Brad Guy

I can't take myself to the toilet.

It's all very dehumanizing and tragic.

I was very scared to leave the hospital because I felt like I was going to face the real world and would have to start somehow reentering the life that I had before, which I didn't really feel like I had the courage to do so.

And even leaving the hospital in a wheelchair and getting wheeled out

I just felt so ashamed.

So once I got home and I split my recovery into lots of different segments, I would say module one is when I got home and I was in a neck brace and back brace for four months.

I eventually did see a therapist once and a psychiatrist and I was diagnosed with PTSD, depression and nightmare disorder, which is a type of insomnia.

And during this four month period, I basically didn't leave my bedroom, didn't know what time of day it was.

was on that many drugs that I couldn't really communicate.

Would not want visitors.

I'd have my niece and nephew draw pictures and I would just yell and scream and tell everyone to leave me alone.

Would need assistance eating.

Mum would take me to the toilet, which now we can laugh at, but at the time it was very humiliating.

I was a shell of myself and felt like a complete crippled burden.

I did not see a future.

Everything felt so permanent.

And during that period, I did lose the will to live and nearly made irreparable decisions.

Which is also a hard thing to admit because knowing what my life is now and what I was able to reclaim with my life,

I shudder to think of that decision that felt so very close and almost peaceful in a way.

But even though the guilt had burdened me so much, it was also kind of the thing that saved me as I've come to learn in retrospect.