For over a year, Jake Haendel endured ‘locked-in syndrome,’ a condition that many people find terrifying.

His heroin addiction left the 36-year-old from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, paralyzed and unable to speak or interact for ten months.

He was a party animal in his youth, but he also suffered from melancholy and sleeplessness, resorting to alcohol and narcotics as he grew older, characterizing himself as a ‘high-functioning’ addict.

This would subsequently lead to him developing locked-in syndrome (LIS), a rare neurological condition that paralyzes all voluntary muscles save those governing eye movement and blinking.

It horrifyingly implied that he was conscious but unable to move or talk.

In May 2017, Jake started exhibiting some peculiar symptoms, including a higher-pitched voice, which others pointed out to him. They also reported that he started to swerve and eventually lost his balance while walking.

“I’d have to put my hands up on the walls on the side to keep my balance while he went to get checked out,” he told Inside Edition on YouTube.

Health personnel tested him for stroke-like symptoms, but he was skeptical because the symptoms had been present for weeks.
Doctors diagnosed him with a deadly brain illness and gave him six months to live, informing him that within three to four months, he would lose the capacity to swallow and communicate, as well as the ability to move or sit upright.

They falsely claimed that he would rapidly deteriorate, that no one would survive, and that he would soon receive a brain death certificate.

Jake realized the doctors assumed he wasn’t aware after hearing two nurses mention ‘a super uncomfortable hookup.'”.

“Two nurses were working on me… [one of them] giggling and saying, ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t talk in front of the patient,’ and the other one said, ‘Oh, he can’t hear you; he’s brain dead anyway’—that’s how I learned,” he said.

Jake said, “There were a lot of intense emotions when I heard that, because I was like, ‘Oh my God, they think I’m brain dead,’ and then I’m like, ‘Wait, am I brain dead?'”

When he realized he could think and recall, he realized he wasn’t brain-dead and satisfied himself that he wasn’t going insane.

Panicking, he wondered if he would ever be able to leave after being in this state for ten months.

“Minutes felt like hours, hours felt like days, days felt like weeks, and it was even hard to calculate what a day was,” he claimed, adding that he attempted counting seconds to find out what a minute was.

Convinced that he didn’t sleep, he claimed that he passed out instead.

Jake humorously described Law & Order SVU as “painful as hell, a different form of pain,” recalling his time spent watching the show.

“The only unfortunate thing I heard from a healthcare worker was that they literally came in the room and said, ‘I don’t feel like brushing your teeth today,’ and walked out,” he added.

His hypersensitivity also caused his skin to ache when he felt a gentle wind, the weight of the blankets, or when they buried him in the duvet, which caused him to sweat.

Jake also stated that he would get itches, which no one could relieve since he was unable to talk, leading him to worry and pass out.

After 10 months, he experienced a breakthrough: “They’re just doing their usual rounds, and I’m kind of stuck in purgatory here, and I hear, ‘He’s moving something; you guys see that?'” He was moving involuntarily, and I heard him say, “Hey, I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, do it again,” which he did with all his effort.

Before teaching him to speak again, they brought in a nonverbal specialist to help him communicate with his eyes.

Today, he has relearned how to talk. While he demonstrated on video that he struggles to sip water, he stated that he ‘appreciates everything’ because losing his ability to operate has changed his perspective on life.