I Relive The Worst Day Of My Life Every Night

For those of you who know me well, know that I am not afraid of anything.

(Except those black beetles, the ones that buzz around and make a lot of noise!) but other than that, nothing really phases me. It has been like that as far back as I can remember. My best girlfriend and I would rent scary movies - there was only a couple that really freaked me out. But I'd never keep a scary movie in my head very long - after I was done watching then I was pretty much done with the movie forever. In other words, I never thought about it. I never carried any scary images or characters into my dreams with me.

When it came to sports, outdoor activies, rollercoasters, cliff jumping, or anything that was remotely close to being borderline illegal or extremely dangerous - I was in. It didn't matter how high a jump was I would always be the first one to do it - no questions asked.

So after the accident, people would always ask me "do you remember it?" "were you scared?" The first question would be yes, I remember falling and not being able to get back up. But there are big holes in my memory about things leading up to my fall. I remember weird images and people's bug eyed stares at me while I speeded down the mountain uncontrollably. I remember having a feeling deep down in my gut (the type of feeling you get when you're about to go down a drop on a steep rollercoaster) it is exhilirating yet terrifying) I was scared that I broke my legs and I wouldn't be able to play in my tournament next weekend. I had no idea my injury was as serious as it was.

I have never been the type of person to lay out all my feelings on the table and talk about myself nonstop. I'd try so hard to go through everything leading up to my accident - why couldn't I remember the hardest day of my life? If I have to go through everything I'm going through why couldn't I just remember one thing about the events leading up to December 29th, 2007.

I would soon realize that while my body would be going through the most traumatic experience ever - my mind would shut out anything else to cause it harm. Too consumed with everything else happening I thought well that was a good thing? I would later realize my mind trying to recollect that day would resurface in different nightmares every night of my life for years.

The weird part was - the dreams were always different yet similiar. As I mentioned, that feeling I had in my stomach before I snapped my neck would reappear every night in dreams/nightmare but in different scenarios. I would wakeup in a dream that I was skydiving but my parachute wouldn't come out or I would dream that I was going 100+ mph on the freeway and my brakes would stop working.

I never told any doctor for fear they would want me to start taking some type of antidepressant or sleeping pill that would turn me into a zombie like I was at the hospital. I don't want to live my life dependent on medication, thats not who I am. If I was able to survive the worst day of my life then I could survive a dream that isn't real. I kept telling myself that every night I would wakeup crying or in a cold sweat.

The worst part about going through something like this is that no one is able to prepare you for this. Just like no one prepared me for a spinal cord injury, as I write a lot about learning how to hit a life curveball - there's things that you're never ever going to be prepared for. It may not be something like a SCI injury but even a breakup, feelings of rejection, depression, loss of a loved one those things are seriously life-changing. The most cliche quote you've ever heard is that, "time heals all." Time isn't a perfect science but it's something that has had my back through these nightmares.

As I said, it's hard physically to go through these type of events but it's even harder subconciously to get through them. 7 years ago, I had nightmares every night for years, forcing me to to sleep with my mom so she could wake me up when the dreams got so bad. When I was living alone at USC, the nightmares would keep me up all night sometimes and my boyfriend would sit on the phone with me for hours until I fell back asleep. Today, I still have nightmares but there aren't as nearly as frequent as they used to be.

The accident changed a lot of things about my physically but mentally I'm still not scared of anything - no amount of nightmares is going to change that.

As I listen to my Lana Del Rey playlist with my anthropologie candles in my room lit, I say good night my friends.

But most importantly, hope you all have sweet sweet dreams.

Xoxo,

A Guy's Girl