During times when I am conscious, I can’t stop asking:

• Why me?

• What’s next?

• What’s the point of this suffering?

There are no straight answers. But I want to find meaning to all this pain. I am driven to know. Should I prepare to live life of disabled person? I don’t know. My family and friends who come to visit also don’t have answers. The worst part in not knowing. Not knowing is definitely the worst part.

I feel sad and powerless. I feel frustrated and angry. And sad and hopeless again. What an emotional roller-coaster. It is like this for weeks.

Time for another pethidine.

I wake up to the same questions. This time I feel some shift in my being, maybe it’s still a drug or perhaps it’s a higher wisdom…but there is an answer coming:

– “Why not me!”.

This answer liberates me in some way. There are millions of people suffering of hunger, poverty, wars…many people had heart-breaking accidents like me. Many were severely injured, and many lost someone they loved so much. Some lost their tribes, homes, lands altogether. It would be very superior of me to think that pain and suffering are only for others to be experienced. It’s the first time that I start feeling an acceptance of my own pain. Before I was rejecting it. By rejecting my own pain, I was suffering more. I suffered being stuck. I suffered powerless, helpless, hopeless victimhood which made me deny any responsibility for my negative circumstances and deny possession of the power to change those circumstances.

My accident pushed me inside. I don’t wish anybody a tragic accident as mine, but I wish every person going through any adversity the grace and peace that’s coming from coming inside. I realised that if I don’t know who I am, I still am. And that’s good enough. My accident was a catalyst of me confronting my biggest feelings, patterns and pain. Doing so made me consider the deeper meaning of my existence.

By accepting my pain comes a feeling of compassion. I feel I am not alone in my suffering. I feel somewhat united with everybody who suffers, no matter what reason. I suffer with them in unity. Moreover, for the first time I feel a strong desire to take action and alleviate the suffering I witness. Starting with my own suffering…applying (new to me) self-compassion first. Then I spread it to patients in my hospital room. Something shifts in me…light starts breaking through the cracks of my resistance.

Inspired by Ken Wilber and his book “Grace and Grit”, I start observing two different dimensions of illness, in me and in others.

Illness in my case is physical – it’s broken bones, blood loss, or low haemoglobin with all affiliated symptoms. It is a scientific phenomenon with scientific dimension. It’s mechanical and tangible.

What people think of illness and how they deal with it is a different story. Wilber calls this dimension as “sickness”. There is value attached to it. People can think it’s bad or good, they can judge it, fear it, create myths and stories about it. They can assign meaning to a particular illness and such meaning can create a ‘make or break’ of someone’s healing process. Sickness in this sense is less tangible or obvious and depends very much on what is held in the eyes of beholder.

I find this concept extremely helpful in the process of my own healing.

I feel that acceptance of my own illness was a stepping stone to my physical but also emotional and spiritual healing. It put things in motion. My personal response to my illness became softer and self-compassionate. I was saying good bye to my internal victim and embraced a survivor within me with an open arms and heart.

Wishing you the same.

Much love,

Kasia