Vikky, I have been there, maybe not exactly there, because I am me, not you.
I have lost myself to survival, to responsibility, to the endless weight of what needed to be done. I had lost the connection to my inner SELF for 47 years. I have lived over-functioning depression. I have exhausted myself. I have lived a 100% conditioned life.
I know what it is to wake up one day and realize that the person I once was has been buried under years of functioning, coping, and enduring.
And yet—I have reclaimed who I am, who I truly am. That Self that I thought lost.
Not all at once, not neatly, and not without struggle. I am not fully healed, yet. And I am on my way there.
Reading this, I see the weight of it, the exhaustion of becoming a role instead of a person, the way illness and caregiving consume everything until there’s nothing left but the doing.
And I also see the thread running through it all—the thread that says 'you are still here'. Even if buried, even if exhausted, even if stretched so thin that you can’t always feel yourself anymore.
Naming it matters. Speaking it aloud matters. You are not invisible here. You are not just survival, not just responsibility.
It started in my left knee, spread to my right knee and in no time at all walking up and down stairs became... different. I crawled on all four limps to get up them and bumped down on my bum.
Did I ever even entertain the possibility of a chronic disability? No. I just said it's grief and age (I'm looking backwards at 70).
I can now go up and downstairs using my lower limbs only. So, as the shroud of grief lifts a bit so does the pain begin to lessen. But that feeling that somehow in being the primary support person for a daughter with a disability and then her subsequent death, I have lost who I once was, is so very real.
Perhaps, I should reclaim, not the person I was at twenty, but the person I have evolved into.
Thank you for your thoughtful and though-provoking essay.💙💛💙
Vikky, I have been there, maybe not exactly there, because I am me, not you.
I have lost myself to survival, to responsibility, to the endless weight of what needed to be done. I had lost the connection to my inner SELF for 47 years. I have lived over-functioning depression. I have exhausted myself. I have lived a 100% conditioned life.
I know what it is to wake up one day and realize that the person I once was has been buried under years of functioning, coping, and enduring.
And yet—I have reclaimed who I am, who I truly am. That Self that I thought lost.
Not all at once, not neatly, and not without struggle. I am not fully healed, yet. And I am on my way there.
Reading this, I see the weight of it, the exhaustion of becoming a role instead of a person, the way illness and caregiving consume everything until there’s nothing left but the doing.
And I also see the thread running through it all—the thread that says 'you are still here'. Even if buried, even if exhausted, even if stretched so thin that you can’t always feel yourself anymore.
Naming it matters. Speaking it aloud matters. You are not invisible here. You are not just survival, not just responsibility.
You are still you. And that matters.
I cherish you. I see you.
Thank you so much for those lovely words. You have really made my day.
I appreciate this!
After my daughter died my body fell apart.
It started in my left knee, spread to my right knee and in no time at all walking up and down stairs became... different. I crawled on all four limps to get up them and bumped down on my bum.
Did I ever even entertain the possibility of a chronic disability? No. I just said it's grief and age (I'm looking backwards at 70).
I can now go up and downstairs using my lower limbs only. So, as the shroud of grief lifts a bit so does the pain begin to lessen. But that feeling that somehow in being the primary support person for a daughter with a disability and then her subsequent death, I have lost who I once was, is so very real.
Perhaps, I should reclaim, not the person I was at twenty, but the person I have evolved into.
Thank you for your thoughtful and though-provoking essay.💙💛💙
Thank you for sharing. Absolutely, embrace who you are now through Post-Traumatic Growth!