The Invisible Lion
I have recently written an article on LinkedIn to help raise awareness and understanding of the struggles I have been going through and thought I would share here. I hope my story can help others.
The Invisible Lion
An insight into anxiety and depression
On Wednesday 1st of July 2004 at 4.15pm a teenage boy was involved in a road traffic accident whilst riding a motorcycle which collided with a bus at approximately 50mph. A witness behind the bus stated the bus had passed the red light which resulted in a collision.
Emergency services were called to the accident location immediately, the call from the police services who attended initially used the term ‘scratch and scoop’ to describe the accident caused to the doctors/ nurses who were on their way.
The injuries sustained to the boy included; injury to the right side of the brain, crushed right wrist, fractured cheek and jaw bone along with various cuts over the body. Over 60 visitors including friends and family attended Kent and Sussex hospital, the close family of the injured boy were told at the hospital chances of survival are extremely slim, and advised to pray and hope for the best.
The boy had just completed his first year of an electrical HNC he was studying at a nearby college; he had one more year to complete in his modern advanced apprenticeship while working as an electrical technician in Kingsnorth Power Station. He had his whole life in front of him and also a very active social life with good close friends, he was confident, intelligent, family orientated, ambitious and caring. Everything was perfect.
The boy spent 15 days in a coma, paralyzed in his left side for 12 weeks and lost all memory of the accident. When the boy awoke from his coma he made the ‘wrong’ movements, the reaction the doctors wanted is the boy to attempt to pull out the pipes created with the tracheostomy, the boy just tensed his whole body, to which the doctors placed him under a sedated coma and tried again to wake him a few days later. Close family were called into a side room and sat down, they were told the boy will be wheelchair bound for the rest of his life upon witnessing the movements from waking from the coma, the parents of the boy were told their son is permanently brain damaged. That boy was me.
Over the next few months I only know what happened in hospital due to my sister making a diary as doctors in the hospital told my family that if I do survive I will have no recollection of anything from the accident. I can vaguely recall being in hospital for one day. My brain had basically been reset, I had to relearn how to walk, dress myself, shower myself, use knife and fork, swim, drink from a normal glass, climb stairs, read and write and the list goes on... I had to relearn all the things I had taken for granted, my movements from leaving the hospital were ‘toddler-like’. The pressures and stress I had given myself to return back to ‘normal’ life over the next few years dramatically changed my personality, I got very tired throughout the day, friends stopped to invite me out, my short term memory had been affected greatly, the muscles in my left side were weakened, I had difficulty in performing complex tasks and my speech had been affected. Doctors treat brain injuries similar to stroke patients due to similar outcomes.
After approximately a month of leaving the hospital, I started a ‘return to work’ scheme, I had informed management that I really need to return and complete the apprenticeship which was extended by a year due to injuries. At break and lunch times I used to go to the top office meeting room and sleep on a chair. No one in the place I worked understood my issues neither did my close family, probably because they don’t know anyone who has been through this type of injury, everyone knew I had an accident, and then was in hospital, when I returned home I was fine in their eyes... I remember being at work one day, completing a maintenance routine on an actuator, I was alone at the top of the boiler nearby the lift shaft, I got a sudden dizzy spell. I stood up and walked back to the workshop as it was approaching the end of the day. We used to congregate back in the workshop to get feedback of works completed and to ensure all employees are safe and returned off site, I vividly remember discussing the completed work with my supervisor and I felt like everyone was staring at me, again I started to get dizzy. I just wanted to run away from the workshop ‘debrief’ and take a shower then go home. This would have been the first full week I had completed for a year since the accident.
Once I got home the dizziness had seem to subside, I just told myself the dizzy spell was a minor illness maybe due to a cold or flu. Later that evening I went out with a close group of friends to a bar, I remember standing at the bar buying some drinks. The room felt like it was getting smaller, I felt like everyone was staring at me, I was struggling to breathe, I needed to get out, I got extremely dizzy, I didn’t care who I was with or what I left behind. I walked out in a hurry. I sent a text to my friend stating I didn’t feel very well so I had to leave. Once I was outside I felt much better, again I just blamed this to a possible illness and walked home.
“I am not what I think I am
I am not what you think I am
I am what I think, you think I am”
Charles Horton Cooley
The following morning I woke up in my bed, within a few minutes of waking up again I felt very dizzy, I told my parents how I felt; they presumed this was due to alcohol consumption and a late night. I knew this was something very different, something I had felt at work and again in the bar the previous night. I was very upset as I was progressing well from the injuries caused in the accident, and this felt like I hit rock bottom again. That weekend I had moments of dizziness when I went outside or nearby any people, there was nothing I could do apart from wonder what this dizziness was. The following Monday I still felt very dizzy and decided to take a taxi to the local GP after calling in sick with work, when I was sitting in the waiting room again I felt extremely dizzy, I remember there being about 4 people in the waiting room, I kept standing up and walking out the room. I told the receptionist I how I felt and that I could not wait in the room, she explained that I was next. Upon discussing the recent issues with the GP he had stated I had vertigo which is a treatable illness from exercises to recalibrate the balance fluid in the ears. He has signed me off from work for two weeks. For the next two weeks I found it difficult to leave the house due to my dizziness and stayed at home practicing my ‘vertigo exercises’ to which I could see no improvement, if anything they made me even worse.
I practiced these exercises as many times as I could, they involved me in moving my head from side to side and up and down to recalibrate the balance fluid in the ears, this made sense, I understood the method but really could not see any improvement. My dizziness just kept getting worse and I had no one that I could talk to that understood.
I had an amazing team at the hospital that assisted in rehabilitation that specialised in brain injuries, I had a psychologist, physiotherapist, speech and language therapist and occupational therapist and I decided to make an appointment to see the team regarding my dizziness. I remember sitting with my psychologist and within one hour he told me the reasons I had been feeling like this. From the stress caused in returning back to ‘normal life’ in regards to the accident I had been suffering from chronic hyperventilation which caused anxiety and light-headedness. I also told him about the OCD trends I used to struggle with which included counting everything; my footsteps, my breaths, my body twitches, tapping my fingers, everything! It drove me crazy. Everything made sense now. He used to ask me every week if I had suicidal thoughts to which I responded “no way”, he told me he has dealt with some people who do have these thoughts, this made me feel like I was not that severe. My illness made me feel very lonely, the OCD trends made me count more which made me hyperventilate more which then made the anxiety/dizziness/light headedness even worse; I needed to break the loop. I needed to somehow stop this. I remember once saying to my psychologist that I wish I had crutches, because at least then people would see me and know something is not right...
“Anxiety is not something you have, it’s something you do”
My life had now changed. Everything I did was to try to stop the downwards spiral from getting more intense. I tried relaxation therapy, hypnosis, reiki, meditation, talking to others from online anxiety forums. From researching methods that may help I even attempted natural cures to assist such as Spirulina which is basically pond scum, apple cider vinegar, magnesium tablets, St John’s wart, lavender drops, vitamin B2... My life had basically become a huge experiment of how to beat this, little did I know at the time the more I tried to ‘repair’ myself, the more I was indirectly instilling the fact I had a problem. A few times in my life I have experienced suicidal thoughts, it seemed so easy to stop the suffering and the hassle I was causing everyone. I just wish someone understood me.
For the next year I left paid employment to help in several charities while studying to turn my career into a path I had passion, one of the charities I worked in included a Buddhist centre that teaches ancient practises worldwide, I remember sitting in the meditation room with Rinpoche, finally someone understood me and gave me simple advice that helped, this was amazing. I felt like I was freed. My thoughts dictated how I feel and I was a prisoner of my own mind. All I needed to do is change my thoughts, sounds easy, right? I now treated anxiety as a bad habit rather than a disease, it was something I had learnt from excessive stress and pressure, hyperventilating is a normal response from the body due to stress. The body hyperventilates in a ‘fight or flight’ situation like if a lion was to jump out on you unexpectedly, the hyperventilation gets the body ready to fight the lion or run away. People who suffer from anxiety and depression have had this ‘lion’ leap out on them many occasions for a long time, now the body’s natural ability to relax has become disturbed.
I now focussed my energy to change my thoughts and remove the negative ‘chatter’, I read many books about the mind to learn about how to cope, I placed notes everywhere in my house with positive affirmations, recited my morning mantras while brushing my teeth, stayed away from negativity, read thousands of quotes, watched many motivational videos online, filled my life with what I enjoy doing rather than what social convention dictates and more importantly I imagined where and who I want to be. If I can imagine being that person, I can be that person.
I am intelligent
I am loved
I am confident
I am motivated
I am happy
It’s funny, most people want to win the lottery, live in a huge house, drive a sports car, wear designer clothes and impress people. I didn’t want any of that, I just wanted to be happy and have some control over my subconscious thoughts. Maybe most people were already happy and just wanted more. I think the more you have, the more you want. I mean look at the poor in third world countries who struggle to obtain clean drinking water and basic survival needs. They are still smiling and happy with what they do have.
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it”
Bruce Lee
Many years from the date of the accident I have achieved my initial goal of who I want to be, it wasn’t easy, but I think I was given the option to sink or swim. I still have times today that I can feel myself dropping back, but the difference is now I understand what is happening and I can cope. Mental health awareness has increased greatly in the last 10 years and I can now see trained people and effective resources to assist those affected. Communication surrounding mental health issues helps to remove the ‘taboo’ for this subject and now people are more willing to realise that the issue may be more than surface visible.
“Never judge a book by its cover”
Bejay Makwana
https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/bejay-makwana/b5/9bb/131
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