A Year of (Unsuspected) Personal Growth

Today was my last day of physical therapy. I didn’t know this going in, but I suspected it was coming soon. I started going last January, right after the holidays, not having any sense or idea of how long the road ahead of me would be to get my body feeling like mine again. That road is still stretched out in front of me, but I can definitely say that looking back, there’s a whole lot of asphalt behind me, too. I didn’t necessarily want to hear that this was it, but I knew it was the right choice. There was nothing else for me to learn or gain by going anymore.

As my physical therapist set me up for my last set of exercises, he asked me to do something:

“I want you to picture some of your lowest moments whether before you started coming here or earlier on. Got it?” 

“I can think of a few,” I responded, with scenes flashing in my head of all my many, many meltdowns.

“Okay, now, I want you to think about where you are now. What would you tell that version of yourself? What do you want her to know from where you’re currently standing?”

I sat, perplexed, not being able to think of a single thing. The truth is, I wanted to enthusiastically say that I would tell 2020/early 2021 Arlyn that she would be just fine. All healed. Good to go. But that’s not the truth. I could feel Nick (my PT) looking at me as I looked forward, squeezing my brain to think of something to say. I decided to go with the truth.

“I’m torn, because while the horrible pain I felt last year is gone, the discomfort, the heaviness, the weirdness I feel, the mystery of what’s happening in my body is still very much present.”

He understood. But then, I kept talking. And I said some things that surprised even me. Proof that I’ve come much further in the last 11 months than I ever gave myself credit for:

“I would tell past tense Arlyn that while she won’t be able to control her body and what it chooses to do, she will be able to control how she reacts to it. Be kind to yourself, have your emotions, but no amount of meltdowns are ever going to make you feel truly better.”

He started jotting things down.

“I’d also tell her that you are capable of doing everything you are being asked to do. There will never be a time during this process where you won’t get through. You are and will be strong enough to keep going.”

“You have all the support you need. You are not alone. Even when you feel like you are, you will be wrong about that.”

“It may take longer than you want, and it might not be in the way you’re hoping, but in many ways, you will get better. Even if it doesn’t look exactly how you pictured…yet.”

He read all those things back to me while I did a short set of deadlifts. I felt good about them (the mantras, not the deadlifts).

“Oh, I have one more,” I uttered, moving into some calf stretches. “Remember: It matters how you talk to yourself.”

This was one that Charles was constantly trying to drill into my head, but I never wanted to listen. When you feel broken, lost, like you’ll never feel good or normal again, it’s very easy to beat yourself up. Tell yourself that you are broken, lost, that you’ll never get better. I remember telling Charles that I felt like a “shell of a person” because I did. He’d get so upset with me every time I said that. “You are NOT a shell of a person, Arlyn.” I felt like he didn’t get me, he just didn’t understand what I was feeling or going through. Yes, damnit, I WAS a shell. What did he know?

But he was right. I was not. I was full: of fear, anger, more fear, frustration, pain, but more importantly, I had the will to keep going, to claw my way back to the other side. I’m still clawing and climbing, but my “shell” isn’t empty. It never was, of course.

As I was saying goodbye to my physical therapy, I told him how much he had helped me. Beyond the physical, he had been there to talk me through my deep valleys of emotion. Healing is just as much mental as it is physical, and you don’t really understand that until you’re in it. And frankly, the mental part is the hardest part. At least it was and is for me.

This last year has been a journey to say the least in so many ways. Sometimes it was ugly, but man have I grown. I can see that now. I’m not the same person I was going into my health battles, in all the best ways. While sure, it’d be easy to say I’d trade all my lessons and growth just to feel 100% healthy and strong again, but I don’t think that’s true necessarily. It’s complicated. Hopefully, one day, the pain and discomfort will be gone, but I get to keep this new version of myself. The one that’s self-patient. The one that knows how strong mentally and physically she can be. The one that has incredible empathy for anyone with invisible (and visible) pain. The one that knows she’s loved and supported fully.

I may have “graduated” PT today from a physical standpoint, but my biggest trophy is the mental muscle I’ve grown. I walked in a “shell,” seemingly broken, and walked out today, though while not physically perfect, a new, strong, calm, assured, capable Arlyn. And I’m proud of the work she’s done so far.

See you tomorrow, FOAS.