerning Post-Polio Syndrome, including fatigue, weakness, pain, sleep, cognitive concerns, and quality-of-life considerations.

Tersteeg, I. M., et al. Research examining fatigue in Post-Polio Syndrome and its association with disease-related, behavioral, and psychosocial factors.

Gross, J. J. Research on emotion regulation and the processes through which individuals influence emotional experience and expression.

McAdams, D. P. Research on narrative identity and personality development across the life span.

Baltes, P. B. Lifespan development research concerning adaptation, aging, gains, losses, and the changing relationship between individual capacities and environmental demands.

09/01/2026

My daughter is an exceptional RN. I have loved nurses since the first polio operation when I was three years old. No one comforts a frighten traumatized child like a nurse, bipedal or rolling in a wheelchair. NURSE! 🆘

Andrea Dalzell, known as "The Seated Nurse," has used a wheelchair since age 5 due to transverse myelitis. Despite facing discrimination along the way, she stayed committed to becoming a nurse.

She made history as the first female wheelchair user to graduate from New York University's accelerated nursing program, and now works at one of New York City's top hospitals.

Today, Andrea works to challenge stereotypes about disability and improve accessibility in healthcare, believing that a disability is just one part of who someone is not the whole story. 🩺

09/01/2026

BECOMING

The Psychology of Who We Were, Who We Are, and Who We Become

PART I — THE BASELINE SELF
How the Child We Were Continues to Live Inside the Adult We Became

By Kenneth Fuller

There comes a point in life when looking backward becomes more than remembering.

We begin investigating.

We begin asking questions that perhaps we were not emotionally or intellectually equipped to ask when we were younger:

Why did I become the person I became?

Why do I respond to certain situations the way I do? Why do certain people trigger emotions in me that seem larger than the moment itself? Why do I repeat behaviors I thought I had already outgrown?

And perhaps the most difficult question:

Why did I make some of the choices I made?

As we grow older, we may find ourselves lying awake at night revisiting decisions, relationships, mistakes, missed opportunities, and moments we wish we could change.

But there is a problem with judging our younger selves entirely through the consciousness of the person we are today.

The child we were did not possess the knowledge of the adult we became.

That child was learning.

And what that child learned became part of the foundation upon which the adult was eventually built.

⸻

What I Call the Baseline Self

I have come to think about this as the Baseline Self.

“Baseline personality” is not a formal psychological diagnosis or a single established scientific construct. I use the term as a way of bringing several established areas of psychological science together: temperament, personality development, attachment, identity formation, emotional regulation, learned behavior, and the stories we construct about our lives.

Psychological research tells us that personality begins developing early, but it is not frozen in childhood. Temperament provides an important foundation, while personality continues to develop through adolescence and adulthood. Identity develops alongside it as we form increasingly sophisticated ideas about who we are, what we value, where we belong, and who we believe we can become.

That distinction is important.

Our childhood may establish a baseline.

It does not necessarily establish our destination.

Our baseline is the starting configuration from which we continue developing.

It includes what we were born with.

It includes what we experienced.

It includes what we witnessed.

It includes what we were taught.

And perhaps most importantly, it includes what we concluded about life before we were old enough to understand that we were forming conclusions.

The child watches.

The child absorbs.

The child imitates.

The child adapts.

And eventually, what began as adaptation can feel like identity.

We may eventually say:

“This is just who I am.”

But sometimes what we call personality is partly the accumulated history of what we learned to do in order to belong, survive, be loved, be accepted, protect ourselves, or make sense of the world.

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The Two Worlds Within Me

My own childhood provides an interesting example.

I was raised in the church.

My spiritual awareness began very early. At approximately six years old, during communion, I experienced what I understood to be my first conversion experience.

That experience mattered.

The church gave me language for God, morality, responsibility, spirituality, community, right and wrong, and the possibility of becoming something greater than myself.

But that was not the only world in which I was being raised.

I also lived over a bar.

I danced in cafés.

I was exposed to another adult world—nightlife, sexuality, alcohol, prostitutes, pimps, music, performance, human survival, and the realities of people living outside the boundaries of the religious environment in which I was being formed.

These experiences are part of the public history documented in my memoirs.

What interests me now is not simply the contrast between those environments.

It is what happens psychologically when both worlds become part of the same child.

A six-year-old does not necessarily possess the developmental capacity to construct a sophisticated psychological map and say:

This belongs to my spiritual identity.

That belongs to the world I should reject.

The child experiences life first.

Meaning comes later.

And life becomes the curriculum.

I learned about the sacred.

I learned about the sensual.

I learned about morality.

I learned about survival.

I learned about performance.

I learned about human weakness.

I learned about compassion.

I learned about contradiction.

And all of those lessons became part of me.

Some became gifts.

Some became burdens.

Some became behaviors I would eventually have to examine.

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The Psychology of Contradiction

Developmental psychology does not suggest that early experience mechanically determines adult behavior.

Early experience matters.

But it does not determine our destiny.

Research on attachment, for example, finds meaningful associations between early relationships and later patterns of relating, while also demonstrating that attachment remains influenced by later experiences and relationships. Personality likewise demonstrates both continuity and change across the life course.

That distinction gives me room to breathe.

Because if childhood completely determined adulthood, there would be very little room for growth.

But there is.

Our history may explain us without imprisoning us.

That means I can look at my younger self and ask:

What did he learn?

What did he adapt to?

What did he misunderstand?

What did he get right?

What did he carry forward that no longer belongs in his life?

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When Adaptation Becomes Identity

Many behaviors that emerge in childhood make sense within the environment in which they developed.

A highly sensitive child may become extraordinarily perceptive.

A child who learns to read the room may become exceptionally good at reading people.

A child who must become independent may become resilient.

A child who learns to perform may become creative.

A child who learns to protect himself may become strong.

But every adaptation has a possible shadow.

Perceptiveness can become hypervigilance.

Independence can become isolation.

Sensitivity can become emotional overwhelm.

Performance can become a need for validation.

Self-protection can become difficulty trusting.

And survival skills can remain active long after the circumstances that required them have disappeared.

This may be one of the great psychological challenges of adulthood:

The thing that once protected us can eventually become the thing that limits us.

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Good and Bad Can Come From the Same Place

I no longer believe that our baseline is simply good or bad.

It contains possibilities.

The same childhood can produce courage and fear.

The same experience can produce wisdom and resentment.

The same environment can produce compassion and defensiveness.

The same person can carry both.

That means personal growth is not necessarily about destroying the person we once were.

It may be about integrating him.

There is a difference between:

“I understand why I did that.”

and:

“Therefore, what I did was right.”

There is also a difference between:

“I regret that choice.”

and:

“I am a bad person because I made that choice.”

Understanding is not excusing.

Accountability is not self-hatred.

And regret does not have to become a life sentence.

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Interviewing the Younger Self

Perhaps instead of putting our younger selves on trial, we should interview them.

Ask:

What were you trying to accomplish?

What were you afraid of?

What did you believe love was?

What did you believe you had to do to be accepted?

What did you learn about being a man?

What did you learn about power?

What did you learn about sexuality?

What did you learn about spirituality?

What did you learn from the adults around you?

What were you trying to survive?

And perhaps the most important question:

What did you not yet know?

That question can create compassion without removing responsibility.

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We Become the Authors of Our Own Story

There is another dimension of personality development that becomes especially meaningful as we age: narrative identity.

Psychologist Dan McAdams and other personality researchers have explored how people develop a life story that gives meaning and continuity to their experiences.

We do not simply possess traits.

We also construct stories about ourselves.

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

What happened to me?

What did those experiences mean?

Who am I becoming?

This matters because there is a difference between what happened to us and the story we eventually tell ourselves about what happened to us.

And sometimes aging gives us the opportunity to change the interpretation without changing the history.

The facts may remain.

The meaning can change.

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The Emotional Cost of an Unexamined Baseline

Perhaps some of our suffering comes from living according to an internal program we have never consciously examined.

We react before we reflect.

We defend before we understand.

We withdraw before we communicate.

We pursue before we ask whether we actually want what we are pursuing.

We repeat before we recognize the pattern.

And then we wonder why we keep arriving at the same emotional destination.

This is where emotional regulation becomes more than simply “controlling our emotions.”

Emotion is information.

Anger may tell us that something matters.

Grief may tell us that something mattered.

Fear may tell us that we perceive danger.

Regret may tell us that our present values are different from our past behavior.

The goal is not to eliminate emotion.

The goal is to become capable of experiencing emotion without automatically becoming governed by it.

The mature question becomes:

What am I feeling?

Then:

Why am I feeling it?

Then:

What do I want to do with it?

And finally:

Does this emotion belong entirely to this moment, or is this moment touching something much older?

That question can change a life.

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Aging Changes the Conversation

As we grow older, perspective begins to change.

We can finally see patterns.

We can connect events that once seemed unrelated.

We can recognize how childhood experiences influenced adult relationships, ambitions, fears, choices, and expectations.

And sometimes that awareness arrives with grief.

We may mourn the person we might have become under different circumstances.

We may mourn people we hurt.

We may mourn people who hurt us.

We may mourn opportunities that passed.

We may even mourn versions of ourselves that no longer exist.

But aging can also provide an extraordinary opportunity:

integration.

Instead of asking:

“How do I erase the person I used to be?”

we can ask:

“What can I learn from him?”

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Who Am I Now?

Perhaps this is ultimately the question of maturity:

Who am I now?

Not:

Who was I supposed to be?

Not:

Who did my environment teach me to be?

Not:

Who did my mistakes convince me I was?

But:

Who am I now, with everything I know?

I can acknowledge the church that shaped my spiritual consciousness.

I can acknowledge the bars, cafés, streets, people, and environments that shaped other parts of my understanding.

I can acknowledge the contradictions.

I can acknowledge the mistakes.

I can acknowledge the gifts.

I can acknowledge the wounds.

And I can decide what continues forward.

⸻

Integration Instead of Erasure

Perhaps healing is not becoming someone entirely different.

Perhaps healing is becoming more conscious of who we already are.

We carry inheritance.

We carry temperament.

We carry adaptation.

We carry memory.

We carry culture.

We carry spirituality.

We carry wounds.

We carry gifts.

But we also carry something extraordinarily powerful:

choice.

The older we become, the more responsibility we have to distinguish between what belongs to our history and what belongs to our future.

Some things deserve to be preserved.

Some deserve to be forgiven.

Some deserve to be released.

And some deserve to be transformed.

So when I lie awake at night thinking about the choices I made—right, wrong, beautiful, painful, wise, foolish—I am learning not to ask only:

“What was wrong with me?”

I am learning to ask:

“What was happening inside me?”

And then:

“What do I want to happen inside me now?”

That is a very different question.

It moves us from judgment toward understanding.

From shame toward accountability.

From fragmentation toward integration.

And perhaps, ultimately, from simply surviving our history to consciously becoming the authors of what comes next.

The Baseline Self is where we began.

It does not have to be where we end.

⸻

Professional References

American Psychological Association. APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology: Personality Processes and Individual Differences. Research addressing temperament, personality development, and individual differences across development.

Shiner, R. L., Soto, C. J., & De Fruyt, F. “Personality Assessment of Children and Adolescents.” Annual Review of Developmental Psychology. Research examining personality development and assessment during childhood and adolescence.

Klimstra, T. A. “Adolescent Personality Development and Identity Formation.” Child Development Perspectives. Research concerning the relationship between personality development and identity formation during adolescence.

McAdams, D. P. Research on personality development and narrative identity across the life course, including the development of personal life stories as a mechanism for creating continuity and meaning.

Fraley, R. C. Research on attachment in adulthood, including the continuity and change of attachment patterns across the life course.

Fraley, R. C., & Roisman, G. I. “The Development of Adult Attachment Styles: Four Lessons.” Current Opinion in Psychology. Research examining the development and malleability of attachment patterns.

Gross, J. J. Research on emotion regulation, including the ways individuals influence the emotions they experience, when they experience them, and how those emotions are expressed.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Resources concerning child development and the interaction of developmental experiences, relationships, and health across the life course.

09/01/2026

Think about this: if certain medications are considered too harmful to dispose of by flushing them, why are we told they are safe to ingest? It's a question worth exploring for our overall health.