Eighteen Minutes in Limbo

The engine is off. The silence is thick, but it’s not the cheerful hush I remember. The car park once echoed with the cooing melody of magpies, a melodic signal of a new, promising day. Now, the silence is thick, smothering, and utterly uncomfortable, frozen solid. It’s the moment after a sound barrier has broken, and my ears are still ringing with the shock of release.

My finger is hovering over the 'Sent' folder on my phone screen. It's done. I have sent the email to Emily, the one meticulously listing every betrayal, every lie, every boundary Kiandra shattered. However ,I feel terrible, the familiar clench of guilt pulling low in my gut, the kind of reflexive, conditioned guilt that screams, You caused conflict, you bad person.

But I didn't cause the conflict. I just documented the debris. To anyone else driving past, this whole palaver was maybe trivial, a brief moment of client-trainer friction. But nothing, absolutely nothing, is trivial when you're the one being relentlessly steamrolled by the situation.

The memory of the final moment of collapse in this very car park confirms I did the right thing.

Just this morning, at 4:00 am, I sat here in the dark, ready for my regular gym routine. I could barely fathom the normal happiness I had when a new day and a new session had fallen.

Frozen. My body simply locked inside, unable to move. Blankly staring at the door of Tuned and Toned, lost in thought as my mind played the last four weeks back like a hideous movie reel.

It took eighteen minutes for me to turn the car off and open the door. And still, I couldn't make myself move much more. Eight more minutes passed, and I pulled one leg out of the car, but still, it was as though something invisible kept me stalled. Twenty minutes more, and I had spent my time pleading with myself to just get out of the car. Knowing how desperately I needed the exercise and the structured movement to maintain my CRPS management, I finally pushed myself out. Only to walk maybe fifteen steps before completely freezing, unable to go on.

I was utterly fatigued by the drama that wasn't mine to carry. My feet felt like a pair of shoes I had been meaning to take back—heavy, uncomfortable, and utterly unnecessary. That physical paralysis, overriding the clinical need to move, was the ultimate proof that Kiandra hadn't just ruined my sessions; she had ruined my access to my own sanctuary.

Tuned and Toned—a facility smelling not of honest effort, but of lingering stale sweat, aggressively cheerful lemongrass disinfectant, and cheap antibacterial gel. That chemical-sweet stink was my home, my chosen sanctuary. It was where the world of chronic pain management dissolved into the simple equation of lift, sweat, endure. Kiandra, my PT, was supposed to be the gatekeeper to that truth. And for a time, I desperately needed her. I needed help to navigate my CRPS, and she made me feel safe, until she didn't. That fear—the fear of my condition worsening without her help—was the only thing that made me put up with her for so long.

The relationship was never a partnership; it was a glacier hiding a fissure. The secret that threatened to shatter our relationship wasn't a mistake I made, but the ever-growing secret she made me carry.

The breakdown was relentless. What wasn't just the constant "ear rape of her four-week whine" that bothered me, but her sheer arrogance, contradictory attitude, and ignorance that rattled my peace. The lies, the dogmatism, her self-righteous ego that made you feel utterly gaslit. I realized I had spent the last four weeks being drowned by petty irrelevance that took up far too much brain power.

The fracture quickly became an avalanche of secrets. I listened to her bitter complaints about the rent not honoring the promise made during the takeover—a financial grievance that was, frankly, none of my business. I listened to her fume about getting pulled up for sneaking non-members in. The venom thickened when she discussed her colleagues: she bitterly complained that Chloe, the assistant manager, and Emily didn't support her when another staff member, Susannah, lodged a complaint over alleged body comments. I, Bella, was constantly being dragged into her validation-seeking loop, forced to act as her defence lawyer.

I realised I knew more about her client list's medical, financial, and sexual preferences than I knew about my own body’s progress. The lack of boundaries made me worry about what highly personal matters of mine she was breaching, completely destroying my trust.

The ultimate betrayal came when I cried in distress. The final accusation was a weaponized lie. She didn't recall the emotional dumping; she only remembered my tears. And she used them to accuse me of yelling and treating her like an "emotional punching bag." The irony was so thick it was practically choking.

That was the secret that shattered the relationship beyond repair. The secret wasn't the gossip; the secret was that our whole interaction had been built on a foundation of professional manipulation and denial. Her arrogance and flat-out ignorance convinced me that she would never see her fault.

And that's when the side of integrity woke up. I thought, If you don't have clean hands, you should mind your words. When she attacked my character, she eliminated any reason I had left to remain silent.

I went home and wrote the email. I documented the facts. Every detail. I laid it out, clean and cold, not as a rant, but as evidence.

That email was the act of clean hands, but it didn't purchase freedom. I put the car in drive and finally leave the car park behind. The tears don't come. I feel merely uncoupled from the lie, but what remains is a profound, aching sadness.

I don't feel free. Freedom would imply joy and certainty. I feel completely isolated, having lost my gym routine, fearful that four months of tireless training and hundreds of dollars spent on CRPS management have been for nothing. I refused to shrink to fit what others call "life"—the pointless squabbling and unnecessary bickering—and now I am left standing alone.

With Christmas approaching and a move looming, the fear of the unknown is amplified tenfold. I feel utterly in limbo, a broken shell, desperately sad. This journey—this insistence on accepting others' destructive ways while refusing to partake in them—is essential for my personal truth. But my stars, it is a lonely path that I both understand and deeply hurt from. I have my integrity now, but the cost has been everything else.