Imagine, if you will, a young girl with a quick intellect. She's the kind that catches (and humbly points out) the mistakes the teacher makes when teaching his class. She gets chastised for not taking notes but shocks her instructor by providing him with the correct answer straight from her head to the question intended to embarrass her in front of the class.
Straight A's, High Honors, active in sports and other extracurricular activities. After graduating third in her class she moves on to the workforce and ends up in a high paced, well paid job where she is the one to unlock the door in the morning, lock it again after everyone else has gone home and accomplish a multitude of brainracking tasks in between while also fielding phone calls, walk-in clients and whiny underlings.
At the end of her day she retreats to her apartment which is anally organized and always tidy. Dishes were always done before bed, laundry completed each weekend, etc. etc. Do you kinda get the picture? She works hard, works smart, up early and home late...makes it look like a breeze.
Now it doesn't happen all at once. There's a small car accident, a mild shoulder injury. Physical therapy....feels good when she's there but the effects never really last. The pain comes and goes, but when it's there it's quite distracting. The pain brings stress. The stress brings tension. The tension increases the pain and causes it to spread.
All the work that she flew through before began to make her anxious, panicky even as deadlines neared. Pain and anxiety were now double-teaming her clarity and as she felt she was losing her edge, depression moved in.
Now, no one can confirm that that car accident caused all these issues, but I think it's safe to say it at least contributed to the chain of events.
Eventually, she decided that the job was not worth being miserable. She put in her notice and moved to something in the same field but behind the scenes with no customer interaction. The work involved a good deal of physical activity including some heavy lifting but exercise is good! She did quite well for another year, was able to work her own pace, hide at her little desk out back all alone. Unfortunately, as she found her groove, her supervisor noticed her efficiency and began to flatter her with more responsibilities. Fabulous.
I'm clearly babbling so I'll skip a bit. The anxiety flared. The pain came back with a vengeance and she made a decision to take another pay cut to work for a friend in a small store doing very little part time. That gave her almost another two years. Finally, between the pain and the panic she stopped leaving the house very much. She felt scared, lazy, useless and most of all stupid.
Here's where the fog comes in.
