Invisible prison

I feel like I live in an invisible prison only I can see. To other observers, I must appear normal, and how I wish that were the case. I suffered some mild head trauma a year ago, and then got hit in the head again before I had time to heal. If you can call torture an adventure, this has been quite the adventure. My mind and my cognition were relatively unaffected. If you were to have a conversation with me, you would have no idea to what extent I suffer. In this way, I can empathize with many others who feel tired of life, but who can’t find people who will listen to or believe them. A year ago, exactly three months from the injury, I could barely walk. My legs were a little clumsy, but they worked just fine. It was more that I was too dizzy. If I walked more than from one room to the next, I would get too dizzy and have to rest. It was as though I had invisible walls around me. If I pushed past those walls the world would spiral out of control. I started to force myself to push the limits of this invisible prison, and things slowly got better. I walked every day, starting out at just a few minutes at a time, and eventually I got to the point where I could walk a mile and drive my car. I still felt clumsy, and my perception of my body felt somehow distorted, but I learned to ignore how I felt and move forward. Things gradually continued to improve, until I was out with a friend one night. At the end of the night–did I mention she had too much to drink and was wearing high heels?–she went to hug me, ended up tripping and hit me in the back of the head. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but the number one thing you do not want to do when you are recovering from a head injury, is get hit in the head again. Now the prison is back, only this time it seems the cell is much smaller and much more difficult to escape from. It feels as though my entire body doesn’t exist somehow, yet I can somehow still control it. Standing is a chore–my muscles just don’t want to do what I tell them to do without a fight. Sitting is uncomfortable due to the lingering effects of an injury. I am pretty much only ever comfortable when I am in bed, and I can only lie down for so long. All of this would be tolerable in a way, except two months have passed since my friend fell on me, and things have only seemed to have gotten worse. I have this strange sense that I am losing strength, coordination, and balance every day. Where before, I could walk a mile, now I can only walk a minute at a time. Driving is out of the question, and I depend on others for a lot. There’s a chance I might improve, again, but I know it will be far more difficult than the last time, take a lot longer, and there is no guarantee it will happen. I feel as though I’ve reached the limit of what I can take, and that there’s no way out of this. Today was a good day. No immediate sense of urgency that I need to end it today, but I probably need to use that energy and optimism to try to make a plan to end it. On days like today, I feel like I should keep fighting, but I know I’ll need an escape plan in case things get too bad, and a lot of the time I feel like it already is. It’s kind of funny, but the only way I can ever see myself recovering, is if I have my suicide plan ready to go at a moment’s notice–it’s the only thing that makes me feel safe and willing to risk any more discomfort than I already have.