𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆:ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏɴᴇ

The strangest part was the realization.

The moments when i first started gaining consciousness. It was surreal to say the least . I had no idea what had happened or what was happening. It was an unfathomable , dreamlike disorientation and sense of helplessness that could only possibly be known through first-hand experience. When i first came to awareness , i was lying on my bed with my face angled up , slightly to the left . I could see and think as if everything was normal , except one thing ; I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move my eyeballs from their fixed position. I couldn’t control my eye lids to open or close them on command. I couldn’t voluntary move my arms or legs or any part of my upper or lower body. I couldn’t open or close my mouth to speak or scream ; I couldn’t do anything other than lay confined to my fixed position. Admittedly , at first, i thought i was dead. I thought that i was in some strange afterlife limbo , just sort of peering out at the world from where i had died . But everything seemed too real . Too normal . And after a little time went by , i realized that I kept sort of waking in and out of everything as if there was still a sleeping and waking brain inside me . I considered that perhaps instead , i was experiencing sleep paralysis or a sequence of really strange lucid dreams. But i didn’t remember going to bed and i quickly felt beyond that too . If it was a dream , why was i continually returning to what felt like the same dream over and over , which was just the same relatively banal situation of being stuck on my bed . And furthermore, i could remember each previous dream in each following dream , which didn’t feel very dreamlike. Over what must have been some length of dipping and peaking in and out consciousness , i considered every sort of strange hallucinatory and psychological possibility for what was going on , but the flurry of momentary awareness made it impossible to maintain mental clarity long enough to really flesh out any thoughts . It was all mostly a blur and i had no idea what was happening. After some further length of time , which i cannot speak to how long , i started coming into the awareness that there were people around me . My parents and older sister and what appeared to be doctors , nurses and other unfamiliar voices and faces . They were all looking at me . Interacting with me . Talking to me . Intensely in many cases. Doctors appeared to be testing and probing me with various equipment and lights . They were all treating me as if i was there physically but not mentally ; as if i couldn’t understand them. But during the moments when i was awake and aware, i could basically hear, see , and understand everything as if it was happening normally. But i just couldn’t say or move or do anything back . I was completely trapped inside my body. It was hard to fully make sense of what was happening for a while still , but eventually, after experiencing longer period of conscious alertness, I started to hear and make out more of what was being said and done, and of the sort . I was very physical and real. At one point , i recall hearing what seemed to be a doctor talking to my parents , saying the she believed i was mentally gone , without how it was still unclear exactly what was happening and suggested that were still other things to be done , tests to be performed, and other doctors to be consulted. One of the scariest parts of the entire thing was much further in when I heard what seemed to be the 9th or 10th doctor who was , according to all the previous doctors , supposed to be one the leading experts in cases like mine , essentially say that he didn’t know what was happening either. That there was really no way of knowing for sure what was happening or if there was any real consciousness taking place inside me and thus , no way of effectively treating or understanding vmy condition with any certainty. I also heard him say that the condition almost surely came with a 100% fatality rate .I could sense the utter and complete devastating in my parents and friends and family without even needing to see or hear them .I knew that they , like I , had no control over what was happening and felt an ironically similar form of despairing helplessness. I had so many things I wanted to say to help them better understand . I had never wanted anything more in my life than to tell them that i was there . That I was still inside my head and that i still knew who they were . That things might still be OK . BUT I COULDN’T .I couldn’t say any of the words . Or reach out and touch them. Or blink on command. Or communicate in any meaningfully intentional way. Communication was helplessly disconnected from me. I think that’s probably one of the hardest things anyone can deal with ; wanting to say and do something to help those you love , and not being able to .For a mind that wants things. For a mind that seems to define itself through its ability to cause and effect ; will and react ; it all comes down to control. But when you find yourself in a reality that you essentially have none over , you are confronted with an insatiable, overwhelming drowning sense of anger, frustration and terror. The feeling of being aware of what’s happening but not being able to understand why or do anything about it. That is what it all boils down to . What was happening was no longer really the primary question or concern for me. I knew basically enough about what was happening. And so , the question became why and what now ? In general, I could never truly tell how much time was passing. nor can i recall now. I do remember a distinct turning point, though. A point that i believe my entire survival hinged on . IT WAS WHEN I HEARD MY PARENTS TALKING WITH ONE OF THE DOCTORS OR NURSES ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT THEY MIGHT CONSIDER A TIME AT WHICH THEY WOULD TAKE ME OFF LIFE SUPPORT …