I want to talk more about my brain and how for the longest time I thought it was broken. And why it’s important to talk about mental health issues.
Side note: (And, yes, this soon into the post). There is a toxic positivity that pervades American thought that says if you work hard enough, you can overcome anything. Any time there’s a success story, it’s trotted out as proof that hard work and a positive attitude are all that’s needed to succeed. Which is not true at all. Yes, both of those things are needed, but so are luck, synchonicity, and did I mention luck? Luck plays a huge part in success, no matter how much Americans want to deny it, ignore it, or are oblivious to it.
Take my medical crisis. A few months before it happened, my brother had a friend who got pneumonia and went to the doctor. The doctor said because he could breathe, he should just take the meds the doctor prescribed. Then, the doctor sent him home. This was during the pandemic so hospitals were struggling with the overload of patients. My brother’s friend woke up in the middle of the night, unable to breathe. His wife called 911, and an ambulance was sent. During the ambulance ride, Regions Hospital called the ambulance to tell the EMTs that they, the hospital, had no rooms. The ambulance had to go to a different hospital, and my rbother’s friend had a heart attack and died.
A few months later, I woke up and could not breathe (Or I was still awake. It was three in the morning, so the latter is more likely than the former). I managed to call 911, and the police managed to get to my house in less than four minutes. How do I know? I’ll get to that in a second.
I managed to follow the instructions form the 911 operator. I kept talking to them while I stumbled to the front door. I unlocked it and then promptly passed out. I do not remember any of this, by the way. I had to be told about it later.
The cops knew to bag me when they came because I wasn’t breathing. When the EMTs came, I had a cardiac arrest. I had another on the way to the hospital. Oh, and the thing I always forget or just tack it on as an after thought–the ischemic stroke.
I was unconscious by the time we got to the hospital. I stayed that way for a week. I eventually found out that it all started wiht me having walking (non-Covid-related) pneumonia. So my story was very much like my brother’s friend, except I got all the lucky breaks. This was ALL luck. Or as I like to say, I got through with the help of love, Taiji, and luck.
You could argue that Taiji was on me–meaning that I actually have worked on it. It’s something I have done and continue to do. But the other two? I had no control over that. Oh, sure. You could say that my friends and brother love me for me, which is about me. However, it’s still not something I actively did, if that makes sense. And luck? Well the word itself is self-explanatory.