It’s so weird, wanting your body to do something but it seems like it can’t hear you. It just doesn’t respond. I’m screaming in my head, and occasionally out loud, “MOVE!” But my foot stays still as if it’s dead.

It’s so degrading having your family members and the home care nurse telling you how much they love you and about what they did that day and how they wish that you could do it too. Their mindless chatter turns into nervous laughs as they realize how upset you are that you can’t participate with them. They bring you dinner from fancy restaurants and pictures from their latest vacation and drawings that your little cousins made for you to brighten up the dark walls of your room, which has turned into a prison.

Writing is my only escape. I express all my feelings of hatred towards my family for looking down on me, towards my friends for abandoning me and forgetting about me, towards God for making me get in a car accident, leaving me paralyzed, a prisoner in my own body.

I can walk in my stories and in my dreams. I can rock-climb again. I can go to the mall without getting stared at for being in a wheelchair. I don’t need others’ help for every activity. My body feels clear of all those pills the doctors want me to take to treat my depression, anxiety, hallucinations, and every other miniscule imbalance. In my dreams, the accident never happened. I’m frozen in a happier time with no worries about the future. I have the mindset that I am invincible and nothing bad can happen to me, the same mindset I had before the accident. I have my youthful innocence. There are no cars, hospitals, doctors, pills, injuries, or illnesses. In my dreams, I’m in a perfect utopia with no evils and I have no fears. But every time I open my eyes, the pain returns. It’s not physical pain. It’s inside me. And it’s deep down and hidden. It’s cut so deep into my soul that no amount of pills can treat it.