here we go

My c1 (or 2 or 3, or all of them) is messed up from football, since my freshman year in high school… nearly 20 years ago (omg it’s been that long…).

It wasn’t “catastrophic,” but the extended long-term effects and impacts, the gradual degradation of my physical health, the continual migraine spikes and general discomfort, which has plagued me since back then, and has only gotten worse as time wears on, despite some very beneficial martial arts and health and wellness training, about a decade ago… the combined total of suffering i have endured is immense.

Today, just being awake hurts. I have to make consciously deliberate efforts for fine motor control. I can’t play guitar anymore because it causes “neck migraines” due to the damaged cranial nerve. Not just painful, but depressing, because guitar used to be “my thing.” I even struggle with video game controllers. I can do it, but again, it causes lots of pain, unless i position carefully and make conscious efforts to limit the intensity and range of exertion. I used to be highly mobile and active, used to have nearly limitless physical stamina and endurance, could push myself physically, almost indefinitely, and keep going like the energizer bunny. Now i feel frail and fragile and weak… even mowing the lawn wipes me out. Taking a hot shower requires up to two hours of recovery time.

The trigger for all this was when i flipped my car about 3.5 years ago, because… things had suddenly gone very wrong, and i was in a very wrong frame of mind, and decided to thrill seek through speed and dangerous cornering, for very little reason. I was just mad and wanted to go fast and prove to myself that i could take a certain curve (not far from my home at the time) at more than double the limit.

Suffice to say: it didn’t work out as planned, hoped, or expected, and i ended up hitting a ditch, flipping, landing on my wheels, virtually unharmed, even able to drive the car, still, almost home, before the wrecked heap threw itself into another ditch. I didn’t realize it at the time, because i was in shock and amazed that i seemed unharmed… but about 2 months later, i started having strange numbness and tingling in my fingers, and could never quite “get centered.” So i’m not sure what exactly happened, but it has only gotten worse since then.

Now, if i do anything that isn’t perfect-form, it’s like my nerves are a guitar string being plucked, which then radiates and stays irritated for hours, sometimes until i get at least 2 REM cycles worth of sleep, so that my “reset button” gets pushed.

I feel twisted and unbalanced… like my body is pulling and pushing against itself. Some muscles don’t seem to want to activate when i think i am sending them control signals. One wrong move can ruin my whole day. If the move is wrong enough, it can ruin more than a week, as it sometimes feels “stubborn,” as though it doesn’t want to relax back into position, no matter how hard i try to manipulate it, whether by applying pressure, or by isometric manipulation.

And i have no assistance. I don’t want to get into explanations of my living arrangement. Let’s just say, i need help i don’t have, and don’t think i can get. I “can’t” work, not because i am immobilized, but because i cannot reliably sustain a physical status that allows me the luxury of keeping a work schedule and performing what duties would be expected of me. Some days i might be “fine,” while others, all i would be able to think about is how bad i wish i was just dead, instead of having to tolerate such agony just to keep a job that i hate, which pays me almost nothing. So eventually that whole experience became too much, and i can’t do it anymore. Death would be better… even though that’s not what i want. I just feel like i’ve arrived at a choice i don’t want to make, which must be made, because the only other option is perpetual agony, with the same or similar end result.

Most people seem to want to accuse me of being “lazy,” rather than acknowledging that i have problems which are beyond my ability to cope or manage. I’m absolutely not lazy. I’m an ass-busting mofo when it’s justified or necessary. I just don’t think that putting myself through daily living hell, for a few bucks, which will not be sustainable and will certainly result in yet another short-term lost job on my record, is the right choice.

The worst part of all is that my perpetual discomfort makes it almost impossible to focus on anything… and so i can’t even manage to use my mind to accomplish what my body no longer can. Sometimes it feels like my brain is adjusting to be as broken as my body, so that things will balance out. But it’s more likely that the perpetual stress and irritation is actually causing brain damage, on some level.

Most normal people seem to have never even begun to imagine what it’s like to live with nerve damage. We inadvertently minimize it as well, since we’re just trying to get by, and trying to avoid drawing undue attention to ourselves. If we acted the way it really feels… it would frighten people. And it sucks to be “that scary crippled guy.”