The Agony of Celestine: A Visit to Self-Esteem in Intensive Care

By Dr. Wil Rodríguez

Prologue

Some people think self-esteem is a mindset.Others call it a personality trait.But if you’ve ever had yours broken — you know better.

Self-esteem is a living presence inside you. A voice. A pulse. A person.

Her name is Celestine.

This is not a story about her death.This is a story about what happens when we stop listening to her voice……And what it takes to help her breathe again.

I. Who is Celestine?

They say she used to dance.

Not the kind of dance you see on stage, but the kind that happens when a soul feels free in its own skin. Celestine laughed from her gut. She said “no” with grace. She walked into rooms like her presence was a gift — not a question.

But that was before.

Before the slow erosion.Before the relationships that fed on her softness and called it “too much.”Before she learned to say sorry for existing.Before she stopped believing her own reflection.

Celestine — bright, whole, radiant Celestine — is not gone.But she is no longer well.

And this morning… we visit her.

II. Intensive Care

The hallway smelled like antiseptic and silence.

The kind of silence that doesn’t soothe — it stings. A nurse walked past me without eye contact, like I wasn’t supposed to be there. But I was.

Room 7B: Celestine.

There she lies — pale, silent, connected to wires of validation, masked by layers of performance, sustained by a flickering hope that someone will come and remind her who she is.

The monitor beeps.

Not for her heart — but for her worth.

Every spike and dip depends on other people’s approval.Every breath comes with a question: “Am I enough yet?”

Nurses call it low self-respect saturation.Doctors whisper, “Chronic people-pleasing with complications of gaslighting.”The chart reads: Voice suppression, advanced stage.

I sit by her side. I hold her hand.And I whisper: “You don’t need to earn your breath.”

III. What Happened to Celestine?

How does self-esteem end up here?

It doesn’t happen overnight.

It starts with a joke that wounds — but you laugh anyway. It grows with a dismissal of your pain — but you explain again. It becomes chronic when love feels conditional, and survival requires silence.

She was eight when she was told to “act like a lady.”Sixteen when she smiled through heartbreak just to be liked.Twenty-three when she gave more than she had and was still told it wasn’t enough.Thirty-two when she disappeared from her own voice.

As described in Taking My Voice Back, emotional invalidation is not just psychological — it is physiological. The body internalizes disrespect as danger. The brain rewires itself to seek safety in shrinking.

Celestine stopped dancing the day she decided being loved was more important than being whole.

That decision almost killed her.

IV. The Turning Point

The fluorescent light hums above us, indifferent.

I ask the nurse when Celestine last spoke.

She shrugs. “She mumbled something two nights ago. Couldn’t catch it. Sounded like… ‘mine.’”

My chest tightens.

Could it be?

Could it be that even in her most broken state, some part of her was still reaching — still claiming?

I lean closer. I whisper again.

“Celestine… what’s yours?”

And slowly, her lips part.

One word.

“Myself.”

It’s barely audible. But it’s a pulse. A heartbeat. A spark in the dark.

And that one word changes everything.

V. Rehabilitation

No one tells you that self-esteem has to learn to walk again.

That after years of limping on compliments, crawling through apologies, and pretending everything was fine — learning to stand is painful.

Celestine doesn’t move much, but the nurses start physical therapy.

Not for her body — for her boundaries.

One exercise at a time:

                  •               Saying “no” without guilt

                  •               Receiving praise without deflection

                  •               Speaking without asking for permission

                  •               Resting without feeling lazy

                  •               Crying without shame

Each act is a protest against the systems that tried to erase her — religion, family, patriarchy, and fear.

Her muscles tremble. But she shows up.

That’s the miracle.

VI. Memory Loss and Mirrors

She doesn’t remember her strength yet.

That’s the strange part of trauma — it steals not just moments, but meaning.

Celestine stares at the mirror we left her.

She sees wrinkles she hadn’t earned, shadows under her eyes like ink stains of unspoken truths. Her hand trembles as she touches her cheek, as if confirming she was still made of skin — not silence.

“I used to love my voice,” she says. “I sang to myself in the mornings. But then… someone told me I was loud. I wanted to be loved, so I stopped.”

She looks at me.

“Do you think I can get it back?”

I answer, not with words, but with the mirror.

I place it gently in her hands and say, “Ask her.”

VII. Visitors’ Log

A clipboard hangs beside her bed.

Visitors’ Log: Blank.

Not because no one came, but because no one saw her.

She had been surrounded by people for years, yet utterly alone.

“Not even I showed up for me,” she murmurs.

But today, that changes.

VIII. Celestine Rises

It’s day 42 in the ICU.

The staff call her the whispering woman. But today, she does not whisper.

She sits up.

No IVs. No oxygen mask. No excuses.

She folds the hospital gown and places it on the chair beside her bed.

She reaches for a simple linen robe — white, clean, open at the chest.

“I’m ready,” she says.

“To be discharged?” I ask.

She nods. “No. To return.”

“To the world?”

“No,” she smiles.

“To myself.”

IX. The Discharge Papers

The nurse hands her a clipboard.Celestine reads aloud:

                  •               Diagnosis: Chronic self-abandonment

                  •               Treatment: Radical honesty and fierce self-respect

                  •               Prognosis: Hopeful, with boundaries

She pauses.

“If I sign this… I can’t go back.”

I nod.

“Back to shrinking. Back to silence. Back to begging to be heard.”

She closes her eyes. And signs:

Celestine A. Luz

I ask her what the “A” stands for.

She looks at me and says:

“Awakening.”

X. Walking Out

Celestine walks barefoot through the hospital corridor.

The floors don’t deserve her heels.

She carries no bags. Only the mirror, the journal, and one sentence she now owns:

“I am not a victim of my silence. I am the voice that broke it.”

Outside, the world hasn’t changed.

But she has.

XI. Final Note from the Author

Celestine may be a story.But she is also a reality.

In schools. In marriages. In pews. In waiting rooms. In the face you hide when no one is looking.

Celestine lives wherever self-esteem is sacrificed on the altar of approval.

But the ICU is not the end.

It’s the beginning — of remembering, reclaiming, and rising.

So if you find her in yourself,Visit her.Speak to her.Sit with her.

And when she’s ready…

Walk out together.

XII. Epilogue — Celestine Is You

You thought this was about her.But you know it’s about you.

The whisper that wants to scream.The smile that’s tired of hiding pain.The girl you left behind at someone else’s convenience.

Celestine is the child you silenced to please the room.She’s the woman you shamed for being too bold.She’s the truth you abandoned to be accepted.

But she waited.

Not for permission — for you.

And now that you’ve seen her,Now that you’ve heard her,

She won’t go back.

She won’t fit back into your survival shell.She won’t beg for crumbs in places meant to nourish.

Celestine rises,And so do you.