I’m learning more and more about how the realities of my disabled life affect my psyche and leave me feeling traumatized. For many reasons, I am often left alone unplanned in very vulnerable positions.
For example, during the day you’ll often find me sitting at me computer with my wheelchair turned off and my legs elevated on a pillow to prevent swelling. It’s the most comfortable position for me to be in and that’s not even very comfortable. This disabled life of always choosing the lesser of two evils gets old after a while but it’s the reality of not being able to use the largest muscles in your body.
When caregivers are in place according to our planned schedules it’s a reasonably ok place to spend my day doing crossword puzzles or writing – or taking care of the business of life that all happens on the computer. But when somebody doesn’t show up for one reason or another it sends me into a mental tailspin.
Being left is a vulnerable place to be when one can’t move around independently in any way. I feel like a sitting duck. I sit here with my mind reeling about all of the terrible things that could happen whilst I’m left alone. What if there’s a fire? What if there’s a home invasion? What if I can’t hold it and I shit my damn pants? There are so many horrific what if’s the mind reels. Being left rarely means I’m in any real danger but the what if’s cause me enough mental trauma to make being left one of my worst fears.
Fear eats at the brain like a marauding infection destroying your precious peace of mind. Peace of mind is what I value above all things. Threats to my precious peace feel like physical attacks to my body. They hurt me just as if there was someone here beating me. The affect is mental but it becomes physical quickly after fear chews on your brain for an hour or two.
I wonder when it is and I’m gonna get used to this feeling and just accept the fact that I’m going to be left occasionally and I’m going to survive each time. But it’s really hard to get over the idea that something terrible could happen when I’m completely vulnerable to outside forces.
It’s my old life where I was never vulnerable fighting with my new life where I’m always vulnerable. It makes me uncomfortable to acknowledge that I used to feel in control all the time and I loved the feeling. I excelled in that world.
This new world I’m struggling to find my place in, but I keep trying because that’s what I have to do. 
Source: bethybrightanddark.com