A privilege and an honor

I am walking with my dog when I cross paths with a neighbor who is doing the same thing. We stop and chat for a moment. She asks me how I am. A simple question but one that is rarely asked in sincerity. Even so, I usually reflect on the question to some degree and I try to answer honestly. [One of the reasons I try to answer honestly is because it opens the door for the other person to talk and answer honestly should the need that time, space, conversation and/or concern from another person. If you are one who only ever answers with the expected "fine" or "good" then you would likely be surprised by how often others are grateful for and really need someone to listen to how they are actually doing]  

"Good," I say... "Well... at least, mostly good." 

She understands. We chat about a few things, mostly about the dogs, and then part ways. After that, as I walk, I reflect more on how I am. 

Truthfully, and in real time, I feel very fortunate and grateful that I have such a good life. I am grateful for my family and my husband who works so hard to support us, his family, and who contributes to and allows me to pursue the adventures I do. I am so grateful that I have a house, two amazing kids, and my health is as good as it is. I am so grateful and happy about so many things and I feel privileged and honored to have had so many of the experiences I have had. 

Privileged and honored. 

As I walk, I reflect on these two words because that is really how I feel about (and maybe especially about) some of the more bizarre experiences I have had. I feel privileged and honored to have had a glimpse into what it is like to experience some of the hardships others have experienced. I am grateful that I have only experienced them to the degree that I have. I feel it is a privilege to understand so many things TBI has helped me to understand. I feel it is an honor to be able to relate to some of the hardships certain classes and races of people experience due to the ignorant perceptions of others who are either ignorantly bias or deliberately bias. I could continue but the important point is that I don't want to view my burdens and struggles as just that and nothing more. I can and have changed my perceptions to see them as opportunities and education. I find it much more productive and helpful to embrace them and learn to work with them than to constantly be fighting them and wishing they weren't there. And I really do feel privileged and honored to have been given a glimpse into a variety of very real and very challenging struggles for so many different people from so many different demographics. 

Yet, this is also why I am only "mostly good."

 I want to use these experiences and insights to help others but I am severely restricted in my ability to so as I experience the reality of those ignorant biases when I try to help or when even I try to get my own needs met. The cycles of bias and discrimination are so much worse then I understood when I had my story buried so well before the car accident of 2017. I knew, which is why I buried my story, but I suppose I had hope that these things really had improved over time. At very least I hoped that the industry and those in charge of treating and educating others about the issues had learned to recognize and end their own biases and prejudices. I am sure that some have and I have had good experiences with some, but overall the responses and reactions to me, by those in those power positions, have been surprisingly negative and very heavily bias. 

Sadly, it seems, a large portion of providers and educators are all still surprisingly ignorant and often outright rude in spite of their extensive education of the issues. However, the worst part is how they use their education and titles to assist themselves in using the very conditions they are supposed to be helping to treat and/or address against the people who have them. They use conditions, labels, diagnosis's etc. to justify their unjustifiable and unethical treatment of the person who carries not only the label but the reality of the condition. It is very basic bigotry so you would think they would realize it and that it would not be so easy to get away with. However that is where we are as a society at this point in time; they use misconceptions, stigmas, stereotypes, biases and prejudice to their advantage and they get away with it. 

As I reflect on this I remember the girls I worked with, at Wet Seal, in the Palm Beach Gardens Mall when I was 18. I think of their cultural expectations and biases as I remember the story they told me of a girl they went to high school with who was raped multiple times by multiple people, to the point of requiring hospitalization, after she got drunk and passed out at a party. Disgusting and egregious offenses by multiple boys and all those who turned a blind eye to it. BUT the Florida girls I worked with blamed the girl for it. "She knows better then to get drunk at a party," the would say. Some even went so far as to say "it was her own fault." I could not believe my ears. The culture I was living in was so bias and warped in their views that they faulted the victim of horrific abuse for the abuses.  

Now I am not the victim of anything nearly as horrific but I wonder how often people have thought of me, "you brought it on yourself," because I now choose to talk about and be honest about my conditions that people so commonly discriminate against? I think of the investigating officer believing that I am guilty of a crime that did not actually happen and of the only offense that could even be perceived as criminal that I had no part in and no knowledge of simply because I write honestly here on this blog about the conditions I have had [the privilege and the honor] to struggle with. I think of the police and prosecuting attorneys who assumed I was guilty of the alleged crimes and how they filed charges without ever even talking to me because TBI was noted by those reporting, they found this blog, and because the alleged victim, a professor of psychology, made statements about me and specifically about mania that were intended to defame and discredit me, my efforts to heal and progress, and even my efforts to help others. The sad thing is: it worked and it worked so easily. What was obvious bias and prejudice, from a person who made it pretty clear they had ulterior motives, was easily accepted because it was from someone with perceived authority on my conditions and because I am a member of a class of people that are currently viewed as inferior. 

I shutter to think how many people failed to do their due diligence due to their prejudices and/or ignorance. It is disheartening to know how easily the actual problem could have been addressed, solved and resolved if those involved and those who knew about it had been operating objectively and fairly.

So, "mostly good" is really how I am because my heart is too broken by how impossible it seems to be for me to reach my full potential and to fulfill the "you will help so many people" hopes of those who understand that potential. I worry that those who have expressed that confidence will also loose hope and confidence in me as I suffer another set back from the exact human misconceptions, ignorance, and ego's I am trying to help correct for the benefit of those who are suffering so unfairly and so unnecessarily because of them.

And this is where I am at today as I hope and pray I will be given a chance by the next group of educators I am asking to give me a chance and to help me reach that potential. To me, my experiences in the Wonderland's of psychology, TBI and mental health have been a privilege and an honor. One that I have managed and mastered well and I would like to use that knowledge, those skills and that mastery to help others. I hope I will be given that chance.