unnecessary brain damage

last night was rough. falling asleep can be a challenging emotional experience for those of us with anxiety either because of intrusive thoughts, the inability to fall or stay asleep, nightmares, and so on. but last night it was rough for a different reason. i was sorry. i was feeling really sorry for how i had treated myself in the past and for the reason why i did it. i sustained injuries from this event. injuries that i wouldn’t have gotten had i treated myself better. this is the first time i actually grieved this moment, right before bed, in my apartment with my cat right there (doing her job).

in october 2022, i was at a convention. i didn’t want to go, but i did. i wasn’t feeling well already, but i went. i got there and met new people. i met this one guy, great dude. we’ll call him archer. now archer was excitable, on go, and fired up. we were walking around the convention floor and he’s introduced me to a myriad of people all in different facets of the industry. during our walkthrough for lack of better term, i started feeling worse. i felt my blood pressure dropping and my head felt light, but i didn’t want to involve other people [of my medical issue] for fear of drawing too much attention. this progressed. archer and i ran into manufacturers of textbooks he knows. we exchanged names, titles, and job descriptions; i don’t remember theirs. standing in a circle, i started feeling like i needed to sit down. now. my breaths were getting shorter and the colors in the room were desaturating. if you’ve seen tv static, imagine that becoming your field of vision. i don’t sit down. instead i think about how i can excuse myself from the conversation, isolate myself, and deal with my emergency on my own. no people rushing up to me, no calls to 911, even though that’s what i needed. then my lips started to tingle and i couldn’t speak anymore, so without any pardon, i turned away from archer and the two manufacturers and stumbled 2 feet away. my eyesight went black with my eyes open and i lost consciousness for a few moments. my hearing was warped like if you’re underwater and someone is talking outside of the water. eventually i could make out that someone was calling my name. well, exclaiming my name really. still, i didn’t accept this help. i still couldn’t even see and kept running away. running away from what? from other people seeing that i need help? before i could even see again i was still trying to get to a place where i could sit down and no one would be there while i felt well enough to walk 2.6 miles home on an 80 degree day. then when my eyesight came back, i saw my left hand was making fists near my collar. i didn’t even know i lost contact with my body that way. i booked it with minimal control of my body to the other end of the convention floor where it was empty and i could sit. on the way there, i did see and hear people wondering if I was okay. i could have said no. yes, i do need help.

this isn’t new for me. i’ve had this happen before. the first experience i’ve had of this was being 6 and my mom made me stand while she did my hair for school. i was starting to feel dizzy and tried to sit. i eventually passed out. this happened at least once a year until i was about 14 or 15, then again at 18, and no more until i was 21. now i have them fairly often. i would lose my eyesight, sometimes in middle school i’d lose control of my bladder or bowels, i hit my head once. i’ve gone to doctors for it since i was 6, on and off, and no doctor has confidently told me what it was. i was first told the were just dizzy spells at 6, then seizures, then possible mini strokes, then just anxiety (bullshit) but any kind of way it went, i was definitely sustaining brain damage. the neurons in my brain regarding sight, hearing, movement, feeling, consciousness, they were all misfiring. each time you can get microscopic brain injuries, brain trauma.

after this 2022 episode, i started stuttering. my movements were a little jerky. i noticed myself glitching or shorting out just for a second multiple times a day. i felt disoriented more often in space. i think differently. and i felt bad, you know? i felt bad about this new circumstance that could have been avoidable if i let people help me. if i was comfortable with the possibility of people coming to me and asking if i was okay if i sat and laid on the ground, maybe i would have not sustained as many injuries or they would have been more mild. i felt not great about that before, but this time, years later, i felt genuinely, deeply sorry. it was framed differently in mind from it being a mistake or something i could have done differently to an act of devastating self-harm and self-abandonment to not be dramatic. i nearly killed that person and left them for dead when i didn’t prioritize my own safety. that is really sad, being in denial like that; and really trying to fight off not only other people, but trying to fight my own body that’s telling me to stop and lie down. it wasn’t just an i’m sorry. it was a very deep remorse and deep sorrow that i’m sure a lot of people feel for a lot of different reasons. that’s so human. i’m thankful to be able to feel that and to feel that for myself most importantly. i think the underlying reason we have that moment of amalgamation is because we love ourselves, inherently. we subconsciously want to make choices that show we love ourselves even if we have in the past not done so. i think that feeling that sorrow and grieving those choices is the second chance to show we love ourselves after the fact by feeling those emotions, by looking at the event, and then finally choosing to ask for forgiveness and forgive yourself. there will always be a part of you keeping the door open for that moment, so the feelings keep bubbling up until you are ready. and it’s not bubbling to annoy you or cause you distress. it’s there because it believes you are ready to love all of yourself. there’s a part of you that needs to forgive you, be told an apology to, and be recognized for being failed, while simultaneously a part of you has to ask for forgiveness, apologize, recognize, and (most importantly) feel worthy of being forgiven and reintegrated with the first part. and that’s healing.