learning to stay
1047 Words
The hardest thing Jessica ever learned wasn’t how to survive addiction.
It wasn’t surviving abuse.
It wasn’t surviving overdoses.
It wasn’t even surviving the quad accident that shattered her spine and changed her body forever.
The hardest thing she ever learned…
was how to stay.
Stay alive.
Stay present.
Stay sober.
Stay alone with her own thoughts without running from them.
Because for most of her life, Jessica escaped herself constantly.
If pain appeared, she drowned it.
If memories surfaced, she numbed them.
If shame crept in, she silenced it with substances, speed, chaos, alcohol, noise — anything loud enough to overpower her own mind.
Then the accident happened.
And suddenly there was nowhere left to run.
Recovery after the ATV crash forced Jessica into stillness for the first time in her entire life. No speeding through streets. No walking away from emotions. No escaping physically. Days became slower. Quieter.
And quiet terrified her.
Because silence meant thinking.
Thinking about the years she lost.
Thinking about the people she hurt.
Thinking about how close she came to leaving Elijah without a mother forever.
In the beginning, sitting alone with herself felt unbearable.
There were nights after the accident where Jessica cried silently in bed while the house slept. Nights where grief hit her so hard she could barely breathe through it. She mourned everything at once.
Her old body.
Her independence.
Her recklessness.
The version of herself she thought she’d always be.
People assume paralysis only changes your legs.
It doesn’t.
It changes your entire relationship with yourself.
Jessica suddenly needed help doing basic things again. Things most people never think twice about. Moving. Bathing. Transferring. Reaching objects. Existing in spaces not built for wheelchairs.
That loss hurt deeply.
Not because the wheelchair itself embarrassed her.
It didn’t.
The wheelchair was never the ugliest part.
The ugliest part was knowing she’d never use her legs again.
That grief sits differently.
Some mornings it still sneaks up quietly. Tiny moments. Seeing people run without thinking. Watching someone dance. Catching herself instinctively imagining movement her body no longer remembers how to do.
That hurts.
And Jessica allows herself to admit that now.
For a long time she thought strength meant pretending nothing affected her. Pretending she was always okay. Pretending she didn’t mourn pieces of herself.
But real healing taught her something different:
You can grieve your old life and still love your current one.
Those things can exist together.
And surprisingly, over time, Jessica began loving herself again.
Not perfectly.
Not every single day.
But genuinely.
For the first time in her life, she started seeing herself as more than the mistakes she made. More than addiction. More than trauma. More than scars and hospital stays and broken bones.
She started seeing the survivor underneath all of it.
The girl who survived nine years of addiction.
The woman who fought through withdrawals alone for her unborn child.
The mother who stayed alive after four clinical deaths.
The daughter who kept getting back up no matter how many times life slammed her down.
That person deserved love too.
Even from herself.
Jessica slowly rebuilt her relationship with her own reflection. And honestly?
She still thinks she’s beautiful.
Wheelchair and all.
She loves her tattoos. Loves her face. Loves her smile when it’s real. Loves how much strength her eyes carry now compared to when she was younger. She spent so many years destroying herself that learning to appreciate herself felt revolutionary.
The wheelchair doesn’t erase her beauty.
It never did.
If anything, surviving made her stronger-looking somehow. Softer emotionally. Wiser. More grounded. More real.
Because beauty isn’t perfection.
Beauty is surviving things meant to destroy you and still finding reasons to laugh afterward.
And Jessica laughs now.
A lot more than she used to.
Not fake laughs either.
Real ones.
The kind that come from feeling grateful to still exist.
One of the biggest reasons she kept healing was her family.
Jessica doesn’t think people fully understand how much her family fought for her over the years. Through addiction. Through overdoses. Through alcoholism. Through the accident. Through the coma. Through recovery.
They stayed.
That matters more than words can explain.
Her parents could’ve given up emotionally after everything. Addiction hurts families deeply. Watching someone you love slowly destroy themselves changes people forever.
But they didn’t let go of her.
Even in hospital rooms when machines kept bringing her back.
Even when doctors questioned continuing.
Even during the worst years.
They fought for her life when she didn’t fully know how to fight for it herself yet.
And now?
Jessica fights hard to stay here because of them too.
Because she finally understands what love really looks like.
Love is not people using her.
Not manipulation.
Not abuse disguised as affection.
Love is parents screaming at doctors to keep saving their daughter.
Love is family helping her through recovery when she can’t do things alone.
Love is Elijah hugging her at the end of hard days.
Love is people staying.
Jessica used to spend years trying to escape herself because she thought she was broken beyond repair.
Now she spends her life trying to protect the version of herself she fought so hard to become.
That’s growth.
Real growth.
Not motivational quotes.
Not pretending life is easy now.
Not acting like trauma magically disappears.
Growth is waking up and choosing not to self-destruct anymore.
Growth is learning how to sit with painful thoughts without turning them into addictions.
Growth is saying: “Yes, I’ve suffered. Yes, I’ve made mistakes. Yes, I still hurt sometimes. But I deserve to live anyway.”
And Jessica believes that now.
Truly.
There are still hard days, of course. Days where hospital visits scare her. Days where memories hit harder than expected. Days where grief for her legs catches her off guard.
But she no longer wants to disappear from herself.
That alone is a miracle.
Because the younger version of Jessica spent years trying to escape life.
Now?
She fights with everything in her to stay alive.
For Elijah.
For her family.
For herself.
And maybe that’s the biggest transformation of all.
The girl who once tried to numb every feeling…
became a woman strong enough to finally feel them all and survive anyway.
- Writer
