Necrotizing Fasciitis: Survival, Recovery, and Reflection
Most people never hear the words "necrotizing fasciitis" until they are confronted with them in an emergency room. This article tells the story of a devastating infection, the fight for survival, and the long road to recovery, while explaining the medical realities behind one of the world's most feared bacterial diseases.
This story starts in August 2023. Between August 18th and August 20th, I participated in a contest held by Google in Oslo for their game Ingress. Approximately 600 people participated from all over the world. I had been to lots of similar events before, so me and my then girlfriend met lots of people we knew. I don't know how I got infected, but I suspect it happened at this event.
The following Monday my throat was a little soar. It felt like the tonsils where sore and it was similar to what they would feel like just before you catch the cold. I decided to work from home. Of some reason the top director at my company called and said she wanted me to work in the office, so the next day I worked half the day in the in the office. At noon I left the office, because I was taking my girlfriend to Copenhagen. There had been heavy rainfall days before, so we met close to a waterfall in central Oslo to take pictures, before we went to the ferry to Copenhagen. I love being at the ocean, so it would be very nice to combine being at sea and visiting somewhere she had not been to before. The sailing was smooth, but I don't think I slept that much because my condition got worse.
We arrived in Copenhagen on Wednesday morning. The plan was to stay in Copenhagen for one night and then take the ferry back to Oslo. I had gotten worse, and I was so sick it was reasonable to try to see a doctor. It had gotten so far, I had problems breathing and swallowing. We checked in at our hostel and spent some time looking for doctors' offices in central Copenhagen. I called most of the ones I found, but none of them took in foreigners. We ended up calling the emergency services on 112, and it felt like we talked to them for hours. Because my sore throat my girlfriend ended up doing much of the talking. The nurse we talked to ended up making a temporarily Danish social security number and set up an appointment at Amager hospital at 17:00 o’clock.
The doctor really didn't do much. He looked at my tongue and gave a prescription for two types of penicillin: Dicloxacillin Orion and Primcillin. He said I had “a strong, Norwegian tongue”. Probably meant as a compliment, but my tongue was swollen because of the infection I had. By then I had already started to get signs of sepsis, and the doctor should have seen this. I had a rash on my upper torso, and I undressed at my upper torso during the appointment. After the appointment we went to a pharmacy nearby to pick up the medicines. The only thing was that my throat was so swollen that I didn't manage to swallow them when I tried. We went back to the city centre and found somewhere to eat, but my throat was so swollen I could not eat or drink anything either.
I don't remember much of rest of the stay in Copenhagen, probably because I was so sick.I only remember fragments of the following days. At one point on our way back I asked my girlfriend if she thought I was going to die. Things escalated fast, and on Thursday night on the ship back to Oslo I didn't sleep all night. On our way home I had been reasonable enough to text my sister asking if she could take me to my GP. She took me home do leave the luggage and drove me to the doctor's office. When we got there one of the secretaries didn't want to take a blood test to measure my CRP values. My sister insisted she did, and she finally did. When she did the secretary busted into my doctor’s office who took me in. When the doctor saw my CRP values, she sent me out because she needed to take some phone calls. I realised later she called to nearby hospitals to check where to send me. The rashes I had whilst visiting the doctor in Copenhagen had got way worse in just two days. My sister took me to Drammen hospital, which is the main hospital in the region I live in. I remember walking into the hospital, but that’s it. I would spend the next 228 days in four different wards in three different hospitals in addition visiting various other hospitals for consultations. Over the next two years I would visit 18 different wards at 6 different hospitals in total.
First admission to hospital
20 minutes after I was delivered at Drammen hospital, they called my sister to inform her I was put on a respirator. I woke up 6 weeks later at the intensive care unit in Drammen hospital. I have been told later they could not do my surgeries at Drammen hospital so they sent me to the only hospital in Norway that could do it; Rikshopitalet in Oslo. The surgeon who did my surgeries made a «nice» incision across my throat, basically from ear to ear, and I still have a scar on my throat. The surgeries gave me nerve damages that affects my tongue and my ability to swallow. These functions will probably never be the way they used to be.
If your CRP is above 5 you are looked upon as sick. At my doctor’s office my CRP values was over 550, and during my stays in hospitals I talked to many health care professionals that said they have never heard about anyone with such high levels. It turned out my infection in my throat was Necrotizing fasciitis, a very dangerous infection that kills the body’s soft tissue. During the stay in Copenhagen, I started to develop sepsis, that resulted in an multi organ failure, which is the final stage before you die. The risk of death from necrotizing fasciitis is between 25% and 35%. The risk of death from sepsis is as high as 30%, while for severe sepsis it is as high as 50%, and septic shock has 80% mortality rate.
During my stay at Rikshospitalet I got a tracheoscopy, which left me unable to speak. This is because air needs to pass the vocal cords for someone to talk and the tracheoscopy is installed lower than the vocal cords. If you are going to talk you have to block airflow through out from the tracheoscopy. I also got a feeding tube, at first the feeding tube was going through my mouth, but it was later moved to go through my nose. In late November I had a PEG sugially installed directly into my belly.
Over the next six weeks at Rikshospitalet I was in artificial coma. During this stay I had a central venous catheter in my left shoulder that was connected to four different pumps that gave me drugs to keep me in coma. I don’t know the name of the other ones, but I got 300 millilitres of Fentanyl every day. I had in total 12 surgeries at Rikshospitalet.
Moving to the intensive care unit at Drammen hospital
In time they took me out of the artificial coma, and I was sent to the intensive care unit at Drammen hospital. I was still an hard drugs addict and being a patient at the intensive care unit I had at least one nurse at my room all day, sometimes more. At that point I had been laying in beds for over six weeks and had a bedsore between my buttcrack and my lower back. They documented the treatment with several pictures and this bedsoar looked really nasty. At one point I had four of five doctors, with an appropriate number of nurses of course, looking at my bedsore and discussing how to treat it. That was fun.
When I where transfered to Drammen hoispital I had critical illness neuropathy. Critical illness polyneuropathy (CIP) means acute nerve damage that develops in patients who are critically ill, often due to sepsis, multi-organ failure, or prolonged ICU treatment. It causes muscle weakness, reduced sensation, difficulty moving and problems weaning from a ventilator. It is a well-known complication in intensive care patients. I also had thrombi in both lower extremities. This means blood clots have formed in the veins of both legs. These are usually deep vein thromboses (DVT), which are dangerous because they can break loose and cause a pulmonary embolism. Critically ill patients have a high risk of thrombosis due to immobility, inflammation, coagulation disturbances and medical devices such as catheters.
I also had thrombus in the internal jugular vein. The internal jugular vein is the large vein in the neck that drains blood from the brain. A thrombus here means a blood clot in a major central vein, which is serious because it can extend into larger central veins. It is often related to central venous catheters and it can cause swelling, pain, and risk of embolization.
In critically ill patients, these complications often occur together. Critical illness neuropathy → severe weakness and immobility. Immobility + inflammation → increased risk of blood clots in both legs + internal jugular vein → significant activation of the body’s clotting system This pattern is common in severe sepsis and long ICU stays.
At this time I remember the only thing I looked forward to at this ward was getting my “fix” of drugs at 22:00. I was pumped so full of various drugs that hardcore drug addicts probably would be envious, but I where reduced slowly in the use of the drugs. I got delirium, had problems focusing and basically everything was shit. I can really understand why people think it’s uncomfortable reducing the use of narcotics. In the journals the doctors and nurses described in the journals that I had lots of visual hallucinations and was psychotic. I saw things that wherent real and some of those images haunt me to this day. The psychotic behavious made me attach the staff. I was problaby an asshole to the staff at this point.
After some time at the intensive care unit in Drammen, I got my phone back. But because I had abstinences, I really had problems holding it, far less pushing the correct buttons. Just before that the staff tried to give me a board where I could point to tell them what I wanted, but I didn’t manage to use it because of the absidents.
I used a combination of sign language and writing messages on the app OneNote on my phone to communicate with all the doctors, nurses and visitors that I was interacting with. When the staff asked me several questions, I often replied using thumb up or down for yes and no and another sign for maybe. When the staff asked me several questions, I could show them a sign for two showing two fingers, and they would know which question or alternative was my answer. We quickly learned how to communicate efficiently. The doctor who took me in at Drammen hospital at my first visit visited me on a regular basis while I was at that ward.
Transfering to another ward at Drammen hospital
After staying at the intensive care unit at Drammen hospital for about a month I was transferred to the ward of ear, nose and throat at the same hospital in early November. The surgeon who took me in at the hospital asked me what I was afraid of in regards being being moved to another ward with less focus on the patients.
While staying in the intensive care unit I had told the staff I didn't want any visitors because of the state I was in. Of some reason they put me on a “special” form of list at the hospital. As a result, if friends and family called the hospital and asked if I was a patient, they would be told I weren't. I talked to the staff, and they removed me from that list.
I was at the ward ear, nose and throat for a month, and it was probably the most boring month I have ever experienced in my life. At this point my family brought a radio to my room, so I listened to a radio basically all day long. During my stay at the prrevious wards hostilities had broken out between Israel and Hamas broke out and watching the news was really depressing.
I had lost so much muscle mass at this point I could not walk or lift my duvet. I had basically appointments with doctors and other health care professionals every day, and because the doctors where dependent of lots of specialized equipment I had to visit them in an office in the end of the hall. It was a struggle getting from my bed into a wheelchair. The doctors often put a camera through my nose into my throat to look what my throat looked like from the inside. Because of the overproduction of salvia and mucus, the doctors talked about injecting Botox into my salivary glands, but everything was so swollen, so they could not see where the glands where with an ultrasound. I often asked the doctors if they thought it would be a chance I could walk and eat normally again. They refused to give me a proper answer, probably because they were afraid it would haunt them if they were wrong.
The medical staff often had to use special machinery several times per day to suck out salvia and mucus through the tracheoscopy. It happened often my breathing tube was so full of mucus and salvia it felt like I was strangled and having it sucked out was a last resort. When I departed Drammen hospital, they sent a portable sucking machine with me to use in such cases.
While staying at the ward for ear, nose and throat I that coughed so hard I practically removed the feeding tube I had though my nose. I imagine it was a way for my body to remove something it looked like a foreign object. If this happened during the evening, I was taken to the emergency room where a doctor had to try to insert a new one through my nose. After that I was taken to the X-ray department to take an X-ray of the abdomen to see if the feeding tube was inserted correctly. At daytime that department had more staff, but in the evenings there where long waits.
By the end of November, a PEG was operated through my cavidy wall instead of the feeding tube I had through my nose and that was nice. I guess it tells what state I was in regarding drugs when I loved the feeling when the anaesthesia kicked in before surgery.
When November was about to change to December my family started to ask the doctor’s questions about if there were any chance of me leaving the hospital for a few days to celebrate Christmas with my family. They asked if it would be any chance of me eating normal food again. The doctors were very reluctant to answer and really didn’t give a clear answer. I realised by then that even if doctor’s know lots of stuff, they really would lot answer questions they really didn’t know the answer of. It was a bit frustrating but looking back I understand them.
When I was fed through the feeding tubes and PEG a bag of liquid “food” was connected to a pump that pumped the “food” at a specific paste. Because of my over production of mucus and salvia I vomited a lot and had problems keeping the “food” without vomiting.
For some time, the doctors in the ward I was at tried to apply for me to be accepted at Sunnaas hospital. It was initially rejected, but the where persistent and I was finally accepted. Before I was accepted, they sent a nurse that talked to the staff to hear about my condition and to check in on me.
Rehabilitation at Sunnaas hospital
Sunnaas hopital is the largest specialist hospital in Norway for physical medicine and rehabilitation, and is located in Nesoddtangen, just south of Oslo. Since its foundation the hospital has become a national leader in helping patients recover from serious injuries and illnesses, like brain injuries, spinal cord damage, strokes, and multiple traumas. Sunnaas offers both inpatient and outpatient services, treating around 7,500 patients annually. It’s known for its multidisciplinary approach, combining medical treatment with physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology, and social support.
The hospital is also a hub for research and innovation, especially in areas like robotics, gamification, and digital health. It collaborates with universities and tech companies to develop new tools for rehabilitation
Before I was moved the doctor who originally took me in at Drammen hospital came into my room for a talk. Amongst other things she said she never expected to see me again alive. I normally say it was pure luck that I survived, but she said it could be because of a good surgeon at Rikshospitalet as well. This is most likely true.
I was sent from Drammen hospital to Sunnaas in an ambulance. They day they were supposed to transport me, the ambulances had too much to do, so I weren't prioritized. I was relieved when they picked me up the next day. The radio I had in my room and all the other stuff was sent to Sunnaas the day before, so I had basically nothing to do. Thinking back, I didn't really do much during the days other that staying in my room, but it felt off with all my stuff at another hospital. The drive with the ambulance took about an hour.
During the last month at Drammen hospital, I had appointments with speech therapists and physiotherapist regularly. When I was moved to Sunnaas I was a bit more mobile and could walk a few steps, but I still used a wheelchair to move around. Because I still had a tracheoscopy I still could not talk, so I still depended on sign language and showing texts on my cell phone.
The first day went by with talking to the staff. The day I arrived they gave me a day for when I would be discharged, but this date was moved twice. I lived in a ward with patients that had severe burn damages, serious nerve damages or had other severe traumas. During this stay I also met some patients from Ukraine who have had various limbs blown off. Most of the patients at my ward depended on wheelchairs for getting around and looking at them it sure puts things in perspective.
During my stay at Sunnaas I had daily sessions with speech therapists, physiotherapists and occupational therapies in addition to less often sessions with other professions. I think I was interacting with seven different professions in total. The physiotherapists at Sunnaas loved using walking in stairs as exercise, and with the tracheoscopy this was hard as it reduced airflow. Walking in stairs was hard and I still think of some of the physiotherapists when I walk stairs.
I still got food using a feeding tube, and I was fed at my room. In combination with this and that I still had a tracheoscopy I really didn't interact that much with other patients. I occasionally watched tv or movies with them in the common areas in the evening, but I never spoke with them.
During my star at Sunnaas, I still had appointments at three departments at Drammen hospital, and at some point, I started with appointments at Bærum hospital as well. When you have been to an intensive care unit in Norway you are often invited back for a meet and greet, so at one point I had an appointment at Rikshospitalet as well. I talked to the chief anaesthesiologist at the ward, a nurse and physiotherapist. Because I was in a coma, I didn’t remember anyone I met there. For every appointment I was picked up with a taxi, and for most of the time a nurse came along with a bag of medical equipment.
I made progress walking and moving around at Sunnaas. The physiotherapists were located in the other end of the hospital from where my ward was, so I used my wheelchair for some time.
I was really optimistic on having a few days leave during Christmas, but when the doctors at Sunnaas denied me the leave because I still was too sick, and I took it hard. It felt like kick in the gut, but looking back at it I have realised I was too sick. On Christmas eve my entire family and my parents dog came by to say hello. I really appreciated that. My parent’s dog was popular with the staff and other patients. Me and the family were gathered by a pool table at the ward I was at. The pool table was close to the entrance to the ward for people with severe brain damage, and at one point during the visit another patient and her family came by. The patient was a lady, probably in her mid-thirties. She was in a wheelchair because of her severe brain damage and were accompanied by her husband and two small kids that where problaby tree to five years old. Seeing this my middle niece had a reaction. At that point I had already been in hospitals for four months, so I was so used to seeing such things I didn’t give it much thought. After a few hours my family left. Christmas eve at Sunnaas hospital was really lonely.
On January thirteenth my middle niece had a confirmation. Well, she actually had the church service in September, but because I still was in coma at the time she insisted on having the dinner party after I was well enough to come out of the hospital, even for just a few hours. She really didn't want to have that dinner without me. A family member picked me up at Sunnaas and delivered me back again after the dinner party. I had to bring lots of medical equipment, “food” for the feeding tube and bags with other medical supplies before the doctors accepted that I could participate at the dinner. This was the first time I was outside hospitals for months in a normal setting and it felt unrealistic.
The first Saturday in February I got a leave from Sunnaas to participate in an event in Oslo city centre for a few hours. I had to promise the staff I would call if I got into any medical problems and I had to bring lots of medical equipment with me as well. It was so surreal to take the ferry from Nesoddtangen to Oslo. It took about half an hour, and people lived their normal life and didn’t really think that much about it. For me it was very surreal and emotional. For the past 6 months I had lived inside various hospitals and had become very institutionalised having medical staff and other patients around me all day.
In late February a doctor at Drammen hospital removed my tracheoscopy. Even though it was meant for helping with breathing, it blocked my trachea as it became less swollen. It was a bit scary to remove it as well, but it went surprisingly well. It was a good thing I trusted the doctor about it being time to remove it. I still had an overproduction of salvia, so I always brought a cloth to wipe it off. Because of the salvia the speech I tried to do became unclear.
In March I started to get leaves from Sunnaas during weekends. Through all the months I had stayed at hospitals I had nurses, doctors and all the other professions I just mentioned on top of me basically 24/7, so it was unreal to home alone in my apartment. When having leaves I basically went back to the habits I had before I was hospitalized, but my body would have none of it. I was a hot mess when the weekends where over. When I had leave during Easter, I thought I had to be back at the hospital in the evening the last day, but they didn’t expect me back until the next morning. I where always tube fed 05:30 for “breakfast” and was surprised this didn’t happen, but they hadn’t noticed me arriving back home to my room the evening before.
After staying four months at Sunnaas I was regarded well enough for being dismissed at April ninth, 2024. It was planned for me to continue have sessions with physiotherapists and speech therapists when I get out of there but it's definitely going to be different to live by myself again.
Even today my epiglottis doesn’t work properly. When at Sunnaas my main doctor and speech therapist at Sunnaas was really worried I would swallow anything wrong and get food into my lungs. At some point I had gastroscopy twice and that was really annoying. If I got food into my lungs, I would most likely get a bronchoscopy, and that would probably even worse. I still have damages nerves in my tongue, so my speech will probably never be the way it was either.
They didn’t give me any normal food at Sunnaas, but I started to be “insubordinate” and eat soups when I where home during the weekends. When I left Sunnaas I basically had been using tube feeding for almost seven and a half months. After handing out some exams on May sixth I had an English breakfast at Ikea. Even if everything in that dish is easy to chew and swallow it
It was nice to finally have a “proper” meal again. This was very uplifting and kept me motivated to train to eat again.
The recovery visit to Sunnaas
In March 2025 I was back at Sunnaas for a week for check-ups. Most stuff where ok, even though somethings probably never will be the way it used to be.
I have been quite open on SoME that I became terminally ill, and that it led to me being admitted to four different departments in three different hospitals for almost 8 months in total. In total, I have been treated at 14 different wards at 6 different hospitals since I became sick.
After I started sharing my story, several people have contacted me and shared their stories. Some have had strokes and others have had heart attacks. Others have had similar stories with other serious illnesses. A distant relative in Canada told me that her husband had been seriously ill for several years and had recently received a double lung transplant. She had taken care of him for several years, and slowly but surely dug herself into a big black, mental hole. The fact that I shared my story was a kind of wake-up call for where she was in life and where she was heading. She realized that she had to do something to get out of her black hole. I listened and talked to her and helped her away from the gravitational force of the black hole.
When I was at Sunnaas in 2024, I didn't speak until the end of my stay because I had a tracheostomy. Because I was tube-fed in my room, I didn't interact with the other patients to any significant extent. A bit strange to think back on, but that the norm. I had already been hospitalized for three and a half months before I arrived at Sunnaas, so that is what I was used to.
When I was on a check-up at Sunnaas in March 2025, I got to know a small group of other patients. One of them was in the ward for patients with severe spinal cord injuries, while the others were in my ward and had severe nerve damages. Some were in wheelchairs because of nerve damages and some because of amputations, while others had other challenges. The youngest patient was a 14-year-old who because of a tumour on her spinal cord and ended up in a wheelchair. The oldest was a little over 60 and had severe nerve damages. He was a musician who used to live of playing his guitars. A third patient had broken her back in a car accident and was bound to a wheelchair. She had been in an artificial coma for about two months. Another patient I met in recovery was a twenty-three-year-old man who had jumped of a bridge trying to commit suicide. When he landed in the river below, he hit a rock. He survived but broke his back. In his recovery he learned to walk again. The woman who lived two rooms down the hall from my room lit a tealight candle and got third-degree burns over large parts of her body. There were also several Ukrainian soldiers at Sunnaas who had lost limbs because of landmines. Several of the other patients I have met at Sunnaas was given Fentanyl as part of staying in coma and had felt how abstinences can wear and tear on the body and mind.
During my last visit at Sunnaas I didn't have a tracheoscopy anymore and since I still go to the speech therapist weekly, talking has gotten pretty good, although it (probably) will never be completely as it was. This was the first time I could talk to others and really be understood about what I had been through, and it was a revelation. Able-bodied people understand but will never fully grasp or understand what I actually have been through. They may understand it, but they will never really get it.
During the early summer of 2025, I was told by my supervisor at work that I should not share my story, but I will never stop doing so. My story is mine, and I think it is important to share. Ever since my boss made the comment, I had recurring thoughts about it. June is a month for men’s mental health, and in June 2025 I wrote a lengthy post on LinkedIn about it. In the post I mentioned what I had been through the past two years and made a comment at the end that someone at work had asked me not to share my story. In the article I linked to this post on Instagram, and it was basically this video that initiated the post on LinkedIn.
The following workday the top director at my workplace came by my office to talk about the post. She initiated a meeting between me and my boss, and it was for sure an interesting meeting. The top director had read somewhere that people who had had severe illness aor trauma had problems understanding what happened around them and asked several times if I really understood what I had published. My boss said that her comment “I don’t think you should talk about this” was misunderstood and wanted an apology.
The most interesting happened at the end of the meeting. About 6 months earlier I made a comment on a post on LinkedIn that was about social exclusion. My reply to that post was something in the line of “I understand what you mean” and two coworkers interpreted this as I didn't feel like I fitted in at work and snitched to my boss about it. In my reply to the LinkedIn post I never wrote anything about if I had felt excluded at school, at any workplaces or in any other social situations. I had long forgotten the post and comment but thought it was weird asking about such a thing 6 months after.
The hormone specialist I went to at Bærum hospital found some anomalies in my blood works. Some of this was resolved by testing various medicines while others were followed up by my GP. The last anomaly was persistent so in November 2025 she sent me to a nuclear medicine examination at Drammen hospital. The examination started with me getting some injections with radioactive isotopes. After that I had to wait for 3 hours before I was laid into a huge machine that did various scans of my skeleton. I walked into the hospital 08:30 in the morning and walked out again 13:30.
I had my last appointment with the speech therapist on January 22. 2026.
The philosophical side of dying
Especially the first six week of my stay at Rigshospitalet lots of stuff happened, and each of these things could statistically kill me because of the very small survival rates. Even though my body survived the person I used to be before I got infected is dead. The person who stayed at hospitals for an extensive period of time and literally crawled back to life is in many ways dead as well. The main focus was to service and tries to come close to having a normal life again. Some time after I left hospitals and life came back to something that resembles a normal life, life asked “what now?”. I became in many ways reborn. I still do not understand how and why I survived.
For some time, I have had the impression that people who experience something extreme together have a special kind of band. I didn’t fully understand this myself before I almost died and spent close to 8 months in hospitals. After I got sick, I have met few healthcare professionals who have had patients with similar stories as mine, but at the various hospitals I have been too I have met other patients who have endured something extreme. There is a special kind of understanding from these patients, and we share stuff that “outsiders” do not understand. I have the impression that people that never have had a trauma look upon people who have had it are “supposed” to be depressed or more visible damaged. Even though I have a scar from ear to ear on the front of my neck most of my scars is on the inside.
Even though everyone I have met with trauma have had different traumas than me, we share the experience of trauma itself. We know what it’s like to be in misery up to our necks and still get through it. When I talk to non-disabled people about my experiences, their eyes glaze over and they zone out because they find it difficult, uncomfortable, or whatever to deal with. But us people with trauma understand each other, and that’s actually quite good.
You only live once, and many people live the narrative for how they think they are supposed to live their lives. People think happiness will arrive one day, but has it arrived yet? People doesn’t recognise happiness or the good things in life when they are in it. They look in the rear-view mirror and think in the lines of “yeah, that was cool or nice“. They are so busy living they lives that they forget to enjoy the precious moments when they happen.
Imagine trying to explain the colour white to someone who has never seen black. You cannot have any experience without it’s opposite. Light only exists because of darkness. The darkness gives meaning to the light. Joy is meaningful because we know sorrow. Love is precious because we understand loneliness. The ancient Chinese called it Yin and Yang. This is not opposing forces, but two sides of one reality. We've been taught that life is about eliminating the negative, but that's like trying to have mountains with only peaks and no valleys. It misses the whole point. Your darkest moments aren't punishments. They give meaning to your brightest moments. Without winter spring wouldn't feel like a miracle. The goal isn't to escape darkness, but to dance with both light and shadows. What if your struggles aren't the enemy of happiness, but the very thing that makes it possible?
You know why most people never manifest what they want? Most people never manifest what they want because they're waiting as if the universe owes them something just for wanting it. The universe doesn't respond to waiting. It responds to movement. Manifestation is a dance and it takes two to tango. The moment you begin the universe begins with you, and not before. You are the Catalyst, the initiator. You are the one who must step into the unknown first. No one is coming to save you, because you were never meant to be saved. You were meant to awaken. So, make the move and watch how reality bends to meet your stride.
Do not take life for granted. Those who died yesterday had plans for this morning. And those who died this morning had plans for tonight. In the blink of an eye, everything can change. Today is here now. Many people say they do not have the time today. Tomorrow, there will be no energy. And the day after tomorrow we may no longer be here. So don't delay anything. Live in the moment.
Chasing what's next? Busy worrying about what's missing in your life? Happiness is something you deserve one day. But while you were waiting, you were laughing with people who you thought always would be around. You are making memories in the places you exist in. You rarely recognise happiness when you are standing in it. It feels too ordinary and too small to matter until it becomes a memory. You would give almost anything to experience the good memories again. Soop waiting for life to start. You're already living it.
Do you dare you listen when people try to talk to you, even if they have a traumatic experience? Live life when you can. You never know when it’s going to be too late. The week before I was
emitted to hospital I was in a 50-year party for a cousin. If someone had told me then that I would spend the next 7 months in hospitals, I would probably laugh hard and long. Children of trauma. You stand here today much like the Scottish army stood before William Wallace; outnumbered, exhausted, terrified and wondering if the fight is worth it.
Drama tells you to run. Run from love, run from vulnerability, run from your dreams and run from your potential. If you never fight for the life you want, you can never lose it. Many survivors from trauma, spend years hiding behind emotional trauma, building walls so high that not even joy can get through it. Much like the clans standing on that battlefield, you have learnt, that retreat is safer than risk. But William Wallace did not ride before his people promising safety, he promised something greater; freedom. And healing asks the same question.
You might love and lose. You might trust and get hurt. You may fight and fail. If you run, you will live, at least for a while. You will survive and you will make it through the days. You'll be comfortable but years from now, when you're lying in your bed, looking back at your life, will you wish you had played it safe? Or will you wish you would have fought for the freedom that your trauma tried to convince you did not belong to you? Because the real battlefield was never in your past.
It is the space between who your trauma taught you to be and who you are capable of becoming that battle is fought. Every time you choose trust over fear, every time you choose connection over isolation and every time you choose hope over cynicism. Every time you refuse to let your trauma become the authors of your future, that is your Sterling bridge.
That is your battlefield, and that is where your charge. Perhaps it is the most Braveheart thing a trauma survivor can say; you may have taken my innocence; you may have taken my safety. You may have taken years of my life, but you will never take my freedom. Not anymore. Not ever again.
The tragedy of Frodo where not that he carried the ring. It was that everybody else got used to him carrying it. At the beginning of the Lord of the Rings everyone can see how heavy the ring is. They worry about Frodo, and they protect him. They watch over him, but as the journey goes on, the burden gets heavier and the concern gets lighter. People start expecting Frodo to carry the ring, something what was never meant to be carried alone. It is not the cruelty because he's proven, he can handle it.
If you grew up being the strong one, the responsible one or being a peacemaker, you know exactly how this feels. The more capable you become, the less people offer to help you. People stop asking you if you are okay and just assume you are good because you've got so good at carrying the weight on your own. Meanwhile, you are exhausted running on fumes and disappearing under the weight of responsibilities that were never yours alone. The cruel irony of independence is that the stronger uou look, the less people notice you are struggling. There comes a moment when Sam does not tell Frodo to try harder or call him weak. He says, "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you." And that's what healthy support looks like: not taking someone's burden but helping them carry it.
Healing is not continually being able to carry more. It's learning that you were never meant to carry everything on your own and sometimes the strongest thing that you can do is let someone else be Sam.
One of the reasons the people with the most traumatic, pasts become so mentally resilient is what they have already lived through. What a lot of “normal” people put a lot of effort into is avoiding, children of trauma have learnt how to function within discomfort. This is because they were forced into it. And when you learn how to function and how to show up when you are uncomfortable, you are learning that you do not always have to make yourself feel better to function. And that is ok.
You can actually survive being uncomfortable and you in turn, learn that that moment is going to pass and that discomfort passes. You simply don't fear being stuck in that moment, the same way again. I have described the phycological side effects of this story in the article “A deeper dive into psychology after surviving trauma”.
Live long and prosper.