Losing the old you is not always a bad thing.

Written by Christina Duvenhage on August 14 2023

There was a light shining through my bedroom window. The curtains are only open slightly, but the light shines brightly into my eyes while I'm lying on my bed trying to sleep. I try and think of something, anything but my mind is empty and my body restless. I am rolling around in my hospital bed. Everything feels to hot, but at the same time to cold. It feels like my clothes are strangling me. As if life is strangling me as if the bedsheets are the chains holding me captive.

I stand up to go to the bathroom, just to break free, but that doesn't work. I am held captive by my own life's choices, thoughts and fears.

Again I find myself in hospital, the same one I was a week ago. The world was simply just to much for me to handle. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and because I did not complete the cycle the first time, I needed to be here to finish it. I am positive about this time round. Every feels clearer this time. Everything just makes sense.

I keep to myself, not because I think I'm better than anyone, but just because I realized I needed to spend time with myself. Time to rediscover myself, getting to know myself again.

The previous time I was here I was busy the whole time with people as if it was a daily occurrence. Not that I'm saying it was not good for me, as I met the most precious friends in there. But reality it was not good for my healing. Healing I desperately needed. I was broken and beat down. I needed to heal.

I find myself sitting in something that looks like a classroom with only silence around me. No one is here, and I love it. It gives me time to think and to process what we have learned the morning. I identify with so much, but why can't the doctors see that, or do they simply don't want to see it. I just don't know anymore. I'm tired of saying, tired of asking. Maybe I'm just looking for something that is simply not there. Maybe I'm seeking for answers that can't be answered. I just don't know anymore. Maybe nothing is wrong with me and I am wasting everyone's time. Al I know I am ill, it hurts and nobody can tell me why.

I am not myself. The Christina that I see in the mirror everyday, is not the Christina I use to know, it is just a body. A body with a face that look like mine. A voice that sounds like me, but it's not me. Why don't I laugh anymore, why don't I enjoy life anymore? No instead I am holding myself captive in my own home. Everyday passes me by and I simply can't remember what happened. How do I get my life back? How do I get Christina back? The Christina that laughed, tell jokes and simply be fun. That Christina does not exist anymore. She is dead, berried under anxiety, depression and pain, guilt, a broken heart and simply just life itself.

I miss the old Christina, how did I allow myself to lose myself like that. How did I allow other people to break me. I wish I knew where it all started, but I simply just don't know, there is no time or date of that I'm sure. Everything happened so fast and before I realized I was standing with the broken pieces in my bloody hands. Cut open just from trying to prevent myself from losing myself more, from breaking again.

But here I am sitting in hospital, broken, hurt and alone. Rediscovering the new me. Getting to know the new me. The me that can overcome. The me that knows it's okay to ask for help. The me that realized that without losing the old me I can never grow into the person I want to be. That not realized death is not always a bad thing, but that with death life happens and that my life is far from over. That with my broken pieces I can builds a new me. A me that I can be proud of.