Samary Vazquez: Insights from My Hospital Bed – Guilt and Survival
Samary Vazquez, Former Director of Program Development at Cinnamon Helps, shared on LinkedIn:
”Insights from My Hospital Bed – Guilt
No one prepares you for the guilt that comes with surviving.
There are so many versions of it, and they don’t arrive one at a time—they overlap, stack, and blur together.
There’s survivor’s guilt: the quiet, unspoken question of why your body keeps making it through things that take others out.
The awareness that you are still here, even when the odds or the statistics say you shouldn’t be.
There’s patient guilt—the guilt of needing help.
Of relying on others.
Of taking up time, space, and resources.
Of being the reason plans change or worry enters the room.
It’s feeling like an inconvenience in places you never wanted to be.
Like the common denominator in moments that suddenly feel heavier than they should.
Like your body has become a problem everyone else has to work around.
I’m currently recovering from my third pulmonary embolism.
This one happened almost two years after the second.
By now, I know the routine. The monitors. The IVs. The imaging.
What I still haven’t learned how to quiet is the voice that says:
You should be handling this better.
You should be more positive.
You should be grateful you survived again.
Illness teaches you quickly that guilt isn’t logical—but it is relentless.
You can be grateful to be alive and still exhausted by survival.
You can need help and still wish you didn’t.
You can carry anger, fear, and sadness—and still love deeply.
None of those truths cancel each other out.
If you’re sick and carrying guilt, please hear this:
Your illness is not a personal failure.
Your needs are not a burden.
Your survival does not require constant gratitude or performative strength.
You don’t owe anyone bravery, optimism, or inspiration.
Sometimes, staying alive—again—is already the hardest work there is.”
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