My Wattpad Blog

Blog 18# I'm a fighter (my story)

G'day Guys it's Jessi here and today I thought we would do something completely different.

So, lately a lot of crap has been going on in my life and some people who have known about my struggles actually find me quite inspiring in the sense that I have a lot of strength and tenacity to get through so much and I thought that today, if I could make a difference to someone's life and make them feel like 'wow she gets it' then that would be fantastic. Some parts though about my story are actually still quite sensitive for me and I will be telling you guys some things that you might find triggering and you might be going through yourself and this is not intended to be rubbed in your face.

Okay so, basically my crap started in 2016 a.k.a last year, for six months my body started to deteriorate on me, I had an expected injury beforehand and even through doing all this rehab (hydrotherapy, physiotherapy and palates) my capabilities in walking, running, bending, crouching just any movement hips down was hard for me to do gradually. I suddenly went from being able to walk everywhere, being able to get out of bed, to now having to get my mum to help me out of bed and help me with certain things that I realised I could no longer do. My muscles had so much waste and they were weak and eventually through numerous testing and scans and a nerve conduction test it was found that my motor nerves where only working at a 60% capacity rate which isn't bad but still caused issues for me and there was also no proper diagnosis or cause to my (what we will call) 'temporary disability' but they decided to put it down to axon peripheral motor neuropathy. So you know how messages from your brain can travel down your spine and into different body parts via nerves? Yeah there was a barrier somewhere in my body that prevented the messages in the nerves to get through and caused sever delay in movement for my body. They didn't know what caused it, they didn't know if it was caused by the accident at work earlier that year or if the condition caused the accident, it's no black and white, it's like a 50 shades of grey thing (no, just don't dare to make the puns I know you want to but...no) I sat in the in-between.

Now since there is no possible way to know what I have or what caused the disability but it was really hard for the next few months because they started THE ELIMINATION PROCESS!

Basically multiple tests to rule out possible diagnosis including genetics and all that stuff that I don't know the names to. It was a really hard time for me because I basically spent two months not knowing if I had something caused by genetics and if it could be treated, I developed General Anxiety and Panic Disorder earlier on in the year because of the fear of going to school and being in a rowdy hallway where at any moment someone could push me and I would fall and truth being...if I could get back up. Because since I had a lot of muscle waste, getting me off the ground if I fell was like trying to lift an elephant. Dead Weight. So if my anxiety didn't help me then it was definitely not helping me now. I had a lot of panic attacks and anxiety filled moments and as every human body responds differently to different stuff my body's first instinct when I was anxious was to throw my guts up. It was literally every morning before school, wake up, eat, puke, go to school, it was really horrible and because of all the throwing up I had done for a consecutive 5 months meant that I would lose a lot of body weight...30kgs actually.

This wasn't exactly a bad thing for me, because I have always been a chubby girl and picked on for my weight, my body has always been a serious insecurity of mine so when I started fitting into size 12s instead of size 18-20s I was pretty happy but I was not proud of the way I lost the weight. So if anyone out there is reading this and has had the same desire to lose weight like I wanted to: PLEASE DO NOT LOOSE THE WEIGHT THE WAY I DID, THIS IS HOW EATING DISORDERS ARE CAUSED AND YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL THAT YOU LOOK AMAZING AS YOU ARE! IF YOU WANT TO LOOSE WEIGHT THEN ALWAYS EAT HEALTHY FOODS AND EXERCISE REGULARLY, PLEASE DO NOT THROW UP OR ATTEMPT TO STARVE YOURSELF BECAUSE IT IS DANGEROUS AND YOU CAN BE SERIOUSLY SICK FOR A VERY LONG TIME!!!!

Okay so where was I...oh yeah, well since I lost the weight I started becoming depressed, I was either using a walking frame to get around or a wheelchair and for a long time I started having past demons come out and jump at me. I started loosing friends which wasn't their fault because they didn't know what was happening or how to help me so it was like there was an unbridgeable distance between us, my ex-boyfriend practically dumped me because of my depression being the stem source of my moodiness and without a father figure it was a real tough time for me. I wasn't getting the answers I wanted, I couldn't be as active as I use to be and it frustrated me so much that I had to start asking people to help me do things that I could have easily done on my own. This is when my depression (which I have had for nearly 3 years now) really hit me rock bottom. I started having suicidal thoughts because I just saw myself as a burden, like 'what's the point of being around if you cannot do everything you use to or be able to help others because you are useless', I will not go so deep but I had a lot of horrible thoughts about myself that really just decreased me self-esteem, my self-worth, my confidence, my meaning to life, the whole nine yards. I started using cutting as a way to feel the pain that I couldn't feel emotionally and physically and I really started considering about wanting to die.

But that changed, I was told that I had a chance to get better if I really wanted to put the effort into it, I did try to put effort into rehab in the past but my depression really over threw me from wanting to get better, I had a lot of fears and I still do about getting better and after going away to Phillip Island for a week in the new year (2017 obvs) I started looking at my future in a different perspective. I had to choices basically: either I could stay put where I was, stay in a wheelchair full time and miss out on doing amazing things with my friends and family or I could fight to change my future and have control over my body again. I have only recently just been registered to the Neuro-muscular clinic at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne and due to my age will soon be transferred to the Royal Melbourne clinics. I stopped cutting, I got the treatment I needed for my mental health and yes, I still do have bad days, but even on the bad days I still smile because I know what I want to do, I want to walk. The best thing I probably ever started doing was cutting out the unhealthy relationships in my life and face my past and start saying that though somethings are hard and I don't know if I can do it, I wanted to try.

Being in a wheelchair and being on this journey has really changed me, I want to help now so many others with disabilities and mental health problems. I want to see change where even those whose future will be led in a wheelchair, they can enjoy life to its fullest without being disabled. Because you are not actually disabled, yes you have a condition that may not be able to allow you to walk, or see or hear the world, but you are not disabled, you are able to accomplish anything you put your mind to. I have been told that your condition does not define your life, but it's not completely true, your condition doesn't define yur life, but it does define what kind of person you are, how much strength you have to keep going and just like the great Rocky said "It ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward".

Guys I know the journey through life isn't always peaches and cream, it can be a dark and scary and horrible only if you let it and let your mind think it. If it wasn't for my family and my friends and my internet friends and wattpad, maybe I would have missed Christmas and 2017 and spent the next eternity six feet under the stars. Life doesn't always give you the best and I know that sometimes when all you have ever done when you got knocked down is having to get back up and keep fighting you get tired and you are not sure how much more you can take. You can take so much more than you think, I have been fighting my whole life and only till now I have noticed how strong and tenacious of a person I am. I wanted to share my story with you guys so you can feel like you are not alone, that you are not the only one trying to fight against Life, you will get knocked down again and again but you can either stay there and get the sh#t kicked out of you or you can get back up and fight your way out.

So this is who I am, I am Jessi and I am a warrior of my own right, and you can be a warrior too.

Stay strong, and if you can feel yourself breaking, talk to someone, inbox me if you want. I will always listen, because I get it, I get it's hard. But life is so much worth living then you think. I may have shared my story here but there is still a lot of bad things in my past I yet have to have the courage to face. And we can do it together.

I love you guys, please stay strong for me

This is Jessi signing out <3