October 16, 2019

I just lie here — a numb, helpless bystander to a life I struggle to even recognize as my own since the accident — feeling removed, dejected and broken amid a hellish reality I neither want nor ever expected. Pain, angst and inescapable feelings of weakness, defeat, frustration escalate. No one can fathom what I am enduring physically, mentally or emotionally alone in my body and brain and bed — loving family, dear friends and trusted doctors included, though many kind humans try earnestly (and I thank you, a special bow to the compassionate souls who have survived trauma or tragedy, yet still find the strength, bravery and generosity to be present for me in my journey). But nothing changes and no one has a clue as to when this will shift, a day I pray to see come.

 

I just want to be a normal person living normal life in the normal world, which is far too much to ask when I fail to find even temporary distraction or fleeting escape. I can’t so much as think too hard or for too long without intense discomfort, anxiety and stress setting in. I struggle to concentrate on therapeutic art for anything more than short durations. I eat and drink solely because I know I need the nourishment. Light bothers me, so I rarely look out upon nature during the days, only when darkness falls, fittingly. Screens prove too much within a few minutes typically. Sometimes simple sounds, music or audiobooks aggravate my senses. I rest my head with eyes open or closed at most hours. I take showers, not because I am dirty (all I do is go from my bed to the kitchen to a car to medical offices and back again), but because I crave that simple change of pace, of temperature, of atmosphere. Time is only relevant as it relates to when I can take my next medicine and if I have an appointment with a doctor or therapist.

 

Days come, days go. Thoughts come, thoughts go. But this ordeal, this nightmare, this agony — this I need to go.