It didn’t happen in one day. That’s the thing people don’t understand. Life doesn’t always break you loudly. Sometimes it happens slowly, quietly, like something is being taken away from you piece by piece and you don’t even realize how much you’ve already lost until one day you sit alone and feel the silence.
I was 18 when everything started changing. Back then life was normal. I had plans, dreams, stupid jokes with friends, random late-night talks, football, music, everything that makes life feel alive. Nothing extraordinary, just a simple life. But now when I look back, that simple life feels like luxury.
The first thing I lost was my hearing.
At first, it didn’t feel real. It was confusing more than scary. Voices started fading, sounds became unclear, like the world was slowly moving away from me. People were talking, laughing, calling my name maybe, but I couldn’t fully catch it. I thought maybe it was temporary. Maybe it would come back.
It didn’t.
Silence is not peaceful when it is forced. It is heavy. It sits on your chest and reminds you every second that something is missing.
And before I could even process that loss, life had something else waiting.
Later, I was diagnosed with GBS. That word meant nothing to me at first. It was just another medical term. But slowly, I started understanding it, not from doctors, but from my own body.
My legs stopped feeling like mine.
Walking became difficult. Then it became dependent. And now, I cannot walk without support. The same legs that once ran on football fields, chased goals, laughed with friends, now hesitate even to take a few steps.
It has been 13 years now.
Thirteen long years of adjusting, accepting, breaking, rebuilding, and then breaking again.
People say time heals everything. I don’t think that’s true. Time just teaches you how to live with it.
Over these years, I learned one thing very clearly. People come and go. That’s life. But when you are like me, they don’t just go, they slowly disappear.
At first, they stay. They ask how you are. They visit. They care.
Then life moves on for them.
Their world keeps growing. Mine started shrinking.
I miss a lot of things. Not big things. Just normal things.
I miss listening to music.
Not just hearing it, but feeling it. That connection. That emotion when a song hits exactly where it should. Now songs are just memories in my head. Sometimes I try to remember how they sounded, but even that is fading.
I miss playing football.
Running freely, falling, getting up, shouting, celebrating. That energy, that chaos, that freedom. I didn’t know those moments would become memories I would replay again and again in my head.
I miss traveling.
New places, new air, new experiences. Now my world is limited to my room and a few familiar spaces.
I miss having friends.
Real conversations. Random talks. Jokes that don’t make sense but still make you laugh. Now it’s mostly silence. Or people who don’t know what to say, so they say nothing at all.
And slowly, you get used to it.
Now all I have is this sickness and my family.
My family stayed. They didn’t leave. They became my world. And I know I am lucky for that. Not everyone has that.
But even then, there is a kind of loneliness that doesn’t go away.
Nobody to talk.
Nowhere to go.
Just me, my thoughts, and these four walls.
Sometimes I sit quietly and try to remember things.
And one thing scares me the most.
I am slowly forgetting the voices of my parents.
It sounds small when I say it like that, but it’s not.
It’s terrifying.
I try to remember how my father sounded when he called my name. How my mother’s voice felt when she talked to me. But memory is strange. The more you try to hold it, the more it slips.
I don’t want to forget.
I want to remember their voices until I survive.
I want to hear my niece laugh. I want to hear the voices of newborn family members. I want to experience those small moments that people don’t even think about.
But I can’t.
And that hurts more than anything.
Sometimes I think about my dreams.
Simple dreams.
I want to do something for my family.
I want to be independent.
I want to tell my father one day, “Father, you can take rest now. I will work. I will earn.”
That sentence stays in my head a lot.
But slowly, it is starting to feel like just a dream.
A dream that may never come true.
And that realization is heavy.
Not because I don’t want to try, but because my body doesn’t always listen to what my heart wants.
There was a time I also thought about love.
A normal life.
Marriage.
Having someone who understands you, stays with you, builds a life with you.
But reality is different.
When people find out about me, they change.
Not always openly. Sometimes it’s subtle.
They stop responding.
They avoid.
They look at you differently, like you are not part of the same world anymore.
Like you don’t exist.
And after a while, you stop expecting anything.
You just accept it.
But even after all this, after 13 years of silence, pain, loneliness, and acceptance, something inside me is still alive.
I don’t know what it is exactly.
Maybe hope.
Maybe stubbornness.
Maybe just the habit of surviving.
Because even now, I want to do something.
Maybe I can’t run.
Maybe I can’t hear.
Maybe I can’t live life the way I once imagined.
But I can still think.
I can still feel.
I can still write.
And maybe that is something.
Maybe my voice is not in sound anymore, but in words.
Maybe I can’t go outside and explore the world, but I can still create something from inside this room.
Maybe independence doesn’t have to look the way I once thought.
Maybe it can be different.
Slower.
Smaller.
But still real.
I don’t know what the future looks like.
I don’t know if my dreams will come true.
But I know one thing.
I am still here.
And as long as I am still here, maybe there is still a chance.
A small one.
But sometimes, even a small hope is enough to keep going.
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