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Thursday, January 10, 2019

time to stand on my own two feet

My husband...He knows about my blog. He can read this and know what is coming. Know where I am, how I am doing and how I am feeling. He doesn't like talking about things.  He can read this. But he doesn't.
I have two men in my life that I love but neither read my blog. 

It is time to stand on my own two feet. 

the new Therapist

Radical acceptance.
That is a term the new therapist taught me. and honestly I wonder what my old therapist would think of this
for me
right now
But my old therapist really wouldn't know because I kept way too much from him. Because I felt his "pain" and I protected him. Probably at my expense.
Empath
that was the word I have been looking for.
what is that, what does it mean again?
I do know the word but I really don't want to think about it right now. Clearly it fits me but I need it to not for a minute
and I need to be strong at the same time.
The problem is I know I need to leave. I know that needs to be my radical acceptance
and yet then I am the rejector.
And I will not have support in this decision.
I will have support from my new therapist
but I won't be able to afford him anymore so it's a bit of a predicament.
I don't need a psychiatrist. Old therapist is actually correct in that it was not what I needed when I emailed him concerned that I was cycling into an unstable state.
 But facing this reality puts me at high risk of cycling into an unstable place. and acting on it will. or maybe not acting on it is what is putting me at risk? I really don't know. But clearly I am "high risk"
I read an article recently about brain injuries and the outcome of lasting effects also being related to the amount of social/emotional support the person has during recovery. I am past the initial physical recovery from this most recent concussion...I think. But my past is difficult and I can confidently say that leaving my husband is going to earn me much criticism and that lack of support that I have long dealt with could very well escalate.
that, and I will be so poor... I'm okay with that, but it is hard to give up financial security. I have been there before and I am resourceful; it's just another added stressor and since my current job pays enough to cover... well nothing. Taxes maybe. I am not at all sure how to move forward. I will have to be the one leaving. I will have to give up everything. Except the kids which is what really matters... but I will not have means to support them financially.
They will be angry. They will experience hard emotions. They will blame me.
I will hurt and I will question myself. I will wonder if I am doing "the right" thing.
But I don't want to think about that right now. I am not "right" to stay. I have not been "right" to stay. Where I thought I was being an empath I was merely being weak and he deserves more than that.
I have stayed too long
and damage is done
Am I strong enough?
Or am I stuck.
I wish it were not so complicated
But it is.
So Radical Acceptance?
Maybe then I will sleep again?

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Writing my own story

This is where I belong
In the brain injury world
It is something I was fighting when I didn't know what I was fighting because I had what others (in authority) had perceived as "a full recovery" and because I had not lost (too much) of my intellectual abilities.
I do not want to be passed off now as head injury being "secondary" to mental illness or that is compounded by a preexisting mental illness. I do not believe this is the case. Even though in the case of this recent concussion it seems that way, that mental illness was secondary to a first and worse head injury. I believe my mental illnesses are a direct result of head injury. I may have been biologically more susceptible to mental illness but we can not say they would have developed had I not had a head injury. Prior I was a child and I was fine. Other then being a deep thinker at times and considered "gifted" I was easy going and NOT all the things I developed after the head injury that could get me all sorts of psychiatric diagnosis. My childhood had problems that would also mess me up, but the head injury definitely caused its own set of problems and I believe that my ability to maintain balance and keep myself out of hospitals and psych wards through some pretty intense mood swings and suicidal tendencies may be evidence against mental illness being the primary problem. It is just a theory. But it is also my life and it is my story and I get to write it.