How getting hospitalized showed me I was a fake, scared shell of myself

For those who don’t know, I was hospitalized for 8 days due to an abscess in my abdomen. I’m on the road to recovery right now, and things are looking good in terms of overall health – but I wrote the following in isolation during my hospital stay.

To preface this, I wanted to say I’m really good at putting forth a cookie cutter persona that I hope is marketable in order to run my side business, but this isn’t that at all. I’m also pretty good at doing it my personal life, and you could also say I am a pro at running away from things when they get messy. 

I am really trying to be more vulnerable – and not just when I drink a little too much and then regret everything and pick myself apart the next day (which I feel like most 20-somethings can relate to because we are great at being dramatic but terrible at expressing feelings). 

“It’s the backwards law in action: in order to become more resilient, more formidable, you must first bare your flaws and weaknesses for the world to see. In doing so, they lose their power over you, allowing you to live your life with more honesty and intention,” Mark Manson said.

So here I am, 26, scared to death to hit publish on this.

(You can skip pass the hospital/health stuff to the raw, exposing stuff near the end)

FUCK2020

As I begin to write this with an IV in my hand and a drain sticking out of my stomach, it could be really easy to call this my lowest point of 2020. This was my near death experience. 

And I’ll be honest, I’m definitely not thrilled that my stomach looks like a basketball right now. The constant pain in my ovaries isn’t great either. 

But, this isn’t my lowest point – I think it might be the opposite. It is crazy to think an abscess suffocating my organs is what I needed to get my head out of my ass. 

Sure, I am scared and shocked and this situation could have caused life-altering problems that I don’t even know about yet. And maybe I am in denial about some things because I just really can’t handle thinking about right now – but I have gained perspective on so much more. 

And I know this year has thrown a lot of curve balls for everyone, but being hospitalized and having my first surgery in the middle of a pandemic wasn’t something I expected would ever happen to me.

But I think if 2020 has taught me anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. 

WHY DID YOU WAIT SO LONG TO GO?

When I first started feeling deliberating pain in my lower abdomen at the end of June, my head immediately went to the tumor route. I think that’s a natural flow for anyone who has struggled their entire life with anxiety. When you feel a pain, you expect the worst possible outcome. 

To be fair, I couldn’t even stand up straight at certain times, and my stomach was sticking out like a ball. 

But then my rational inner-self showed up, and I just knew it was probably all in my head. It had to be bad period cramps and bloating. 

I was PISSED I wasn’t feeling well. Before the pain started, I was on a path of self-growth after being stunted by layers of bullshit over the last two years – partially put on by myself. It felt like I was in the middle of this great awakening, and then bam – I am imprisoned in my own body. 

After about 5 days crying throughout the night due to what felt like my ovaries twisting, I went to urgent care.

They told me it was just a bladder infection, and my birth control was probably the source of the pain. That didn’t sit well with me, but I don’t trust my own intuition, so I took the antibiotics as told. 

A week later, the antibiotics were out, and I was worse. I had a fever, and I couldn’t leave my bed most days. And then when I called back, they told me they couldn’t see me because I had a fever. 

BUT THEN – when I just begged for more antibiotics, they told me they couldn’t give me antibiotics unless they actually saw me in person. After making several calls, tearing up because I felt hopeless, I finally got a virtual visit with a doctor. 

However – the day came, and my fever went away – so I canceled. I was just convinced I was just letting my anxiety get the best of me. And then the fever came back, and I was out of breath trying to control the pain. 

In fact, I tried to hide that I was still sick. I literally waited for my sister to leave the room to grab the thermometer and run to check my temperature in the bathroom. 

101.8. Yeah, I wasn’t better, and I was irrationally upset about it. 

I also had a cough, so my sister was convinced I had COVID. I scheduled a time for a test and quarantined myself in my room until I got a negative result 5 days later. 

And of course, because I never trust myself, I was just going to try to make another appointment that week to see what’s up. My sister on the other hand, wasn’t having it. 

Thirty minutes after I got my negative test, she was driving me to the emergency room. 

WHAT IN THE HELL IS HAPPENING?

I told the woman on the phone that I think I just needed another urine analysis in order to get some antibiotics to treat my bladder infection. Of course, I had to call ahead to let them know I had tested negative for COVID even though I had a fever. 

As I went through the symptoms with the nurse, she started to fire questions at me and get wide-eyed.

The nurse left the room, and since it was 7 p.m. and no one else was there – we could clearly hear her frantically telling everyone my symptoms. I had two doctors come in and check on me, and then they started hooking me up with IVs and monitoring me with machines. 

Then, I got wheeled in for a cat scan. I had only seen people get a CT in movies, and I am mentally racking up my medical bill when I see this giant rotating tube. 

I even joked with my sister that they have better have found a tumor in there for how much that just cost me.

And then the doctor came in, and she sat down and told me there is a large mass bigger than a softball in my abdomen. She followed by letting me know I am about to be hospitalized, and I am probably going to have to have surgery as soon as possible. 

And oh yeah, COVID is rampant in my county, and visitors are not allowed in hospitals. 

It was 11 p.m., and my head started spinning. I don’t remember getting into the hospital bed, and I don’t remember sleeping much. But doctors and surgeons were coming into my room every hour the next morning to ask me a ton of weirdly specific questions – and two things were clear. They had no idea what was inside me, and they had no idea how it got there. 

They finally settled with the fact that I had an abscess in my abdomen – but they still didn’t why. Things moved fast – I had an ultrasound and one hour later, I was being prepped for surgery. In 24 hours, I went from thinking I had COVID to hopping on a gurney for a ride to the operating room. 

I was able to see my mom right before I was put under, and the entire time I waited for her in pre-op, a woman was actually screaming. My nerves were shot at this point, and seeing my mom leveled me off to handle the next 6 days. 

The surgery went well – they said it was everywhere, entwined in my organs, and they drained everything they were able to grab. But they thought I was going to have to go under again – and I still wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t some melodramatic dream that I was stuck in, so I couldn’t really process that news. 

One thing I learned about hospitals is you are not in control. Doctors come and go, and things change at the drop of a pin, and you have to go with the flow. 

Luckily, things started changing in my favor. I didn’t have to have another surgery, but they still kept me for 8 days total. My first ultrasound showed good news – my abscess, which I named Ron, had shrunk from 14.5 cm to 5 cm. 

However, the second one was concerning to my medical team. They had been blasting my body with antibiotics for 3 days, and Ron was still 5 cm. 

But my luck hadn’t run out quite yet – I had another CT and it showed that Ron was actually just 2 cm of fluid. The ultrasound was showing excess tissue that the abscess had created (a.k.a. issues to deal with later). I also dodged having to have an at home IV set up with home health because of this scan. 

I have more appointments in the near future to assure Ron is going away, and I will have updates on my Instagram if you are curious.

OKAY, I MADE IT THROUGH THAT NOVEL – WHAT’S THE LESSON?

I’m not embarrassed to reveal I’m currently in therapy. The stigma around mental health is absolute bullshit and having the strength ask for help is never going to something that I am ashamed of. 

The week prior to being admitted I had a virtual appointment, and I was telling her about how I had been sick, and I had taken a test for COVID.

“At this point in my life, I just have to laugh because of course this would happen to me,” I joked with my therapist. “I think if anything worked out in my favor, the universe would actually explode, so I’ll just keep taking hits for the team.”

“You’re not unlucky,” she told me. “You are just terrified to open yourself up for good things to happen to you.”

And folks, that one burnt me. It was a slow burn – first I started thinking about it when I was in quarantine at home, and then it set my head on fire while in the hospital. 

My perception of myself has never been “terrified”. If anything, I thought I was the opposite of scared. I am always the first person to jump in to fix a problem, and I am a very aggressive person, especially when I want something. 

I call people out when I think they are in the wrong, and for the most part, I don’t take bullshit from anyone.

But then again, why do I get nauseous and sick to my stomach every time I come home from being around people? 

A LESSON ON VULNERABILITY

Her comment continued to bite at me until it unraveled a clear view of my patterns. It was like a light switch had just turned on. 

I realized I had spent so many years manipulating others that I had tricked myself. I had mistaken drunken blab sessions in my 20s as vulnerability, when I know damn well I would have never revealed anything going on in my head without the aid of a bottle of wine. 

And I honestly can’t tell you if I spilled my beans as a pathetic way to say, “hey, I don’t know how to be friends with people, and I think this will make you obligated to care about my existence” or “I feel safe and trust you to share this information with you.” I don’t think I will ever know my true intention with any of this because I am such a people-pleaser. 

Opening yourself up to other people is intentionally sharing your authentic self and feeling comfortable on letting part of yourself be dependent on them in some shape or form. 

And most importantly, vulnerability is not a “tactic.”

I read the following recently, and it was a hard pill to swallow. 

“If you’re telling someone about how you felt when your dog died, or your strained relationship with your dad, or how you really bonded with your friend when you hiked through the mountains of Peru together…but you’re doing it all just to get them to like you more—well, that’s not vulnerability. It’s manipulation.

The problem here is that it’s not genuine, and therefore it’s not vulnerable. Not only are you continuing to be fake and inauthentic, but you’re now whoring out some of your most cherished life memories to try to get someone to like you or even to sleep with you.

Congratulations. You are officially desperate.”

To read the full post on this, click here. I really recommend the read if this is something that resonates with you. 

And if it does resonate with you, don’t let this make you hate yourself. More often than not, you probably had some trauma or negligence in your life, and you don’t know how to interact with people in a healthy way. 

The most important thing is to recognize it within yourself and fix it. You might be the villain in someone else’s story, but that’s okay. Everyone is dealing with their own crap, and that’s just how it unfolds sometimes. 

OH, AND ON COMMITMENT ISSUES

I always had one foot out the door. I was always ready for someone to get tired of me, and the first sign of it, I was out. 

Plus, I have this wonderful coping mechanism where if I want to squash someone from my brain, I fixate on something about them that bothers me until I am repulsed by their existence. 

I recently found a song on TikTok (@TaylorBickettMusic) that kind of echoed this whole thing I do, which is part of why I am writing this. Clearly, I am not the only one feeling this way, and if this helps one person feel less like a pile of shit, I have accomplished something. 

The lyric: “I’m the type to say I forgot your birthday, not because I did, but because I’m afraid you’ll think I care.”

She said – anyone else tired of turning every relationship (platonic and romantic) into a competition to see who cares the least. 

The people I have erased from my memory are like bodies stacked in a shallow grave in my brain. It’s no wonder I feel so lonely all the time – I get rid of anyone when anything feels too real. 

I had this set belief the minute you decide to blindly count on someone to be there for you, you are handing someone a button to destroy you. And for me, that meant even accepting a free coffee from a friend. 

But this is all based on insecurity and fear. It is important to identify your attachment style, and be honest about why you are so afraid. 

“A big part of the reason that so many find it hard to settle down is simply the “grass is always greener” mentality. When someone suffers from this, they are constantly searching for the next best thing, often missing out on the great things right in front of them,” Lady Vivra said in a Medium article.

I personally interpret this as insecurity. When looking at all aspects of my life, I refused to make the most of what the current situation was because I was so insecure about everything, and I wouldn’t “settle” until I fixed myself. 

I couldn’t accept what I had because I thought it was my fault to get better. If I just ate a little less, worked out a little more, changed my hair, read different books, hung out with more people, etc., I would finally get that perfect little life that I made up in my brain and was so fixated on. 

BACK TO THE WHOLE HOSPITAL THING

But back when I was in the hospital, like where I almost died because my body was headed towards septic shock, I was overwhelmed with messages from people from all stages of my life. 

It was like a second wave of shock for me. Shock that this was happening to me at all, and then shock that anyone aside from my family actually cared. 

I valued myself so little I couldn’t imagine that anyone else would be concerned with anything that happened to me. Even if the messages were just generic forms of concern, I literally didn’t even expect that.

And before you think, okay but you said you were in this middle of some awakening, I was just now accepting myself and liking myself. I thought it was too late for anyone else. 

Just like that, I realized I am the reason I feel alone. I keep people away. Me. I’m my own guard dog. 

Examining the bodies in my brain, I realized that if I wouldn’t have skipped out so quickly – maybe they would be still around. If I would have just tried and dived all the way in, maybe I wouldn’t be tiptoeing around skeletons. 

And it is entirely possible that things would have still gone sour – and I would be crying into a glass of wine in my bathtub. But is that so bad? 

If I never open myself up to failure, then when am I going to actually succeed? 

Sure, it’s going to suck. I am a very emotional person, and I am already having to face the consequences of these patterns I have created. And yeah, somedays I am like, this is way too much for me and want to go back into my cave where I am safe. But, I feel so much more alive and real when I am not over-calculating my every move like a psychopath. 

And not everyone is going to like me. I am not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s cool too. 

And this whole thing is fresh, and I am going to have to put in effort every day to change. My default is always going to be to hide. But I think hitting publish on this is one step towards being a person more vulnerable to letting life happen.