September 30, 2018

My brain doctor told me I should write in a journal to help my “mental” recovery after my “trauma.” I don’t know that it will help at all, but he told me he wanted to check my entries every week. In all honesty, I see nothing wrong with my mind, and I can’t believe how stupid I feel writing here. It makes me feel like a little girl with a diary. I don’t think I saw any of my father figures write in a journal. I think men call it a journal because we fear being feminized through the predisposition of society’s norms. I just wanted to sound sophisticated to myself there.

Part of me is afraid to document anything because I feel it could become evidence if necessary, even though I don’t commit any crimes. I need to stop there before I spiral anymore, my therapist’s term. I can’t move much, and I would pass out from the pain if I tried. The amount of pain I feel when I just want to roll over consumes me like an ocean wave that collides with a distracted bird. I found out the side effects of a breached pain tolerance when I tried to go to the bathroom on my own. Mom got mad at me. I felt well enough to walk the three feet to my bathroom to take a leak, but maybe I didn’t think it through enough. I woke up to an ice pack against the side of my head. Then, when I realized mom held it there, I felt the sting of reality about why she cared for me in that way.

Mom seems more than happy to help me. When I try to turn her away, she says that it helps keep her mind off of her dead husband. She doesn’t say it like that, but a ballpark figure works in my journal. Hank, her third and most recent husband, involved how I found myself in my mother’s care, but I can only remember the images of water as it flashed by me. I didn’t know water could feel as hard as concrete at the right speed. My journal should help me remember all the details, or so the doc says. I don’t believe in that psychological babble of crap, but I will continue to visit him until he states I can function in society as a normal human again. The impact on the water broke some of my ribs, my right leg, and I still hurt all over, even though they can’t determine why.

Some of my uncles said I just needed to get on a boat and overcome my fear. We all make poor choices, and it turned out that I made the wrong one when I got on that boat. I guess my condition might have turned out worse than what I see it as now. I heard some stories of people who became afraid of anybody of water after an accident like mine. I would hate to fear baths. I enjoy them too much.