Day 181

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I'd written anything. I started feeling like I was writing to the void, and you know what they say - if you look into the void, the void looks into you (actually I think that's Nietzsche). It was getting awkward.

What's also awkward is writing about things that make me sad, or things that are hard - those are the days that I write blog entries in my head, but those are also the days that I don't want to post, because I just want everyone to think I'm doing great. And I am! Just not every moment of every day. I still have trouble explaining to people what happened, and I still seem to get pretty wiped out sooner than I would expect to, but then again, maybe I'm just getting older (hehe). The biggest thing I find I have trouble conveying or explaining or even dealing with is how I've changed. I find that I'm emotionally a lot more vulnerable than I used to be, which I suppose is not unexpected. What is unexpected (to me) is in the ways that I'm more vulnerable. When people are stressed out around me, I can't cope with it; I just have to leave the room or risk having an anxiety attack. In my mind, I used to be a source of calm, so this is hard to deal with. I guess I just feel like I used to have these sort of emotional filters that aren't there anymore. It's hard to explain. 

Last Friday I was at the Wound Center for a check-up. Mondays and Fridays are for burn patients, and I usually feel so comfortable there - mostly because the nurses there know me well and my doctors are there and everyone cares and tells me that I look great and that I'm progressing SO well, but also at least a little because on those Mondays and Fridays, the waiting room is full of people who have some idea of what everyone else is going through. This last Friday though, I was sitting in the waiting room playing Quordy (boggle for the iphone), when these two women sitting across from me start going into great detail about their injuries, including blow-by-blow accounts of the incidents themselves. I haven't had a panic attack in a while, but that set one off and I had to get outside.

The other hard thing is that I'm still dealing with it, I'm still coping. Granted, I'm doing these things a lot better than I was - I actually can talk about my accident with people other than my immediate family and my therapist now, but I sometimes feel like people look at me and think 'Oh, that happened six months ago? You're fine!' And yes, as I keep saying, I am, but that doesn't mean I'm not sensitive. It doesn't mean that I'm fully healed and can run around and do whatever crazy thing occurs to me next. What it does mean is that I'm still recovering, and I'm still recovering well. So, yay!