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So, I'll be frank. I wouldn't be crippled right now, ten years after the fact, if it wasn't for physical therapy utterly ruining me. Yes there were other factors, but physical therapy blatantly ignoring where my pain ACTUALLY was and "treating" an injury that wasn't there tore my muscles to shreds and has left me a pain-ridden useless blob covered hip to feet in muscle scar tissue.
Tomorrow I start physical therapy for something else entirely... my neck, upper back, and shoulders. These pains from the car wreck have been keeping me from drawing, chores, basically anything with the upper body. Considering I'm already fucked out of my LOWER body... well let's say I'm stressed.
And fucking terrified.
I've had nightmares about this place for ten years. Terrified of talking about it, like saying it out loud would be some kind of bloody mary/beetlejuice bullshit and suddenly they'll magically find paperwork that they messed up and they'll force me to go back and I'll be stuck there forever, breaking more and more every day as they force physical punishments I can't endure, "therapy" that makes it worse, etc. It's illogical but that's pretty much what ptsd does to you, folks. This was a traumatic 6 months that's not left me for 10 years.
So even though the therapists I'm meeting tomorrow are civilians, in a really good facility with good reviews, and for an area of my body that ISN'T the crippled part... I'm still scared. Terrified. Worried. It might not make sense, logically. I'm arguing with myself so much. But it's there. I'm scared that they'll have no empathy, no kindness. I'm scared they'll ignore me and force me to do things that harm me permanently. I'm scared... I'm scared to lose the biggest thing I have left. Art.
I predict that none of this will be happen. These next four weeks of therapy will make my neck/back/shoulders stronger than ever. I'll be confident and I'll grow from it so much. I'll be back to drawing in no time.
But it doesn't erase the terror. It doesn't make it so I can name the place that broke me, because I still fear the name.
... It's okay that I'm scared. Fear doesn't make me weak. But tomorrow afternoon that fear won't stop me. I'll walk into that office and I'll meet who I'm working with and we'll fight this new pain together and it will be an entirely different experience. I'll be wiser from my old experience... if they turn out to be assholes, I'll leave. Cancel my appointments. Find another office... because I can. I'm allowed to do that.
I control the next four weeks. I'm not trapped. I'm not forced. I'm not threatened and abused and mocked and alone.
I'm terrified, but that's not going to stop me. I can't lose art too. I can't. But even if I did, I'll find something else. I'll survive, and thrive, no matter what the world throws at me. That place... the one that tried to destroy me from the inside out. I'm not there anymore. They can't hurt me. I don't ever need to go back.
I'll win this.
Tomorrow I start physical therapy for something else entirely... my neck, upper back, and shoulders. These pains from the car wreck have been keeping me from drawing, chores, basically anything with the upper body. Considering I'm already fucked out of my LOWER body... well let's say I'm stressed.
And fucking terrified.
I've had nightmares about this place for ten years. Terrified of talking about it, like saying it out loud would be some kind of bloody mary/beetlejuice bullshit and suddenly they'll magically find paperwork that they messed up and they'll force me to go back and I'll be stuck there forever, breaking more and more every day as they force physical punishments I can't endure, "therapy" that makes it worse, etc. It's illogical but that's pretty much what ptsd does to you, folks. This was a traumatic 6 months that's not left me for 10 years.
So even though the therapists I'm meeting tomorrow are civilians, in a really good facility with good reviews, and for an area of my body that ISN'T the crippled part... I'm still scared. Terrified. Worried. It might not make sense, logically. I'm arguing with myself so much. But it's there. I'm scared that they'll have no empathy, no kindness. I'm scared they'll ignore me and force me to do things that harm me permanently. I'm scared... I'm scared to lose the biggest thing I have left. Art.
I predict that none of this will be happen. These next four weeks of therapy will make my neck/back/shoulders stronger than ever. I'll be confident and I'll grow from it so much. I'll be back to drawing in no time.
But it doesn't erase the terror. It doesn't make it so I can name the place that broke me, because I still fear the name.
... It's okay that I'm scared. Fear doesn't make me weak. But tomorrow afternoon that fear won't stop me. I'll walk into that office and I'll meet who I'm working with and we'll fight this new pain together and it will be an entirely different experience. I'll be wiser from my old experience... if they turn out to be assholes, I'll leave. Cancel my appointments. Find another office... because I can. I'm allowed to do that.
I control the next four weeks. I'm not trapped. I'm not forced. I'm not threatened and abused and mocked and alone.
I'm terrified, but that's not going to stop me. I can't lose art too. I can't. But even if I did, I'll find something else. I'll survive, and thrive, no matter what the world throws at me. That place... the one that tried to destroy me from the inside out. I'm not there anymore. They can't hurt me. I don't ever need to go back.
I'll win this.