Per my therapist’s most recent suggestion, when I was home alone in silence, I found the box of family photos in the upstairs closet.

There, I dug up photos from my life growing up: from when I was a newborn, to the most recent photos of me that my mom had printed. But, the second I laid eyes on a picture of myself in the hospital as a newborn being cradled in my mom's arms while my grandpa Lyle looks on, tubes and wires poking out of the blanket I'm swaddled in, attached to a life-support machine, I slammed the album shut. 

Feeling nauseous, I stumbled to my feet and headed into my bathroom because I felt physically sick. I collapsed to my knees, hugged the toilet bowl, and dry-heaved for a few minutes until the nausea passed. Feeling absolutely disgusting and extremely cold and weak, I took a long, hot shower, refusing to look towards the mirror till the shower glass fogged up. I didn’t want to see my now-faded, though still very visible, heart surgery scars. The pain was just too much. 

Being alone in the shower at midnight was what I needed to get my feelings out so I could feel normal again. But, my reaction to that single picture from over twenty years ago honestly scared me. I didn’t know I was that impacted by a past I was way too young to remember. Yet, I apparently am. 

After my shower, I quickly scribbled down a summary of what had just happened so my therapist could see just how bad my PTSD really was. Then, I went to bed, completely drained of my energy from that little episode. 

In my sleep, I dreamt of being in a really bad car wreck while driving a red sedan, ultimately ending up in the hospital. I woke up, safe and sound in my bedroom, when the doctors in my dream put an anesthesia mask on my face as they held me down, preventing me from escaping. 

While I sat straight up in bed with my dog snoring at my feet, I realized that my nightmare wasn’t entirely just a dream. The car wreck part was completely fabricated by my mind. But, the part where I was being held down as I was being put under wasn’t fabricated. It was a memory. A memory from when I was six years old with a lung infection, having to undergo a bronchoscopy procedure. Damn, did I fight like hell to resist that fucking mask (it took a total of six nurses and my parents to hold me down long enough for the anesthesia to kick in, but it took the anesthesia almost a minute to actually knock me out because I was so determined to stay awake). 

Instinctively, I began to talk to God. More accurately, I quietly ranted about how unfair it was I’d been through so much when I was so young, and that it was still heavily impacting me over twenty years later. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t just. It didn’t even seem necessary. What made God think it was okay to let me suffer like that, only to keep me around to suffer horribly even more? Honestly, I thought (and still tend to think) a merciful, loving God would’ve just let me die as a newborn, instead of keeping me around like He has. 

At the same time, I cannot deny that there is a silver lining to my life story. While death seemed to be my shadow till Trikafta came along, I’ve obviously survived. In some ways, I've even thrived. I’m miraculously healthy and functional. But, I’m still not normal. Meaning, I’m not Cystic-Fibrosis-Pulmonary-Atresia-Autism-Anxiety-Depression-PTSD-free. I never will be. And, that is deeply disturbing to me, to say the very least. 

I’ve been stuck in this loop of, “I just wanna be normal” for quite awhile now. Well, I think I’ve always felt this way. It’s only more poignant now that my health conditions aren’t deadly anymore, and covid’s more or less faded into the background. But, I’m painfully aware of the fact that I’m still very much disabled, even if I don’t always look or even feel like I am. Being labeled “disabled” alone is often soul-crushing. 

I’m doing absolutely everything in my power to fucking accept who I am and where I am in life. However, it turns out “radical acceptance” is much, much, much easier to do on paper than it is in real life. Mostly because, I simply don't want to accept where I am right now. In a way, accepting where I am now feels like accepting defeat. It's waving a white flag and declaring CF and anxiety have me officially beat. To me, accepting my current situation is no different than finding a hole to die in. Accepting my past is even worse. I really want nothing to do with my pre-Trikafta life. I really wish I could just forget it.