One of the hardest parts of recovering from a head injury is dealing with "irrational" emotions.
But irrational emotions are not an exclusive problem to head injuries.
Irrational emotions are also a problem when we are going through stressful life events.
Irrational emotions can be part attributed to puberty also.
They are a part of our basic human nature.
Sometimes our primal instincts are irrational.
Whether they are actually nature or nurture many of our "instinctive" reactions are irrational, like in snowboarding, if you understand the physics of it you know that you have to overcome the instinctive fear that causes leaning back and lean forward with the snowboard in order to have and stay in control.
But with head injury, emotional regulation becomes difficult and changed personalities are a common "problem" associated with head injuries.
I was 12 when my brain was damaged. 12; the middle of seventh grade, the beginning of all those exciting changes that throw your emotions all over the place anyway.
Anger.
That is the worst of the new and intense emotions in my opinion. That was the worst one to deal with and regulate as it could take over so quickly and cause harm so quickly.
My parents had their own difficult to extremely difficult issue's so anger was no stranger to our home.
I hated anger. I still do.
As a little little I was not an angry child. I was empathetic, shy but fun, and pretty laid back. I remember going through some elementary experiences that may have made me "mad" in some way, but I don't remember being "mad" about them. I would stand up for people or myself but I was never angry.
At least not like what I would experience later.
Immediately after my youthful head injury I don't remember anger then either. I was too tired to feel much of anything. But as my tired fog lifted new personality traits seemed to come out of the woodworks and there were times when I was very angry. Intensely angry. Instantly angry. Stewing plotting angry. Many forms of angry. It is a good thing I was surrounded by so many good people and it is a good thing I was really an empath. But you better believe being an empath with so much anger was a very difficult form to live in.
Other emotions and emotional reactions could be irrational also. But that anger, that most likely stemmed from head injury, and was an alien to my core may now prove to be my redeeming grace. Because some of these emotions caused me so much discomfort I was determined to figure them out and learn to control/manage them. I have worked long and hard for many years learning to self-regulate. I know that at times we can not trust ourselves because of our emotions and how they are effecting our thinking. I have learned to recognize so many symptoms that I can vocalize and tell people when I am irrational and my thoughts may not be so trust worthy.
I believe that many people reach some level of this as they learn to say "no, I am sorry that is too much for me right now." and that is a good thing.
However, while many people identify this in themselves, few are comfortable with being honest about it. I often have felt being honest is the best way and maybe I took the example of the man who was hearing bad Jesus to heart a bit too much ...I do have a tendency to do that, I'll take you to heart so unless you want to be trusted, appreciated and loved you probably better not try to help me...
But that is not what is usually understood.
Often in life we are so much more lemming-like than we ever care to realize as we follow all the rules, cliches, stereotypes and trends in thinking if a person admits they have had issues with other people we will hold it against them. We will be guarded and say "well this problem or thing that is making me uncomfortable must be them because they have struggled with others too." It is so much easier to write someone off and stay guarded in ourselves than to work things out and try to truly understand each other. At other times we do not want to face our own insecurities or maybe we made a mistake we don't want to face so instead of examining for ourselves we easily blame the obvious problem and let the more honest one take the fall for all.
It is an easy trap to fall into. I have myself plenty.
But I am also so keenly aware of our dual natures that it is both a strength and a weakness to me and I often make the "mistake" of trusting others to see what I so easily see but instead they will blame me.
So I have struggled some lately in knowing who I can trust, and who I should trust. The people who were supposed to help me decided that I am to blame for whatever went awry. Well they are right, if it is me that is the problem than I am to blame, but if that is why I went to them and their job was to help me fix the problem then... Obviously the agreement was to help me fix me, so blaming me for trusting them when it was their "professional" fires that burned me down or up just doesn't make sense. I don't understand their games, I don't know their rules, I have tried to learn them and I have tried to be honest about what I don't know and when I know I am in an irrational place and I was trusting them to be the professionals.. But somehow, I keep messing things up...?
Who do I trust? Can I ever really trust anyone after this?
Yes, I can trust myself. I know this because I am so keenly aware of when I cannot entirely trust myself and/or my emotions and I will ask for help. I wonder if they know how easily we can turn what we fear into the very thing that we fear when we are too heavily focused on our fear..
One of my realizations in reprocessing (and I have realized this before) is that I take way more responsibility and blame myself for way too much at times. I am the perfect scapegoat because I make myself one.
In these defining moments of my life, will I continue to be that or do I stand up for myself even if it makes people uncomfortable?
...and how far do I take that?
I'd rather be forgiving and work things out. I'd rather be forgiven and understood.
This writing did not go the way I thought. I am struggling to get my thoughts out the way I am thinking them so I hope it makes sense... but maybe that is okay, maybe this is for someone else or maybe it is for me to look at later, but it feels important so I will leave it.
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