𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆; ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴛᴡᴏ

Imagine: Ozul Tirich— an author of this article

I remember hoping with unquestionable intensity that they wouldn’t. That they would just hold on a little longer. I wanted to scream out to them and tell them to wait and that i was still in there. And in this , I suddenly realized that I wanted to keep living. That despite my condition; despite the obvious misery and potential helplessness; when presented with the possibility of having it all end, I preferred the potential horribleness of it all continuing over the idea of it all ending. I preferred living and seeing it through, even if i was helplessly stuck inside myself with no control , and even if there was no clear chance of whether or not it would get any better. I wanted life in any form i could have it. Somewhere around and after this point, i made the ironically conscious choice to sort of quiet my consciousness. Not to surrender, but more the opposite if anything. To strategically conserve my conscious efforts away from what might ordinarily be conscious; the sort of heavy thinking , ruminating, and attempting to control , solve , or make sense of the situation, and instead, i decided it just live in it as long as i could as well as i could. The line between consciously giving up and being consciously intentional with how little you use your consciousness is both absurdly subtle and abstractly impossible to translate, and I can’t say with any certainty how well I accomplished any sort of ideal balance, and I’m not sure any ideal balance is even possible. To even consider the idea with such terms already undermines it . But for the lack of better terms, it’s what I think I tried to do. Ultimately, the problem was only compounded by my relentless yearning and struggling against it ; a continual fighting and waiting and expecting for things to get better and gain control over a reality i had none over. Of course , that was the natural response, and there’s no denying the unimaginable difficulty of the condition. But my constant efforts and expectations of it resolving didn’t help . rather it only seemed to make things worse . I felt like I was stuck in the Chinese finger trap things that my Grandpa used to have and show me when i was a younger child. The thing where the harder you try to pull your finger out , the tighter it squeezes around it. The more I squirmed and yearned for control ; the tighter things got. There was no escape and no resolution other than learning how to live without one, which I’ve learned that paradoxically, in its own way , is one . Fundamentally , i had no real control over anything outside myself. But I did have control, or at least the sense of control, over my thoughts. I was still there. And i could still think and consider how to think. And if there was any hope, it was in this . In subverting my own thinking against itself. In focusing more of my attention on things that i could control and that might help pass the time in a meaningful way . In trying to find things to be appreciative of and interested in. In examining the complexity , wonder and depth of beauty of things in and around me, even in the simplest moments of apparent banal nothingness. The trick, it seemed, was not wanting or depending on control. Not wanting or depending on answers. Not looking for or expecting anything, really. Just observing and appreciating as best as I could, as deeply as i could , and as often as I could. Trying my best to just be ok with just Being. And I think only because of that, i was able to survive. I was able ti want to survive and continue, and I was , at times , able to be OK . And then , eventually, I AWOKE . muscle by muscle. Cell by cell .

I AWOKE . After being trapped inside my own body .