The Unknown of it All

Your body goes into survival mode after a diagnosis. There’s no pause, no soft landing—just a moment that splits your life into before and after, and suddenly everything familiar feels distant.

Life starts to feel foreign. The routines, the conversations, even your own reflection—nothing quite lands the same way. You’re still there, but not in the way you remember. It’s like being placed into a version of your life that looks the same on the outside but feels completely altered from within.

For me, it felt like being pulled through loops I couldn’t control—brief highs, heavy lows, and long stretches where everything blurred together. But what stayed with me most wasn’t just the fear. It was the way my own mind seemed to drift out of reach.

No one really talks about that part. The quiet disconnection. The way your thoughts can slow down or go still. Words feel harder to find. Processing anything—information, emotions, even simple moments—becomes something distant, like trying to hold onto something through fog.

It’s a quiet side effect of all of it. One that doesn’t get named often, but settles deep. And when you’re in it, it can feel incredibly isolating—like you’ve lost your footing in your own life while everything around you keeps moving.

There were moments where I would just stare at the wall and sob, not even fully understanding what I was feeling—just knowing it was too much to hold. I remember sitting there in silence, thinking, how did my life become this? and not having an answer. The inability to process things the way I used to made everything heavier—it turned into anxiety, into depression, into a kind of overwhelm that sat deep in my chest and wouldn’t let go. Even simple conversations could feel like too much, like my mind couldn’t keep up with the world around me. I was hurting in ways I didn’t fully understand, and that confusion only made it lonelier.

At the same time, something in me was being reshaped—my spirit waking up, trying to rebuild—but that didn’t take away from the pain of what it cost. Even now, there are moments where my mind drifts back, almost reliving the agony, the stress, the heartbreak of everything I went through—leukemia, sepsis, the hospitalizations, the complications that followed. I remember the weight of those days, how time felt both slow and overwhelming, how every moment carried something I didn’t feel strong enough to hold. There were times I felt completely defeated, like I had nothing left to give, and in those moments, it was hard not to feel like a burden.

I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I didn’t know who I was, or how to explain the constant undercurrent of worry and disassociation that followed me everywhere. It felt like my thoughts didn’t fully belong to me, like I was watching myself exist from a distance. I kept trying to understand where all of it was coming from, but there were no clear answers—just feelings that showed up all at once, too big to sort through. I felt like a clueless child trying to learn how to function again, but constantly falling short.

Grieving myself became one of the most soul-crushing parts of it all. I would think about who I used to be—what I loved, how I moved through the world, how easily things once came to me—and it felt like I was remembering someone else’s life. I didn’t know what I enjoyed anymore. I didn’t know my interests. I didn’t have the energy, mentally or emotionally, to connect with people the way I used to. My social battery felt nonexistent, and even when I tried, it felt forced, like I was pretending to be a version of myself I could no longer fully access.

Nobody tells you about the quiet sadness that comes with grieving past versions of yourself. The way a spark that once shined so bright slowly begins to dim. The way you remember walking along the beach, feeling the breeze against your skin, feeling free in a way that now feels distant. The laughter from spontaneous hangouts, trying new food places, the lightness that used to exist in everyday moments—even the smallest things that once brought joy now feel harder to reach.

Even something as simple as stepping outside or feeling sunlight on your skin can feel overwhelming, like your body and mind aren’t ready to meet the world the way they used to. And that kind of loss—the quiet, invisible kind—carries a grief that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t felt it.

Last year, when I was in a coma due to sepsis, something shifted even more. What I remember most is the feeling of losing my independence—like I was grieving it in real time, even before I fully understood what was happening. And when I came out of it, I had to relearn how to do things I once did without thinking—how to eat, how to hold things, how to trust my own body again. I remember moments where even the smallest tasks felt unfamiliar, like my body and I were meeting each other for the first time. There was a quiet frustration in that, but also a deep sadness that sat underneath it.

Everything felt tinged with melancholy. Even the quiet moments carried weight. Even the days that looked “normal” from the outside didn’t feel that way internally. And that was one of the hardest parts—how invisible it all was. How I could be surrounded by people, in conversations, in familiar spaces, and still feel completely alone in what I was carrying. There was a longing to belong, to feel normal again, but normal felt like something I had been pushed outside of. Something I could remember, but not return to.

However within that silence, within that invisible weight, I began to understand that resilience doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. Sometimes it looks like grieving who you used to be. Sometimes it looks like slowly finding your way back to yourself, even if that version is different. Sometimes it’s rebuilding what felt completely broken inside of you, piece by piece.

Through it all, I wasn’t as alone as I felt. God was walking with me in the quiet, in the pain, in the moments I didn’t think I would make it through—helping me heal from the brokenness and the loneliness, even when I couldn’t see it myself.

This is the part no one really prepares you for. The side effects that aren’t listed, the ones that live in your mind, your body, your spirit. The way your entire sense of self can shift in an instant, and you’re left trying to piece it back together without a clear understanding of how. Nothing prepares you for how quickly life can change—for how, in a single moment, everything you knew can feel like it belongs to a different version of you.

Looking back now, I can see it for what it was. But in those moments, it didn’t have a name. It was just something I had to survive.