I disappeared when I got sick. Literally, I disappeared. I stopped being able to leave my house except for absolute necessity. I stopped being able to talk or have phone calls for a long time. And of course I lost 90% of my friends, my partner, and my career.
But I disappeared in a less literal sense too: my brain changed. I could no longer read, much less write. I am, fundamentally, no longer myself. I didn't even know that was a possibility until it happened to me. And I miss my old brain, and my ability to write poetry, to think poetically and deeply about things, to feel intensely. All of those things are gone now.
Sometimes on good days I think I could start again to build a voice. To read and write the way I used to. But then I try and my brain feels like it's being electrocuted. I can't think, I can't understand, I can't feel. It's like there's an electric fence around who I used to be, somewhere still inside my brain, and I keep trying to get through, to rejoin myself.























