Symptoms

 There is so much that comes into play. Suicide is not the problem nor the solution. It is a symptom. Sometimes it is a symptom of too many times misrepresented. Too many times used. Too many times ignored. Too many times treated as inferior. Too many times blatantly discriminated against. Too many times rejected and ostracized. 

Suicide is not going to decrease with the way we currently handle "mental illness," the way people treat another if they find out they have one of the problems that so often lead to suicide, and how we continue with so many ostracizing social norms and cultural practices. 

It is believed that antidepressants can increase the risk of suicide. I think it just might be the prejudice and discrimination one feels and cannot escape once one is diagnosed that increases the risk of suicide. There might be a correlation to the way others treat them and don't treat them that increases risk of suicide. 

Recently, I am struggling again. 

Struggling to keep those images out of my mind. 

Struggling to feel my life is of value and worth. 

It is a symptom. 

But this time it is not a symptom of my TBI or mania, or imbalanced chemistry. I am very balanced. It is a symptom of things like rejection, isolation, intolerance, bias, prejudice, bigotry, ignorance of others and their determination to make me wrong after they make a mistake, or because they are bias, and/or simply uncomfortable with my "condition." 

... I think I am strong. I think I am beyond it. But the continued hits, they hurt. And I am noticing that those images are coming a bit more frequently. 

And this might just be even more scary, because at least when I was unmedicated and imbalanced I knew that my brain was not entirely rational, I knew that my chemistry and body were off, and I could attribute it to the imbalance. Now it is the rational realization that those friends really don't care, those people whom I have loved, appreciated, stood up for and even defended, -medical providers, educators, police officers, friends, family members- do not feel the same regard for me. They would literally rather I not be around.

That symptom seems most dangerous. 

Dear Brazil Man (the one whose community assured me that he was perfectly safe, "just crazy"),

You are very lucky to live in a community that does not fear you because of your illness. You are very lucky that your community treats you with kind regard and even appreciation. 

Some of us are not so lucky and the harder we try to change and help implement change, the harder we try to help people understand that "crazy" people are not bad or scary, -that we can become self aware, understand, and learn how to treat and manage our condition much the same way people with so many other illnesses and conditions do,- the more rejected we are. Constantly having confirmed that we are considered inferior and of no value to our communities. 

I hope you are doing well Brazil Man. I hope you are still being treated with kindness, respect and dignity. I hope your community is well and strong in these trying times. I appreciate that you taught me what you did and I appreciate the hope you gave me. I hope that someday the communities and the cultures I live in will learn to be as beautiful as you and yours on that day you in your busy, bustling city. 

Sincerely,

Lonely

...

"Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away..."

"When this all blows over," she says, "I'm going to run away for awhile."

Mya Angelou and unconditional positive regard

 Lately my husband has been playing Mike Rowe's That's the Way I Heard It podcasts whenever we go on a long drive. These short stories have been fun, interesting, and educational to listen to. I have learned about many people that I might otherwise never have learned about. I like how Rowe credits and celebrates many significant contributors to our world but who got overlooked in the writing of history. 

One of the stories that intrigued me was about a lady named Mya Angelou. I have heard the name but I didn't really know who she was so I did a quick google search. I find some quotes that I recognize. 

Although Ms. Angelou is an amazing and significant person I am going to deviate from celebrating her and focus on one of the quotes she is famous for; a significant observation she made that can also be used to explain the problem with therapists being allowed to terminate and ignore highly vulnerable patients when they are entangled in transference and/or countertransference.

The quote: 

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

            -Mya Angelou

When a person is seeing any form of psychologist for any form of psychological therapy, one form of transference -that frequently occurs- is that of learning to love themselves through loving their therapist. Unconditional positive regard and the therapists mirroring techniques, such as reflective listening, are significant contributors to this form of transference. These trendy therapist utilized techniques are effective because of how they influence a persons feelings. For many people, this therapeutic environment is their safe place and often the one place in the world where they feel valued and appreciated. They may feel finally understood and cared for. They may feel compassion and even passion. They will also feel whatever the therapist reflects and projects. They may not fully understand it -they may not understand it all- but they will feel it. 

When I was with Dr. He I felt it. I felt safe, understood, appreciated, valued, comfortable, and loved. My imperfect self was perfectly imperfect and I was noticed and significant. It felt good. And I felt good when I was with Dr. He. 

But then, suddenly, when these good feelings were just starting to become more prevalent in my life away from Dr. He, he dropped me. 

...And it hurt. 

Bad. 

It broke me. And then my feelings and physiology went haywire. 

I was able to go back. That is when Dr. He implied a reciprocation of the profoundly intense and meaningful feelings I had for him; my feelings that may have mostly been meant for me but were still transferred onto him. The feelings triggered and feed by his confession, or manipulation, were even more intense and beautifully bizarre. A drug. Euphoric. A surreal nirvana I had obtained that directly correlated with this man. 

 "... people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

How he made me feel. That was where I was left. 

And if you have ever reached it, you know too, that you never want to forget nirvana.

After it was determined that he could no longer be my therapist,  he was determined to never have anything to do with me... Then I felt rejection and confusion. I felt the deep feelings of loss that made my heart physically hurt. I also felt the reality of my injuries and vulnerabilities that I was trying to figure out and understand but that were also being denied by the experts. I felt passion but also lonely despair. I felt "let it burn out" as instructions of what was supposed to happen to me and what I was supposed to do with me for his sake. I felt so many bizarre and profoundly painful things as I tried to get to the bottom of what was happening to me, my body, my chemistry, and my psychology. These tragic and painful feelings could arguably be attributed as also ways that Dr. He made me feel. But there is a huge problem: These harsh and painful feelings did not associate as well with him as the profoundly positive feelings did simply because the positive was felt in his presence while the negative directly correlated with the absence of his presence. I needed to feel the negative that was coming from him directly from him. I understood this and was fighting for it. But he would deny it which would further reinforce the profound feelings associated how I felt when I was with him that were still tied to him and further negate the unconditional positive regard that was supposed to be associated with me.

I also see this in my sweet friend who found me through my answers on Quora about countertransference. She actually had the chance to talk with her therapist after a traumatic ending to their therapeutic relationship. However she was blamed and shamed more than understood and helped. Thus the negative feelings were tied back to her while he, the therapist who was supposed to be the one having and giving unconditional positive regard, was given unconditional positive regard by her, the client. After this one meeting, she was then abandoned and expected, even threatened, to never speak to him again. It is very easy to see how this could so easily end in the emotional trap of not being able to forget positive feelings that were associated with him while the negative feelings she would tie back to her because they were felt in his absence and outright rejection of her. 

Artificial unconditional positive regard then manifesting as the nastiest dagger-in-the-back it really is. 

Is there a better solution? A better possible outcome?

Yes. There is. 

How? I think the first things that need to happen are: Therapists need to follow through with unconditional positive regard when the conditions are tested. Therapist also need to be willing to, at very least, reciprocate the unconditional positive regard their client/patients have for them OR be willing to stop their ego and/or insecurities from sacrificing the client and the clients best interest to selfishly cling to the true unconditional positive regard the patient/client has for them by rejecting the client before the client might reject them. 

The Plight of the Inferior

 When Rosa parks was told to go to the back of the bus she was given no explanation and there was no discussion to be had. She simply belonged to a classification of people that were believed to be inferior so therefore she was obligated to accept unfair treatment and if she did not she could face criminal charges. For us looking back it is ludicrous and unscrupulous. But for those at the time it was simply the societal norms and expectations. 

Today people with TBI's and psychological disorders are treated similarly. We are figuratively expected to go to the back of the bus and tolerate the fear, misconceptions and unfair treatment of us because we belong to the classification of people that are currently believed to be inferior. And if we do not comply we may even face criminal charges that would otherwise never be allowed to even be filed. It is asinine and ludicrous and yet it is happening...

In my PSY 1010 course book, the 5th edition of Psychology in Daily Life by David Myers and Nathan Dewall, it makes clear (and is backed by research) that psychological disorders do not increase risk of violence nor do they predict who is likely to do harm AND that "People with disorders are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of violence" (pg. 396) 

It is documented and it is known, that people who have certain psychological disorders are highly vulnerable and overwhelmingly non-violent yet we are all lumped together and overgeneralized to be threatening and dangerous. Then all you have to do is bring up one of our disorders and you can get away with all manner of abuse and mistreatment.  

But then, the very same book -that defends people with psychological disorders- makes overgeneralizing statements like this, "Better predictors of violence are the use of alcohol and drugs, previous violence, gun availability and - as was the case of the repeatedly head-injured and ultimately homicidal National Football League player Aaron Hernandez - brain damage" (pg. 396)

And automatically victims of atrocious domestic violence and injuries from events completely out of their control are lumped into the same category as drug and alcohol abusers and homicidal people. Which leads to and somehow justifies them being discriminated against -because they can be predicted to be violent. So people fear and/or poke and instigate and then accusingly declare, "see, they are violent" even if "they" are acting the way any person would act if they were being mistreated similarly. 

Most of us are fighters, that's how we survived, but that does not make us violent. I am not violent. Nor are many people with TBI's. In fact, for many, the TBI can actually decrease aggression and for those that it has increased violent tendencies for, due to neuroplasticity, it is quite possible they can overcome it. 

I know this because I have overcome a lot that TBI has been the cause of. For example, I stopped bloodying my hands on a punching bag many, many years ago because I had overcome the anger and aggression the first TBI had caused. The punching bag, a resource, was the only victim of my aggression. We are human and humane and, when we are fighting to stay that way, it is neither human nor humane to label and predict then stigmatize, ostracize, and punish us for your fears and misconceptions.

The second TBI did not cause violence or aggression at all, it seemed to take any and all aggression out of me, even assertiveness. Since that TBI, I have had to do the reverse; utilize neuroplasticity to help me fight and keep fighting when I had nothing left in me and was fading into just that; nothing.  

Sigh...

My plight continues. But I will not quit. 

 

Tangential Speech

I am very fortunate to be able to work as an academic advisor with the occasional students of my former employer. I enjoy this. Sometimes I am an academic advisor, sometimes a tutor, sometimes more of a mentor or a coach, and sometimes am just someone to hold them accountable to there school work. 

Today I was working with one of these students. An intriguing adolescent boy who gets easily sucked into the rabbit holes of physics. Today one of those rabbit holes was literally black holes which are incredibly difficult to escape so it is not surprising that he was so distracted and sidetracked by this tangent he got sucked into. I enjoy this boys fascination and comprehension of physics. It is fun to talk about, but he easily gets sidetracked from the task at hand and I frequently have to carefully redirect him back to the task at hand. 

Today as I was trying to maintain that delicate balance I was reminded of a time in my life and person who would allow me to go off on tangents but then would carefully redirect me back to the purpose for my visit. I thought how interesting it was that I was now doing this for this boy and it made me that much more aware of the significance of my role. I remembered how I had even blogged about this and I felt this experience with this boy helped me understand better my own analogy of the straightjacket that I once applied to my redirector. (You can read that here: https://amicrazy2.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-straight-jacket.html ).

As I am driving home from working with my student I reflect on how alone I have been in my plight since that straightjacket therapist broke me. That is when I remember I need to call my mom back. My mom who had said she would help me try and sort out my medical records and file the requests for them to be corrected. I try calling. She does not answer and I am left alone with my thoughts again. I feel a bit sad about how my mom had not followed through with that help and about how truly alone I am with these very heavy burdens. I am not surprised by my moms lack of follow through but was more surprised by her calling. These days it is unusual for her to want to call and talk about anything but she wanted to talk so I wondered why she was calling. 

My mom rarely surprises me, but when we finally connect today I am surprised, very surprised, to learn that she had been going over my medical records and she wanted to talk about them. It has been so long she does not remember what I had asked her to help me with. She says they have been hard to go over, they have made her emotional. She sees some of herself and her traumas but she also feels bad about me and mine and how she did not know how to help when I needed it most. But one thing she mentions is especially interesting. She says something about how Dr. He had mentioned several times tangential speech in his notes on me. She was not sure what that meant so she looked it up and it was upsetting to her. She feels like this problem should have been an indication of the something-more-going-on-with-my-head that I had tried to explain so many times to so many different providers and that really was going on. She is upset that Dr. He did request further testing and brain imaging to be done or for me to be seen specifically by a neurologist at his facility. 

After I get off the phone with my mom I look up the term. This is what comes up: "Tangential speech or tangentiality is a communication disorder in which the train of thought of the speaker wanders and shows a lack of focus, never returning to the initial topic of the conversation." this is according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangential_speech and if you read the second paragraph of that link it states: "Some adults with right hemisphere brain damage may exhibit behavior that includes tangential speech.[4]" My mom remembered that the damage found on the MRI done last December was in the right hemisphere. The MRI that was done by an entirely different institution over year after Dr. He had documented my tangential speech. 

And I am emotional again. The straightjacket analogy making more sense now and my heart broken and confused once again by the burden of knowing that he knows his stuff and he knew what he was doing. Then the question of my previous physical therapist echos in my head, "what is the worst possible scenario?" 

"That he is a grooming psychologist, and I have to bring it to light or to stop him," I reply (or something to that effect). 

But the thing is I still don't know. It is not proof that Dr. He is a grooming psychologist, and I know that it could just be more evidence of just how messed up the whole institution is or even the industries of psychology. I have seen and heard the bias and discrimination plain and clear in the language of the empirical and scholarly research and by and from the providers. I have seen how far down the nose other psychologists will look at a person who develops feelings for a person like me. I have seen and felt just how inferior I am made out to be with my damaged brain and disorders of psychology and personality. I have seen just how rigid and unwilling the professionals are to believe that we are not inferior and that a person can be successful at adjusting, adapting and living as a well-adjusted person with the those disorders rather than the person being the disorder. 

An anomaly or the member of an inferior class of people that would be shameful to be attracted to or to credit with a comparable level of intelligence? Which am I? 

I am an anomaly. But just as anomalies so often are, maybe I am less of one than they think. Maybe if people would stop treating me and those like me as shameful subhumans than they might find the things that make me a successful and/or positive anomaly are not so unusual after all. 

...But mostly what about the tangential coincidences of the day? Tangential speech, not to be confused with circumstantial speech.