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Martin Pistorius was a prisoner in his body for 12 years, unable to move or speak.

“What would you do if you were locked in your body, your brain intact but with no way to communicate? How do you survive emotionally when you are invisible to everyone you know and love?”

This question was asked to Martin Pistorius – a husband, a writer, an entrepreneur – and it’s one that only he was in a position to answer.

Because when Martin was 12 years old and growing up in South Africa, he came home from school one day with a sore throat.

As he told website NPR, in the months that followed, his body virtually gave up on itself.

His mind wasted away. His body weakened. His hands and feet curled over and he slipped into a coma.

His doctors and family were baffled. Martin was diagnosed with Cryptococci meningitis and tuberculosis of the brain, but this was a guess at most.

His parents were told to expect the worst. He was as good as not there, nothing more than a vegetable, doctors said. The hospital advised he should be brought home to die.

But while Martin couldn’t talk, or move, or make eye contact, he was still there. And a few years into his condition, Martin slowly started to wake up.

He still couldn’t move or speak, but he could hear and see. His body felt distant, he said, “as if encased in concrete.”

“Everyone was so used to me not being there that they didn’t notice when I began to be present again. The stark reality hit me that I was going to spend the rest of my life like that — totally alone,” he told Invisibilia.

“You don’t really think about anything. You simply exist. It’s a very dark place to find yourself because, in a sense, you are allowing yourself to vanish.”

Martin would sit at home and be left while his parents would take his younger siblings on family holidays. His mind would wander in those long periods of silence and he’d catch himself worrying his family would have a car accident and die, and would never return home to get him.

Martin Pistorius and his wife, pictured now. Image via Facebook.

 

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“I never felt angry with my parents as I knew they loved me and they did the best they could. But I felt furious about the situation. There were many times when I cried inside. I reached a point where I essentially gave up.”

Throughout the 12 years, his family never thought he could hear or see them. His mother, Joan, remembers looking at Martin one day and saying, “I hope you die.”

She didn’t think Martin could hear her. She didn’t think her son was really even alive.

But he was. In fact, he had begun to wake up a few years before.

Martin, now. Image via Facebook.

 

“As time passed, I gradually learned to understand my mother’s desperation. Every time she looked at me, she could see only a cruel parody of the once-healthy child she had loved so much,” Martin said.

After 12 long years of literally being trapped inside his own body, Martin recovered.

He’s now 39, has complete control of his body and is married.

His wife, Joanna, says she is constantly in awe of his incredible mind.

Below is the full interview by NPR’s Invisibilia. Post continues after video.

“I work with the disabled in my career, so it isn’t something I am wary of, and I just knew — it’s hard to explain — that Martin was very special. I’d had relationships before, but he struck me as a very unusual and fascinating man. Straight away, I saw past his disability,” Joanna told MailOnline.

“It makes me angry when people refer to me as his ‘carer’. I’m not his carer. I am his wife. His mind is incredible, and I am learning from him all the time.”

Martin’s recovery is nothing short of miraculous. From doctors and family giving up on him, to grabbing his life back and finally being in control of his own body – his story is undeniably remarkable.

Martin has written a book about his experience, called Ghost Boy. You can purchase it by clicking here.