Author Note

This article discusses trauma, chronic illness, anxiety, digestive illness, identity loss, depression, and the emotional aftermath of surviving a medical crisis.

Nobody Prepares You For The After

The strangest part about almost dying isn't almost dying.

The strangest part is what happens afterward.

Everybody expects gratitude.

Nobody expects trauma.

People see the fact that you're alive.

They don't see what survival cost.

After I left the hospital, I kept waiting for life to feel normal again.

It never did.

I prayed.

I worked.

I taught.

I wrote songs.

I changed diapers.

I smiled in photographs.

I laughed in conversations.

And underneath all of it…

something was wrong.

Not physically at first.

Not in a way I could explain.

Just a feeling that part of me never came home from that hospital.

Sleep changed.

My thoughts changed.

My stress changed.

My relationship with my body changed.

I didn't have language for trauma.

I didn't know what fight-or-flight was tthough I knew the phrase. 

I didn't know a nervous system could become trapped in survival mode.

I just knew I wasn't me anymore.

Then came the stomach infections.

One after another.

Months.

Then more months.

Then more.

Tests.

Medication.

Fear.

Embarrassment.

Confusion.

Pain.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

I survived the thing that should have killed me.

Then spent months getting destroyed by the thing nobody could explain.

I was teaching during the day.

Creating music at night.

Trying to be a husband.

Trying to be a father.

Trying to be a provider.

Trying to be a man.

Trying to be okay.

And failing.

The hardest part wasn't the symptoms.

The hardest part was looking normal.

Because when you look normal, people expect normal.

They expect consistency.

Energy.

Performance.

Patience.

Results.

They don't see the war.

They see the uniform.

That's what trauma does.

It turns survival into an invisible occupation.

And every day you report back for duty.

Even when you're exhausted.

Even when you're scared.

Even when you have no idea how much longer you can keep going.

This wasn't the end of my story.

It wasn't even close.

But this was the beginning of learning something most people never understand.

Sometimes surviving the event is easier than surviving the aftermath.