This past Friday, July 9, was the ninth anniversary of the day I awoke from a surgery to find myself paralyzed. Imagine the fear of not being able to move or do anything you wanted at will, wondering what the future would hold, or if my life would ever be normal again. Sound familiar?
During the initial days of my paralysis back in 2012, my confidence as well as my independence were shattered and constantly in question along with my survivability. Disbelief set in regarding what happened while wondering if I would ever walk again. I was concerned about what other people thought seeing me in that condition. Friends that I had for many years during that time suddenly had different values that I could no longer keep up with and as a result moved on. As time went on, I realized I needed to find my way back to a place where I could feel socially inclusive again.
Last year (2020), it was interesting to listen to people talk about feeling isolated and not knowing how to function in their new normal as it related to the pandemic. Many questioned how to do things like being in the same room and interacting with other people, how to shop, and how not to stop isolation from overtaking their everyday lives. This all sounded like me many years earlier with my own problems with paralysis. The claustrophobia I first experienced sounded similar to what people were discussing and how their worlds were now closing in on them in disbelief.
During my initial days, I often comforted myself by seeking peace and reminding myself with a burning desire that, in time, I would walk again. I also set goals and found ways to keep my mind active with all the time I had alone. Thankfully, I wasn’t haunted by thoughts of wondering if I missed out on something up to that point in my life, and I wasn’t chasing my past. I lived a good life up to that point and still do to this day.
Comparatively, it seemed easy for many in the beginning of the pandemic to think that the virus was short-term, and everything would be better by the summer. But when signs of what was happening worsened, reality and panic set in for so many people. The anxiety led to worries about family, friends, isolation, and naturally concerns about maintaining employment. I’ve said to myself many times over the last nine years that I would never wish this awful nightmare of what I experience each and every day with overcoming paralysis on anyone, yet here was the pandemic. Although people could physically move, they seemed trapped and imprisoned in the manifestations of their own minds. The parallels were that I found my paralysis was physical and limited by a lack of communication between my brain and body, but my will to overcome always kept me positive and goal oriented while looking toward the future. The opposite seemed to be the case with the pandemic as that fear seemed to be more psychologically induced for obvious reasons and fed negativity regularly by many external sources, yet stripping everything away, this was a paralysis all the same.
I felt bad for myself for many years because I couldn’t do what everyone else could do, and therefore if anyone wanted to spend time with me they had to settle for the fact that I couldn’t do as they did. That unfortunate fact led to friends all going away. I was still me, but because I didn’t have the same movement to offer as everyone else, I was looked upon differently and left behind. For me to find that people would want to be in my life again, I needed to fight with everything within me to fit in. During the midst of the pandemic, if you didn’t feel comfortable with getting together while practicing social distancing it was easily accepted by both parties, yet post-vaccine if one party still felt uncomfortable with seeing the other, it was easy to find yourself being judged. Because of so much isolation over a year, angst seemed to become a norm. Because we’re creatures of habit, how do you break it to become socially interactive and fit in again?
Despite all the parallels between paralysis and the pandemic, one thing that was clearer than ever throughout both was what I chose to let into my mind. In both cases although I couldn’t control what happened, I could control how I was going to deal with each of them. Ironically, the two approaches are quite the same: Find my way forward out of those issues by seeking positivity and living my life. If I wasn’t going to allow myself to be sidelined by one prognosis, so why would I allow the panic of another to stall my happiness?
What’s to be learned here is that we’re all okay, and we function better socially than apart. However, when you find yourself isolated, maintain your will to live by seeking what’s positive while reaching out with an open mind. Always strive to live your life.
There are no do-overs. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “How much of human life is lost in waiting?”
I encourage you to reach out with your thoughts and feelings on this topic either here or on social media.