What Happens At 3am

“Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.”

“Depression can be understood as a sign of the loss of self, and consists of a denial of one’s own emotional reactions and feelings. The denial begins in the service of an absolutely essential adaptation during childhood, to avoid losing love.”

“Words don’t hurt you. Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain.”

Female clothing: no pockets

So, this guy, Martin Pistorius, fell into a coma when he was 12 years old and eventually awoke completely paralyzed, at least physically. He was misdiagnosed. Doctors believed he was in a completely vegetative state, but in reality, he had regained full consciousness and awareness. He just didn’t possess any motor function, so he couldn’t communicate to anyone that he was alive in there. He lived this way for 12 years before he overcame it by sheer force of will and was given the tools to communicate. He tells his story in his book, Ghost Boy. Since then he’s also been the subject of the first episode of Invisibilia on NPR and had his own TedTalk.