Joan Pistorius was losing her grip. The struggle to keep up
with her son’s needs, with the burden he had become and the suffering she felt
he must be in, was too much to bear. One day, at her lowest, Joan walked up to
her son and said, out loud, “I hope you die.” It was a plea to God perhaps, or
to the fates that they end the struggle Martin and his family were going through.
She was told he couldn’t hear the outside world in his condition…
Then, when Martin was around age 16, he began regaining
consciousness. At first, he wasn’t aware of what had been happening, he
couldn’t even sense others around him. But as his mind came back to him, he
soon realized that he could hear others, sense their presence. He had heard the
cruel thing his mother had said to him in her time of despair. Yet, he still
could not impart anything to those around him. He couldn’t move at all…
Before long, Martin was aware of everything, just like any
normal person would be. But he couldn’t express himself, couldn’t move his
eyes, or wiggle a toe, his brain and his body were disconnected. This
realization was a worse shock than all the others, he was a boy in a man’s body
now and he was trapped within himself.
Meanwhile, everyone in Martin’s family had been so used to
him not being there that they ignored him. Even if he could have made a sign to
let them know he was there, they wouldn’t have seen it. The stark reality
finally hit him: he was going to spend the rest of his lifetime trapped in his
own mind, totally alone, with only his thoughts for company. He would never
know true love, never have children, never work in electronics. There was no
escape…
Martin Pistorius’ only option was to leave his thoughts
behind, to become blank so that he didn’t have to deal with the futility of his
situation. Martin began to disengage his thoughts. In a sense, he allowed
himself to fall back into the darkness and vanish. Unfortunately, there were
some things Martin couldn’t ignore.
The entire world still thought that Martin was a vegetable,
so they did what they would do with anyone they thought might not be aware of
their surroundings: they plopped him in front of a TV. The staff at the special
care center would leave him for hours staring at the the TV, watching endless
reruns of children’s shows like Barney & Friends. And that was just the
beginning of their cruelty…
Each day, Martin would be filled with dread at the thought
that his parents would be taking him to the care center. People in the care
home would pull his hair and make his eyes water, they would crash the metal
spoon against his teeth while force-feeding him, they would yell and scream at
him for minutes at a time. Sometimes they would feed him scalding hot tea or
soup when he got sick, or slap him around, knowing that he couldn’t fight back.
One woman would even come into the room and straddle Martin
to simulate sex with him. She would touch him inappropriately, make him feel
worthless and completely powerless. He wanted to run, to complain to stop what
was happening to him. Or at least to tell someone what they were doing to him,
if only to get it to stop. And despite wanting to give up, Martin kept on
living, hoping that one day he might be free…
Martin focused hard on things that were negative to him. It
was an effort to try and reframe those terrible thoughts like his mother
saying, “I hope you die.” It was worse than anything else he had experienced at
the hands of the care center employees and he began to wrestle with it. Why
would his mother say that? Perhaps it was time to try and understand her
desperation, her sorrow.
In time, Martin began re-engaging with his thoughts. He knew
that in order to heal and fight the depression and loneliness he was feeling,
he had to strengthen his mind. Slowly, his mind felt better and then, as if by
some miracle, so did his body. Inside his brain, the neurons were reknitting,
he was coming back to himself, to awareness and soon, to movement…
Soon Martin was capable of making small movements.
Initially, his parents and caregivers didn’t notice the movements. They had
spent so much time knowing that he couldn’t move, that they could scarcely
believe their own eyes when they saw an odd twitch. Then one day, Virna van der
Walt, an aromatherapist, began to notice that Martin would react to specific
statements or questions.
At the age of 25, Martin Pistorius regained his full
consciousness and a great deal of his mobility. In time, he forgave his parents
for the things they’d said. He understood the desperation because he had felt
it too at times. Before long, Martin met his wife Joanne, a social worker, on
the internet. In 2009, he asked her to marry him…
Martin and Joanne currently live in Harlow. Things are still
difficult for him sometimes, for instance, he speaks with the aid of a voice
synthesizer, but overall he has learned a lot from his time trapped within
himself. He had to relearn all of his essentials, math, the alphabet, but
picked it all up quickly. He even earned a degree.
http://www.lifedaily.com/story/man-trapped-inside-his-own-body-for-12-years-wakes-to-reveal-heartbreaking-secret/2/
See: http://childnervoussystem.blogspot.com/2015/04/an-aromatherapist-saw-something-in-his.html
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