As you get older, your body starts to have a mind of its own. It can do all sorts of funny things without you realizing it. The best thing you can do is get yourself checked. The worst thing you can do is do nothing about it.
I’ve always been this person who doesn’t like hassle. But when it comes to health, it’s worth the hassle. It sounds very much counter-intuitive but excuses won’t help you find the truth.
I wouldn’t have imagined that one day this week that I’d see myself lying on the table of a scanner to have a CT scan of my brain. It was quite an unnerving experience, but the two medical staff there did an excellent job of calming me down.
When the machine started to turn, a few things were running through my head – Some childhood memories but nothing about external stuff like more money, more validation, more love, more happiness, more this more that.
I intentionally kept my eyes open during the process. Why? I didn’t want to miss anything. I wanted to see it, feel it and just get on with it, come what may.
How did I get through the next 24 hours? Was it hard? You bet. To put my mind at ease, I was listening to lots of my favourite songs and also singing along. It worked.
Not that I’m a superstitious person but I didn’t want to temp fate by posting this too early. So I waited till the result came out the following day.
And? I’m normal. Gee, I’ve never been called normal in my life and to see that word “normal” appear several times on the report, it felt great. A sense of relief was written all over my face.
It’s funny every day we celebrate when life goes well but rarely do we celebrate for just being alive. Isn’t it about time to go back to basics?
The health scare will always be there for as long as we live. That’s life! But life is to be taken care of, not to be scared of.
The mental health conditions we experience like fight or flight, anxiety and depressions, are our brain’s way of coping uncertainty. It’s just doing its job to alert us about possible dangers ahead. The fears and hopelessness we dread to face derive from brain’s primal instincts. Its main purpose is trying to protect us and keep us alive. Our brain sometimes can get it all wrong by misinterpreting or overreacting, but hey don’t be too hard on it! It’s still learning!
To be able to see first hand what my brain looks like, it’s quite something. As a side effect, I’ve never been more accepting of myself than now. I also understand why I am the way I am. Good, bad, beautiful and ugly, I’m taking all in. As for the past self critics that stuck in my head? They are forgiven and forgotten in no time…
Ted Tsai 