**The Last Time I Remember Feeling Like Myself**  
The last time I clearly remember feeling like myself was when my mother and sister came to visit me at the DeSisto School.  
I couldn’t understand why I was being made to stare at a wall for 16 hours a day for months. I wasn’t allowed to stand, move freely, or even look out a window. The isolation and sensory deprivation changed me in ways I still struggle to understand.  
My life had gone from waking up every morning in Wayland, seeing my friends, and living by the simple mantra, *“Life’s been good to me so far,”* to waking up with men standing over me, shackling me, and putting me into a van to take me away from everyone and everything I loved.  
I pushed my mind and body far beyond what they could handle because I was desperate to find some kind of peace.  
Eventually, I found real help from a doctor in Florida. After six months of working with him, I was clean and sober and living with someone I cared about. Then I was told I couldn’t continue receiving that help because **Amy** was having vision problems. We later learned that she had MS.  
Finding out that **Amy** had MS was also the last time I felt like I was truly part of that family.  
My sister went on to live her life. My father went on with his. And eventually I was told, essentially, that I was too depressed and anxious to be around because it affected everyone else.  
Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like someone’s son, someone’s brother, or someone’s friend.  
There were only a few people who continued to make me feel human.  
My therapist was one.  
My friend Jherm was another.  
And then there was **Jean**.  
For years, **Jean** and I seemed to miss each other by a second or an inch. Somehow, though, we always remained in each other’s orbit. The times we connected felt unusually meaningful to me.  
I think part of why I became so attached to her was because she represented something I had been missing for a very long time: chosen family.  
I had always wanted to be the big brother who could protect his sister. I wanted to be someone who could step between the people I loved and whatever was hurting them. Maybe that’s why seeing someone I love struggle has always affected me so deeply.  
Over the years, **Jean** would disappear from my life and eventually reappear. Every time she came back, I hoped it meant things were finally going to be different.  
Then she would disappear again.  
Eventually I found myself watching someone I loved struggle in a relationship that, from my perspective, seemed to be hurting her emotionally and financially. I may never know the complete truth of what happened inside that relationship, and I don’t want to pretend that I do.  
What I do know is what I saw.  
I saw someone I cared about become less free, less happy, and less like herself.  
And that broke my heart.  
I don’t believe her partner is inherently a bad person. If he had been someone who helped her become the healthiest, happiest, strongest version of herself, I would have supported them completely. I never wanted her relationship to fail simply because I wanted her for myself.  
I wanted her to be safe, free, loved, and happy.  
That’s it.  
When my 40th birthday came around, I realized something strange: I didn’t really want anything for myself.  
What I wanted was to see my friend’s son happy. I wanted to be there for the people I loved. I wanted to experience the simple joy of watching a kid have an incredible day with his mother.  
I had planned to spend money on that kind of happiness.  
Instead, I came home to find **Jean** gone from my life again.  
I had tens of thousands of dollars available to me, but suddenly none of it seemed to mean anything.  
Money couldn’t buy back the people I had lost.  
It couldn’t repair my family.  
It couldn’t make **Jean** stay.  
And it couldn’t make someone I loved choose freedom.  
The hardest part wasn’t losing money.  
It was realizing how much of my life I had begun organizing around the hope that one day someone I loved would call and let me help.  
Six months would pass.  
Then a phone call would come.  
Sometimes we’d talk for half an hour, and for a moment I’d feel that connection again.  
Then I’d be blocked.  
And I’d be left trying to understand what had happened.  
I know now that I can’t force someone to choose me, choose freedom, or even choose a life I believe would be better for them.  
That’s one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever had to learn.  
I also know that someone disappearing from my life doesn’t mean I’m worthless.  
For a long time, I interpreted people’s rejection as evidence that there was something fundamentally wrong with me.  
I believed that if someone chose distance, it meant I must have been unbearable to be around.  
But I don’t believe that anymore.  
I can love someone deeply without being responsible for saving them.  
I can care about someone without destroying myself trying to protect them.  
And I can believe that someone deserves better without making myself responsible for making that happen.  
I don’t know how to completely accept how badly this experience hurt me.  
I don’t know how to reconcile loving someone with having absolutely no control over the choices they make.  
But I’m beginning to understand that love isn’t ownership.  
It’s not rescue.  
It’s not sacrifice until there is nothing left of yourself.  
Sometimes love means hoping someone finds peace, even when you can’t be the person who helps them find it.  
**Jean became chosen family to me.**  
That mattered.  
It still matters.  
And I don’t regret loving my friend.  
I just wish I had understood sooner that loving someone doesn’t require losing yourself in the process.  
I hope she’s safe.  
I hope she’s happy.  
I hope she becomes the strongest and most free version of herself.  
And I hope, someday, I can become that version of myself too.

can sensory deprivation heal sensory deprivation ?