based on true events
The world is your playground until you are unable to rise; that’s when it gets you.
Aches and pains are expected. A stiff neck, a cramp mid-stretch, a rogue nerve acting out—nothing new. They usually pass. But this? This was something else entirely.
I woke up curled on my left side, basking in a rare, calm morning. Mid-yawn, as I tried to shift positions, my entire neck seized. My jaw snapped shut. Pain tore down my spine like a snapped cord.
I froze.
Tried to lift my head.
Nope. Not happening.
It felt like someone had disconnected my skull and screwed it back on wrong. My head was stuck, tilted sideways like a broken doll. I couldn’t look up, couldn’t look down. The smallest movement sent electric shocks through my entire body.
This wasn’t a kink. This wasn’t slept funny on it. This was a full-body betrayal.
I stayed there, hands clamped around my neck, cradling my own head like I was trying to keep it from falling off. Any attempt to move made me whimper. Not dramatic—just in crisis.
Eventually, I managed to sit up, still hunched and cradling my head like it weighed fifty pounds. I shuffled up to my feet at the side of the bed, barely breathing.
“Wake up,” I told my boyfriend. My voice was calm, but my eyes were leaking. “Something’s wrong. My neck’s broken.”
“Broken?” he asked, sitting up fast. “What do you mean broken?”
“I need to go to the hospital. Right now. I can’t move. It’s bad. Really bad.”
He blinked, took in my twisted form, and realized I wasn’t kidding. “Okay. Okay—hang on. Let’s get you dressed.”
But dressing was a no-go. I couldn’t bend, couldn’t pull, couldn’t lower my arms. He gently wrapped me in a housecoat like a fragile mummy. We made it to the car, and he drove to the hospital like we had an organ on ice in the backseat.
We arrived within minutes. The waiting room was full, but one look at me—hunched over, hands fused to my neck, eyes wide with pain—and they waved us straight through.
I sat stiffly on the exam bed, waiting. Bracing. I was sure I’d need x-rays, braces, surgery, maybe even a brain scan. At the very least, a strong sedative and a neck cast. I had already mentally composed my farewell speech.
The doctor arrived and gave me a polite smile.
I wasn’t smiling.
I explained everything: how I woke up fine, how the pain hit, how my head wouldn’t move. How I was certain something serious had snapped inside me.
He nodded, examined me, pressed a few trigger points—and smirked. “I know what this is,” he said. “It’s torticollis. Wryneck. It’s a muscle spasm. Happens sometimes. Super painful, but nothing to worry about. It’ll ease up soon.”
I stared at him, stunned.
“Torticollis?” I repeated, as if that was supposed to be comforting.
He said it like he was diagnosing a hangnail. Meanwhile, I had shuffled in like Igor, convinced my spinal cord had folded in half.
based on true events
The doctor elaborated futher; “What it means is that the muscles in your neck are swollen to the point where flexibility has been temporarily impaired. It’s a dystonic condition defined by an abnormal, asymmetrical head or neck position. Your range of movement will be limited, but it will get better with a muscle relaxant and therapy.”
He motioned to the nurse, who was already in the room, to wrap a neck collar around me. Then he scribbled out a prescription for anti-inflammatories and Tylenol. That was it.
Well, blow me down and call me sarcastic! Who woudda thunk this was just a minor little mishap requiring nothing more than a pill?
I spent the next few days in total isolation—watched TV in the recliner, slept in the recliner, ate in the recliner. Shoot, I would’ve done my washroom business in the recliner too if it had a flap on the seat! I was terrified of triggering the pain again. But, actually, it subsided within a day.
So how in the world did I go from zero to a thousand percent agony overnight?
I had plenty of time to think about what might’ve caused this so-called wryneck. If I’m being honest, my mood swings might’ve played a teeny-tiny role. Two nights prior, I’d been absolutely fit to be tied—darn near purple in the face with exasperation. Over what, exactly? Well… that’s not important. Let’s just say the idea that I caused my own condition by flying off the handle, tensing up, and waking up like a human coat hook doesn’t seem all that far-fetched.
Unfortunately, the situation didn’t end there. What followed made the sore neck look like a stubbed toe.
Two weeks into healing, the collar was off and everything seemed fine—until I walked into the kitchen and poof—the lights went out. A total eclipse on a sunny Saturday afternoon. One minute I was upright, the next I was feeling my way along the wall with one hand and groping blindly for the counter with the other. I made it to the fridge, slid to the floor, and moments later—bam—the lights were back on.
Must’ve been a blip in the system, I told myself. No big deal.
But it kept happening.
In the days that followed, I blacked out again and again. Sometimes I walked through what felt like tunnel vision—like my life was being filmed through a paper towel roll. The doctor told me to stop and drop whenever it hit, let it pass. But every time it happened, I panicked. I didn’t want to sit with it. I wanted to power through it—figuring I could somehow outrun the darkness if I just kept moving toward that shrinking pinhole of light.
For months, I drove myself—literally—through these spells. To medicentres. To doctors. To the hospital. Was I a danger to myself and others? Absolutely. Was I a wreck? Without question. Especially because no one could find anything wrong.
I was prescribed Ativan to calm my system. And sure, maybe it helped in the moment. But the next day? I was unusually irritable. The frustration would sit in my chest like a weight. Whatever was happening, Ativan wasn’t fixing it. Just pressing pause.
It wasn’t hypertension. It wasn’t diabetes. It wasn’t anything that showed up on scans or blood work. But this wasn’t the kind of thing you could bathe away with Epsom salts or cure with deep breathing and a french fry. My resting pulse was consistently over 120—fine for a newborn, not so great for me.
My doctor ruled out everything. Even tachycardia. Eventually, she suggested I find ways to relax and stop using recreational drugs.
“Marijuana?” I blinked. “I haven’t touched that in over a year.”
Still, every day, I was in a state of panic.
based on true events
How could this be happening? Why wasn’t it going away?
I was in a constant state of worry. Every thought led to a worse self-diagnosis, until I’d convinced myself of the worst. Then came the real symptoms: chest palpitations, stabbing pain, breathlessness like I was being choked out daily. I couldn’t catch my breath. I was exhausted, detached, disinterested in everything that used to anchor me.
Anti-depressants had me in tears. Painkillers gathered dust. The only thing that helped—even temporarily—was standing under steaming hot showers, trying to melt the panic off me. Most other moments were spent crouched on the floor, or back in the hospital, desperate for any diagnosis that wasn’t a variation of “you just need to calm down.”
With each episode, I grew more hopeless. And when I couldn’t see a way out, I turned on everyone.
The more advice people gave—just relax, stop overthinking, try yoga—the worse I felt. They meant well, but every word sounded like blame. Like my suffering was my fault. Like I was choosing it. So I pulled away. I isolated completely. Lived in a fog of shame, fear, and anger. Too burned out to ask for help. Too stubborn to accept it.
It wasn’t just the panic—it was the erasure. The way I was told my pain was all in my head, when it was ripping through my body like wildfire.
I was drowning in plain sight.
I didn’t want pity. I just wanted someone to believe me.
Finally, I sat with it all and let it hit me different... the day I lost my job while trying to protect the person who threw me under the bus. It was a betrayal that cracked it all open—the real damage had been building for years, but this was the deceit that broke my neck. I was swallowed in anger. Unspoken words. My dignity had been worn thin in small, daily cuts. My mood swings, my breakdowns, my inability to function weren’t random—they were symptoms. Not of weakness, but of an overwhelmed system of doing for others; constant giving of myself when I had nothing more to loan. My mind was under siege, and my body was waving every red flag it could. I didn't listen to the silence and got pinched by the results.
After years of running in that miserable loop—accepting fate, coping in half-measures—something shifted. I don’t know why or how. But in my mid-twenties, a calm came. Not sudden, but steady. For the first time in forever, I didn’t feel like a stranger in my own life.
It started with one meeting—with a dietician. That led to vitamins. Then cutting out sugar and carbs. I focused on protein. On movement. On rest. I enrolled in a literature course. Fed my body. Fed my brain. Fed my soul.
And slowly, the world cracked open again. It was brighter. Quieter. Livable.
Fact or Fiction?
Fact is: I learned I could poison my own body with negative thoughts alone. There was never anything physically wrong with me. Not in the way people assumed. But mentally? I was unraveling. Panic isn’t just nerves—it’s a hijacking. A system overload. A silent war your body wages against your own mind.
This whole experience?
A reckoning. A wake-up call.
A lesson I wouldn’t wish on anyone—but one I’ll never forget.
Torticollis | Off Track| RIVER'S EDGE | PHOBIA
TRAINED | FETTER | NEUROSIS | HARROWING
CANYON | OLSEN | NEFARIOUS | BURIED