Underneath my yellow skin

Nanowhatmo? Part four

I’m back at it again to explore more about what I want from my writing. Specifically, if I want to do NaNoWriMo and if so, what I’ll do for it. In the past, writing 50,000 words in a month was not a problem. I made a personal goal to write 2,000 words a day, which I did mostly with ease.

Yesterday I wrote about reality versus what I thought was reality when I was on very heavy drugs. I was 100% convinced that what I experienced was real. My brother asked me months later about one thing I had rambled about whilst heavily drugged. He asked if it had actually happened, and I immediately said no. I had Googled it after I got out of the hospital and found no mention of it. I would have if what I thought happened had really happened.

Once the drugs had cleared my system, I realized that most of what I thought had happened could not have/did not happen. I read up on it and realized that hopsital psychosis (and delusions) was a thing. I didn’t have any truly traumatic delusions, thankfully, but it was such a wild ride. I thought everyone taking care of me weer PoC, which was really nice. In reality, there wasn’t anyone of color on my team (according to my brother and the pictures I saw of the staff a year later).

I want to talk about it because it’s had a deep and lasting impact on me. To put it plainly, I have a week missing from my memory and a week of memories that are a complete lie. Delusions, almost all of them. Well, roughly 90% of them. Let me say not remembering a week is a trip in and of itself. Actually, it’s more like a week-and-a-half. The memory wipe was retroactive and took away a half week leading up to my hospitalization. My heart doc said this was normal and he told me about one of his patients who was on vacation when he had a suddent cardiac arrest. He could not remember any of the vacation leading up to the cardiac arrest.

I remmeber on Tuesday emailing my Taiji teacher to let her know I was not attending the Zoom class that evening. I remember  messaging Ian Thursday morning to talk about Nioh 2 (which we were both playing). That’s it for that week. I had my medical crisis at 3 in the morning Friday night/Saturday morning and have no memory of it. At all. When my brother told me what happened, I was astonished because I had not a whisper of a memory of it happening.

I stayed in a coma until Thursday. My brother set up a CaringBridge journal while I was in the hospital and he noted at a quarter to seven in the evening that just as he was walking to the car to drive to the hospital to see me, the doctor called him to tell him that I had woken up.


I looked up my journal to get the exact time, and there was a picture of me in my hospital bed that I hadn’t noticed before. Man. I was hooked up to so many tubes and lying so terribly still. It’s strange to look at it and not to feel anything. I mean, it’s a horrible thing to have happen, but I don’t remember it at all. So it’s like looking at a picture of someone else.

Re-reading what my brother wrote is still a trip. Plus the comments that other people left. All of  that is like a fevered dream. It’s been three years, and maybe I could actually write about it coherently now.

For the first year or so after my medical crisis, I was just trying to get my bearings again. Phyiscally, I was 100% after three months. Well, roughly 97%. Mentally, I was riding high! I had faced death without blinking and came back better than ever. My depression decreased by 90% and my anxiety by 60%.

My body hatred went away completely. I was in awe of how my body had taken a beaten and barely flinched. I also thought I looked hella cute for someone who had died (twice). I did my hair in several different ways. The one that charmed me at the time was two buns on the side like Chun-Li. I would pull up my hair in two high ponies, braid each one, and then secure each one with a scrunchy. It was, if I say so myself, cute AF. Now, I pull it up in a high pony and braid it half way. Then I wear it in a loose top knot for sleep time.

I am not as pleased with my body now. My depression is slowly creeping up again as is my anxiety. I know that I should find a therapist to deal with some of the lingering issues in my life. The problem is that I can’t find someone with every specialty I want. I went on BetterHelp (which, by the way, I did not like at all. I won’t get into that now, but it’s disheartening that they’re the website that content creators push for mental health help) and filled out their questionnaire. When I finished, they told me that they did not have a match. I wanted a non-male, nonreligious, queer-friendly, Asian therapist who specialized in family dysfunction, grief, and trauma. Yes, I know, but might as well shoot for the world in the beginning.

Once they told me they had no matches, I thought about what I really wanted. I decided it was an East Asian non-male person who specialized in family dysfunction and grief. The website told me they had a match, but instead of telling me who they matched me with, they asked for my credit card info. Wait, what? They wanted me to pay before they would give me the match? Oh, no, no, no. That’s not how any of this worked! I was not going to hand over money, sight unseen, for a therapist I didn’t even know the name of. That sounded like a scam to me! They made it clear that I could change therapists if it didn’t work out, but still. No. Not going to happen. I shut down the website and thought nothing more of it.

I had given them my email address before they laid this bullshit out on me (had to create an account). A few days later, they sent me a message saying that they had matched me with so-and/so and were giving me something like 30% off. This did not sit well with me because it was way too salesperson-y. Therapy should not follow used car salesman tactics. I found out later that they did not have the best reputation and with a little research, it seemed that they did not treat their therapists well, either.

I’m going to keep looking, but it was disappointing. That’s not what this post was supposed to be, but that’s where it ended up going. I’m tired and distracted, and I’ve lost my way. I’m going to end this now and try to get back to the main point tomorrow. We’ll see if I can get myself back on track.

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