I Am Resilient: Mary Dvorak

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This is Mary Dvorak and she is RESILIENT.

This is Mary and she is resilient.

CONTENT WARNING: The I Am Resilient Project provides an open space for people to share their personal experiences. Some content in this post and on this website will include topics that you may find difficult.

In one sentence explain the situation where you had to be resilient:

I suffered from a severe brain injury when I was 17 years old.

Mary’s Story.

I don’t remember the day of my accident or the week I spent in the ICU, due to my severe brain injury. I wasn’t even able to remember what I ate for lunch that very day until a day or two after I was released. I relive most of the important information about my accident and beginning of my road to recovery from stories that have been retold to me thousands of times, and still can’t believe what I hear five years later.

I didn’t start processing what had happened to me or what I was going through until almost a month later. My accident happened a week before my senior year in high school. So, my days recovering were consumed by going through cognitive and physical therapy for hours, every single day. Next, I would come home to a tutor that would bring me my school work because I was still trying to graduate a semester early. I had to be under an adult’s supervision almost 24/7, barely getting a moment to myself, so I didn’t have much time to think or process much anyway.

At first, while going through my recovery, I felt extremely detached from who I was, and just severed from my mind and body in general. It’s like I was watching myself going through the motions and doing what I was told just to get through the day, to get closer to being fully recovered on a movie reel. I shut down, closed myself off from my friends and family, became extremely depressed and questioning my life and simple existence.

Most nights I would not be able to sleep so I would sit outside, staring at the stars, pleading for answers to questions like “Why I’m still alive, what is the reason for all of this, and why me?”

To cope with my negative thoughts, I would journal while asking those very questions, hoping that writing my streaming thoughts and consciousness would find the answers. Eventually, I did find some answers. They weren’t the answers expected, but I found from journaling that I don’t necessarily need a definitive answer to any of those questions. I’ll find those answers when I find those answers and to just enjoy and appreciate that I can see and experience today, and hopefully do the same tomorrow.

I cannot remember a lot of what happened to me, and as much that affects me day to day, hell, I don’t think I will ever fully heal from what I experienced and will continue to heal and put myself back together every day. However, I am thankful to say that I have been through a lot, I overcame a lot, and I will continue to overcome a lot. I am appreciative of my thick skull, as well as my mind and body’s will and dedication to recover and to carry on.

How did you practice resilience when faced with this challenge?

I have always been a very independent person, and that started at a young age. I had a handful of great friends, loved to go on small road trips in my car, had a job I loved and was supposed to be enjoying my senior year in high school. I craved a sense of normalcy from my old routine and everyday life, as well as wanting to still achieve the initial goal I made to myself, drove me to the end of my recovery and to get clearance from my doctors in only a short three months.

I also had to rely on my mind and body to work with me, to heal with me and became more in touch with my mind and body: what it’s trying to tell me, what it needs, and not to overwork it while still in a relatively fragile state.

Please share one piece of advice for people who are going through a similar challenge:

For those that are going through a similar situation as I did, I advise people to trust their minds and bodies. They know what is truly right and wrong within your healing process and will heal on their own time.

I also recommend journaling while going through any sort of recovery, even just experiencing everyday life. Being able to write what I was thinking, feeling, random thoughts and ideas, and being able to keep it to myself and disclose any information to others when I chose to, helped me a lot with my mental health while going through recovery. And lastly, I advise you to wear a helmet!

????Chicago, Illinois, USA

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