What's This Supposed to Be?

It’s not lost on me that the version of the life I’m living is far from the version I had or the one I want. For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to make sense of it – trying to pull at the delicate strings that still tether me to who I was. I’m mildly afraid that they’ll break.

The version of the life I’m currently living is very small. It’s isolated both by the physical limitations my body has put on me and the mental limitations I’ve put on myself. Each thing I do is calculated, planned and vetted because the “what ifs” sometimes become too great for me emotionally to handle. The largest “what if” as in “what if I have an episode” occurred recently out of nowhere and I was left to grapple with the aftershocks - the ripples of fear, shame, embarrassment that came from me having an episode in front of someone I care about. Someone bearing witness to what was happening with me didn’t evoke that natural sense of vulnerability people display on television. You know the kind where they just yield to their emotions and everyone hugs it out in the end. I didn’t look over at this person and think, “thank god you’re here.” I looked over and thought “they’re going to think less of me for this.” Which for the record, couldn’t have been further from the truth and says more about me than it ever will about them.

When I felt the episode coming on I wanted to leave, not just because my body was in fight or flight but because the idea of someone outside of my family needing to come to my aid felt too daunting. I’m helpless in these episodes. I lay there and wait to faint or shake so violently that I wish I had. I can’t get myself out of trouble but when I’m given the option for someone to help I don't want it. I don’t want someone that I care about to see the cracks in the strong front I put on. Because if they see it, I’ll break right in two. If someone sees me lose it, I don’t know how to put myself back together when I’ve spent so much time making sure not to show too much, not to give this thing too much power, not to humanize an experience.

You might be wondering, “damn you’re a therapist and you really can’t let your emotions flow?” And the short answer to that is: in this area of my life, no I cannot. I can’t feel all the things right now because I’m scared as hell I won’t be able to handle them. I’m scared to consider the possibility that I won’t be able to dance at my own wedding. I’m scared that I won’t ever be able to take a long walk in the summer or play with my niece and nephew for longer than a few minutes. I’m scared that I won’t be able to sing anymore because I’ll be out of breath and mostly I’m scared that my life, that had all this boundless potential to be large and exciting and magnificent will somehow need to be very, very small. Because it already is.

When I think about the mental, physical and emotional toll that this thing has had on me there’s two things I consider. Physically, it is what it is and it absolutely sucks. Mentally and emotionally, this thing has brought into my life all of the stuff that I fought so hard to get rid of. It’s stirred up new forms of shame, embarrassment, guilt, sadness and anger. It’s piled on self-doubt, lack of control, vulnerability and fear. It’s buried me in the potential of a future that could look absolutely nothing like the one I intended.

And how do I handle that when the ways I used to cope like singing and yoga and talking to friends suddenly doesn’t cut it? How do you cope with something so much larger than you when you have no adequate way to express the depths of hurt and pain you feel on a daily basis? I don’t care how many people tell me “it’s okay, you’re okay” when it’s happening. The fact is, it’s not okay and I am not okay. My body is out of control and I’m left to pick up the mental, emotional and physical pieces each time it occurs. I’m left to make sense of it all and right now, I’m not really able to do so.

When presented with the opportunity to yield to vulnerability I didn’t. In this particular episode, I was given many chances but each time I was presented with the option to stay put, to rest my body and ease my mind I kept saying no. I have no idea why. It wasn’t like I was in an unsafe area or was didn’t trust the person I was with. It was more so my own shame about putting someone else through this and having them witness something no one has been able to explain.

Regardless of how much I rebuked offers of help and how much I desperately wanted to flee, my body didn’t allow for it. This person climbed right into the chaos with me. When I was flat on my back, legs resting against the wall fighting each moment for consciousness, they were right there next to me. They chose to take the solidarity approach – flat on their backs, legs up the wall. I’m laughing to the point of crying even as I write it because they have no idea how much that meant to me. They didn’t try to comfort me. They didn’t try to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal. They followed my lead and treated me like a person to be understood, not to be pitied.

What’s happening is senseless. It defies medicine and all logic. There’s no doctor that can find a reason or give me an explanation. There’s no thing to do that makes this all go away. There’s only the option to live through it and going through something, like walking through a dark tunnel takes courage when you cannot see the light.

But after this experience, I realized two things. One: people can and will show up for you no matter how much you fight it. Two: The hardest part of vulnerability for me isn’t about being vulnerable with others, it’s about wondering why I fear vulnerability in the first place. I talked to people all day long about vulnerability and the art of expressing emotions. Yet, when it comes time for me to do so in the most obvious area of my life I can’t. Sometimes I flat out don’t want to. Showing vulnerability would mean that I have to let go of who I was before. I have to release the version of myself that could get up and go, who could make multiple plans in a day. I have to let go of the version of myself that didn’t have such a monumental experience on her plate. And if I let her go, that means I’m finally letting go of the last shred of naivety and innocence I have carried through all of this. I’ve clung onto those things to give me hope and reasoned with myself that I can get back to who I once was. I have to get back to who I once was.

If this experience taught me anything, it’s that I can’t. It doesn’t matter how hard I try. I can’t keep trying to put forward a version of myself that doesn’t exist anymore. If I do, I’m blocking myself from receiving genuine love, care and affection all in the hopes of what? Not being seen as weak? Not being viewed as someone having feelings? When I write this down I see how foolish and stubborn I’ve been when it comes to sharing parts of myself with others. I don’t have the strength to keep the persona up and despite how much I want to, something tells me I’d be missing out on those large magnificent, magical moments of my big life.