The Other Me
An ongoing serial about neurosis, beginning with anxiety that burgeoned through my teenage years, and grew into issues also with depression and OCD, amongst other things.
The Other Me
‘The Broken Road’ iii. I sat in the middle of the road, several meters from the intersection. From my realisation to landing here, I couldn’t remember a single thing. My first instinct was to get up and get off the road, but I’d lost all sense of my right leg from the ankle down. My foot, my ankle, the bottom of my shin, all felt disconnected – the leg was broken. Still, that wasn’t even my main concern. I had to get off the road. Seated here, I was below eye-level. If another car turned, they wouldn’t see me until it was too late. I flipped around onto my knees…
The Other Me
‘The Broken Road’ ii. Exhaustion had already grown prevalent in my life – I’d never slept well as an adult, but from the moment I’d taken Aropax, sleep had become shallow and restless. Now it seemed I was chronically exhausted. What made it worse was that pain had become a weight that tired me out every day, and anxiety an anchor. I tried a number of things to help the tension in my neck, and the sharp pain in my lower back – for months, I stretched in the mornings; saw physios and osteos regularly, had acupuncture time and time again; bought an orthopaedic chair; and alternated between swimming thirty-forty…