Learning

I had no idea how dark it could go.

Before the crash, I’d sampled anxiety and depression. When I say sampled, I mean I’d felt one tiny aspect, and then been able to get over it.

Take living in Canada for example. I was anxious at the start when I arrived. I had just flown the further I’d ever been, and I’d done it alone. I’ve only ever flown to nearby countries such as Spain or Italy, so this was pretty significant in itself. Let alone living alone in a country for 4 months. Whilst trying to keep up with the final year of my degree.

I’ve always struggled with varying degrees of social anxiety. But again, nothing like full blown anxiety. During the first few weeks, I found it reasonably hard. I was living in international halls with several hundred other students, all around my age (I was 19 at the time).

I found it hard enough to phone my mom, and say I wanted to come home. This was more just an ‘I don’t want to do it!’ Like before you do something scary (and then actually do it) than anything too serious. So when I suffered full blown anxiety last year, I was knocked for six.

I’ve got through all the years of operations and set backs (for now), and my brain has always kept reasonably level. Level enough for me to be able to focus on the physical challenges anyway. So when I was able to let myself relax, the mental challenges kicked in. And not in any small way.

After I got through the anxious breakdown (wrote about earlier in this blog) my brain went manic enjoying the highs of life. Then I started the masters, and I basically slowly shut down. Not in the typical casual way that comes to mind. But in a very extreme reaction-to-the-situation way. Brain fog was the only thing I could feel or think. Since sometime in October, until 2 days ago. Injured brains (at least in my case) have pretty black and white reactions to things. So I’m either great or in the pits of despair, very rarely in between.

The things I am realising and learning in hindsight are blowing my mind. I’ll take my time to write a proper post about some of the things I’m learning, but here is just a sample:

1. My brain made it so nothing came to my mind, apart from negative internal monologue chatter. No escape was possible. I never had more than a 30 second rest from this feeling/thought. Every single second of the day.

2. I stopped seeing the point to anything. If I couldn’t relax to enjoy a single thing, there was no point even attempting it. What was the point in making a coffee if I couldn’t care enough to appreciate it?

3. I got to the point where I started to think I was going to have to die in order for this to end. I soon realised this was not an option. I couldn’t, ever, for many reasons, but the clear inescapable one being that I could not throw my life away after Beccy had lost hers in the crash. It would be beyond insulting, and the biggest waste of survival.

I will write more on this soon.