The Worst Day of My Life...

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” 
― J.K. Rowling

Have I told you this story before? I don't think I have. It still feels so raw to me, like it happened yesterday...but it was a while ago.

It was when I hit rock bottom. 

This is the worst I have ever felt in my entire life.

I was in the hospital due to a manic episode because I was not taking my Bipolar medication. They gave me a medication, Haldol, and I received the worst side effects imaginable. I became psychosomatically paralyzed. I could not move my body. One of the side effects is Parkinson's like symptoms. However no one realized that this was a side effect and they just thought I was truly losing my mind and body.

For a few days of my life I could not feed myself, dress myself, or go to the bathroom by myself. And I was in a wheelchair. I know there are people who live like this always, and I honestly cannot tell you the extent to which we could learn from them. When you have to ask a friend to feed you because the nurse refuses, thinks you are faking it, as your hands are shaking, you know that this new "friend" is someone to remember. But I don't remember her name, I remember her face though. I will never forget her gentle hands as she spooned food into my mouth.

When you can't function for yourself, there is a certain intimacy you feel for those around you who help. There is a gratefulness, a humility. 

I'm gonna be straight up honest, if you have to ask someone to wipe your ass, and they actually do it, it changes both of you. The nurse I had didn't want to do it but she could clearly see I couldn't. I have never felt so desperate, so mortified as I did at that moment.

If the tables ever turn and I have to do this for someone else, I will know what a sensitive and honorable gift this is.  

One night I had somehow crawled to the bathroom, and I lay there underneath the cold toilet, because I could not hoist myself up. It was the middle of the night and no one was there to help me. As I lay there, I looked at the toilet and I looked at the ceiling. I remember the dirty floor beneath me.

I had a little talk with god or the universe, or the source in my head. Whatever you want to call her. I told her that if she could get me out of this, I would do everything, anything she wanted me to do. That if I could just get out of this, I could do anything. I would be true, whatever the hell that meant. I would do the right thing, whatever that means. I would do what I came here on this earth to do, whatever that is.  

Low and behold a few days later the drug wore off and I could walk again. 

It's been many years now, and sometimes I think I forget what it was like to be paralyzed for that short period of time. But one thing I did not forget was the promise I made in that bathroom. I wait sometimes, listening to my own self, my own heart, waiting for a sign from god that is going to tell me exactly what she wants me to do.

Most of it is silence, and I think I get it now. She doesn't want me to forget. Compared to that person lying underneath that toilet, I have everything now. And I still don't know it. 

Since this episode there have been times I have been depressed and "paralyzed" in my bed. However even in these times, what I didn't realize is that I could move. I am lucky...

I have the ability to dance, and I'm sitting it out half of the time. Is god going to tell me exactly what she wants me to do now that I promised I would do it? Probably not.

She will show me, as she always has. I've decided that the only thing god wants from me is to live, really move this body and mind, really live. What does that mean? It means experiencing the beauty of life while being myself.  

Maybe you are reading this because she wants the same for you.

nina

Image courtesy of Photokanok at FreeDigitalPhotos.net