I understand you very well. The mind is a factory of phantoms, and when something worries us, even if it is not objectively serious, it manages to conjure up scenarios worthy of a horror film. Let me give you an example. Before a simple surgery, just a day hospital procedure, my brain produced an entire catalog of disasters. I imagined that the anesthesia might damage my brain, that I could wake up mentally impaired, or not wake up at all. I imagined infected instruments, forgotten tools left inside me, distracted surgeons, medication errors, lethal infections, embolisms. Even someone operating on the wrong side or cutting where they shouldn't. I read clinical reports about absurd, rare, improbable cases. But in my mind they were real, vivid, possible.
And all of that for a 40 minute procedure with no complications in the end.
That is the point. When the mind is afraid, it does not need reality. It builds its own. And it makes it worse than any truth could ever be.
But be careful. These are not just fantasies. They are real possibilities. Documented risks. They have truly happened, even if only in a small number of cases. General anesthesia, for example, can cause temporary or permanent paralysis, especially if there is spinal damage during intubation. It can cause cerebral hypoxia, severe allergic reactions, bronchospasm, cardiac arrest, intraoperative awareness, where the patient feels pain but cannot move, postoperative confusion, or even long-term memory loss and permanent cognitive damage. These are rare, but they are not imaginary. And if you have read about them or know someone affected, you will never forget.
In these cases, fear is not weakness. It is awareness. It is the brain's way of preparing for the unknown, in a world where the unknown can truly wound.
And let's be honest. Life itself is a constant risk. Even without any surgery, we might wake up one day unable to speak or move. We could have a stroke at forty. We could fall in the shower. We could be hit by a car while going to buy bread. I knew a man, a respected bank director. Always elegant, admired by everyone. He had a sudden stroke. Now he lives in a care home, paralyzed, forgotten. He did not even make it to retirement.
And if you think this is too much, let me ask you. Have you ever seen what happened to people whose phone batteries exploded in their faces? It has happened. While talking. While living. A defective battery, a power surge, overheating and in a second, they were disfigured, burned, hospitalized. They were not undergoing surgery. They were just living.
The more you live, the more you risk. And life does not come with guarantees. It is a roll of dice, every day. If you see this, you are not paranoid. You are lucid.
This is the photo of a 12-year-old Chinese girl who lost an eye and a finger after her cellphone exploded. A quick search reveals dozens of similar cases: phones exploding in hands, under pillows, during charging, even while people were talking on them. Likewise, even the rarest and most extreme cases of failed hangings are documented: paralysis, brain damage, unwanted survival. The truth is that anything we do carries a risk. Even living. Even sleeping. Even going out to buy bread. Nothing is safe. Every choice, every action, is exposure to the possibility of the unexpected. Existence itself is a fragile balance. And sometimes, it takes just a wire or a wire exploding to break it.
