To gay or not gay... That is the question. (Because I am scared)

My last post... Is it my body pushing back against medication and am I swinging into a delusional high filled with grandiose ideals?
That is just it, I don't know. It may be and is that all bad? Can I, can we, as a society and individuals, capitalize on the positive aspects of some of what comes along with mental illness?
I used to have a great uncle who was our family doctor for my growing up years. He said homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness, now if you were to say something like that you would be figuratively lynched. But maybe it is, just as much as bipolar, depression, OCD, and others are. Why not? Why is saying that considered condescending to the gay and lesbians but the reverse is not considered condescending? Can we not embrace and accept other mental illnesses the way that the homosexual conditions have been fought for, embraced, and even celebrated?
When it is acceptable to be a "furry," why is it so damning to be bipolar?
Can't there be some good that comes along with bipolar? With my own over intensities?
Why is it okay to be gay but not okay to be mentally ill?
After a conversations with some teens recently I feel even more concern about all of this and the directions our society is heading. The comment was made that furries don't have a choice. I have heard that gender identity is not a choice while at the same time kids should be allowed to choose. What the hell are we teaching these future generations, what the hell are we doing to these kids?
So here is something to think about:
Like it or not, gender is not a choice. How we choose to identify IS a choice. Our sexual orientation IS a choice. Yes, I am very naturally attracted to men but I also choose to be straight. And I can change my thinking to choose differently. While I do believe their are people to which the opposite may be true I do not see how this is any different than other mental illnesses where your brain wiring and chemistry is not inline with the norm or the standard. Maybe we are not mentally ill but rather we are mentally diverse and should be accepted as such. I do not make a choice about how my brain gets so awry but I do choose how I handle it and what I do to treat it and how I work to fit in or to adapt outside of the norm.
I also see there being a problem with homosexuality being accepted while mental illness is not because, guess what, sexual attraction to the opposite sex causes? Anxiety. And it can cause a lot of it. It can be very uncomfortable and awkward to pursue that and thus we are likely to see more and more kids actually mistaking their comfort with their own gender as attraction to their own sex because they actually are attracted to the opposite sex but the anxiety and intensity of emotions they experience that accompany actual attraction is being labeled as "mental illness."
It's something to think about. And if this conversation makes you angry and you want to jump to defend gays, well, then my friend reread and please carefully exam your own bias and prejudice against "mental illness." Maybe mentally diverse really is a better term, but then will people not get help and treatment when they need it? I don't know. The problem is big and profound.
And the real reason I came on here was to say that I feel small and scared because I don't want to be big and profound. I want to me "normal" and I want to be accepted. I want to not feel the fear that I am feeling right now about trying again to establish myself within society. About the job that I feel I need to do because of my circumstances. And considering I don't take that on, I don't like the fear and apprehension I have about trying to find a job again and revisiting our former projects and some of my dreams, goals and aspirations. I am scared to branch out into the new, to say what I said I would do.
I am scared. and small. and I lack the confidence because my brain tires quickly, I know I might break, I will make mistakes, and my perfectly imperfect is really not accepted and tolerated even though I am not threatening or violent. 

It is not like in the movie "I Feel Pretty," when you wake up to your embarrassment and want to hide away. In real life everyone lets you hide and far too often they don't forgive and they don't try to understand, sometimes simply because your mistakes were not big enough and obvious enough, just weird and maybe annoying or intimidating or too intense so therefore, you are disposed of because their are plenty of other fish in the sea. 

When you have a brain injury and you are foggy, anxious emotional, and forgetful you don't get extra help or understanding, you get bad grades, mad parents, or you get fired.
I'd rather be a legit homosexual at this point in society. But I'm not going to be because, for me, I would simply be choosing that and going against my natural and default personal chemistry ...when I am already fighting enough of my own personal chemistry.
It's the same reason I never did drugs or got into drinking as a teen, I was already screwed up enough. I didn't need any help with that. What I do need is love, acceptance, compassion, respect, equal and fair treatment and for people to stop using my "conditions" against me or thinking that they mean so many things they do not. 

Shallow Hal needs a Big Gal

Sometimes it is one, occasionally I have jumped by teens. This blog that I don't really advertise but occasionally share with individuals, tells me how many unique views it receives. It's not many. And I am okay with that. I have actually asked very few people to actually read it or a specific entry and I am never sure if they do. My sister, I asked to read it awhile ago. She never remembers to and that is fine, it is how life goes. I get that.
But every time I come on here and see my numbers change I feel a bit of joy as I say to myself "Oh, I've been read."
Helping looks something like that. Often we want or wish for big numbers and we may not even invest our time in helping if we are not getting those big numbers but long ago I realized helping just one person is helping and it is significant because that one person is very significant.
If all I ever help is one person I have made a difference and I have changed the world
and I like the sense of satisfaction that brings. This is something I write because I feel it will likely be important for me to remember as I proceed with what I am coming to see and accept as my life's purpose.
I have a voice that needs to be heard. I know this and I have been told this more than once. I can bridge gaps and face stigma's because I have been doing that for so very long. It is when I shy away and hide myself from this, when I become self deprecating, that I inevitably start to break again. I think it is time for me to embrace who and what I am.
I believe it is time for me to get big.
Something like the kind of big that confused dear Dr. He in his office and profession but not the kind of big I was when he lost all his power to me and turned to self preservation not understanding himself that, in that moment, I was physiologically big from the chemical effects of mania. He did not understand because he had lost objectivity and I really am that good at managing my madness or he did understand and knew that he could play that to his advantage, use it against me. I suspect the first but there is evidence that suggests the latter and it could be a human conscious or unconscious combination of both. I am not sure.
But one thing I am sure of, is as I have tried to solve the mystery of what happened and what was and still is going on with my head I have found all the TBI stuff ringing so very true time and time again. I have found research that is tied to Dr. He that has me written all over it. I don't know if he has ever realized that and at the time of much of this research we had not even met, but I'm there in it, plain as day.
This morning, this research, confirmed that I need to keep fighting. I am in that world and that is where I belong. They really could learn so much from me and my voice needs to be heard, not just for my sake. I can bridge gaps and help or straight up fix the Neuroscience Institute.
So I have started to make connections with people that I hope can help and now my goal, my life's purpose is to make sure all that I know, all the work I have done to get me to this point is shared and heard and available to others because can be helpful to many more people.
I have worked hard to be the change I wish to see in the world now I will fight for the change I wish to see in the world. I will fight to end stigma's, to bridge gap's and to bring understanding and healing to broken minds and broken hearts.
I will fight harder and ironically that is bringing me back to life.
I hope you will join me, as I am about to go big.

I Walk Alone

I’m at the Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention walk. I came alone. “How pathetic” I think. But no, I am not pathetic at all. How many people do you know that ultimately have the courage to show up at an event like this alone?
I collect my beads. 1st Orange for my brother. Next blue, for supporting, teal for any other friend or family member, and green for my own struggles. I put the orange, blue and teal around my neck and then I placed the green into my pocket.
I am here alone in my struggle and I don’t want to advertise that. I don’t want to be noticed for it AND I don’t want to not be noticed for it. In my pocket is fine.
I walk away from the beads, see two awkward adolescents also wearing orange, ask if they also lost a sibling. The girl answers yes, their brother. I say "it sucks" and ask if I can give her a hug. Her brother, looks younger, shies away behind her. I ask him if I can give him a hug also. “Yes” awkward side hug, but I don't care, he said yes so he probably needed it too.
I head toward the center of this massive event and I see their posters with the notes people posted.This is the first and only one I see. And I need to turn away because now I am crying. And alone. so I want a little quite place of my very own where I can disappear into a tree and be present from the sidelines.

 What a beautiful anomaly this tree is. I decide to join it. This is where I start this very bog entry. Sitting on the root arch of that tree. As my emotions settle again and the eye flooding subsides I realize, with this very unique tree, perched on the arch, I am hardly invisible. So I laugh inside and hop down. I listen to a well known radio DJ tell the story of loosing his own brother.
I see IHC's booth and I feel my anger but also know the people there are not who I am angry with. However, I am here to stand as a witness, if only to my self, that even when you think you are alone you are not and to show that I can keep fighting and I am worth standing up for. So I go to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention organization's booth (they are the facilitators of this event) and I collect their information. I write "Neuroscience Institute, across the top along with the name of the facility/office director whom I had told "I am just trying to understand what is going on with my head" and "I am not sure what it looks like but I know I need to stand up for myself" and then later yelled at me for wanting to be kept in-house, thinking they should talk to me and address the issues that happened there I was trying to address instead of sending me away, alone, to try and find an entirely new team when I was such a mess and not even sure what help I needed and for what since I was allowed no clarifying conversation.
I go to IHC's booth and ask who works for them. I tell her they need some training. I show her the green beads from my pocket and say "They are feeding this" and then I walk away shaking.
But I think, and return. Talk a little more to the lady but explain very little, just that they played games with me and feed the suicidal, instead of treating me fairly. I write down Concussion doctor's name, Neuropsychologist's name, and Patient Advocate's name. I ask that they all get trained or at very least they get this reading material.
I talk to a few people. Get some hugs and love from one lady and I am glad I am here.

I am so impressed at the amount of people present. I notice beautiful people being honored on t-shirts and I am so happy to see that they are honored and loved still in spite of how they passed. I see my brother in one particularly fun looking brother of a beautiful lady who is there alone with her 3 young children. I admire her. I appreciate the picture of her brother. I let her know. 

Then I am then drawn to these shirts. I loved the design and saying. As I got close I found some of my own coincidental humor in them also. If you zoom in to read and you have been following my blog I think you may also find it ever so coincidentally comical. I have to ask, "who is Jon?" I am then introduced to the mom of Jon. She is a beautiful and significant person. She designed the shirts. She tells me some about Jon. He was 18. I tell her a bit about my brother and the military's flawed policies. He was 28 or 29, it's been 10 years and I can't remember exact age and don't really care to fixate on that detail, he was too young and that is what matters most. As this beautiful mom tells me about her son I am sad for them and proud of them. They were trying. Her son was sensitive and intelligent. He felt things deeply and that made life a challenge at times. I can relate to what she is telling me. I tell her things that surprise her a bit. She asks "how do you know so much about all of this?" I have been living it for a very long time. "I'll write you a book," I say and she likes this idea. 

I have been fighting similar battles as her son for a very long time. I explain my belief that suicidal tendencies are a symptom. They are neither the problem nor solution, they are a symptom and we need to listen to them as that. They were doing that, and from what she has told me, I am so impressed at how they were. But she had never heard it put the way I just did and wishes it would be. She thinks it is a helpful and more productive way to approach this. She thinks it could have helped her son.... Because her son got caught in that trap of not understanding that it was a symptom and after being on medication for short period, when they were just starting to see the improvements, is when he passed. He did not realize or understand what he was fighting. He swung too fast before his thinking was able to correct. He likely did not have the tools or even know he needed them. One thing his mom told me was that he had said things about not wanting to be a burden. My own voice echoed in my head at this. I thought of my brother, others who I know that have gone this way, and more I know that I still fear we will lose to mental illness. I believe that many of the most likely to succeed in their attempt are also very likely to be in a mindset of not wanting to be a burden or tired of feeling like a burden. In their mind they are taking care of the problem themselves and doing their part to relieve the burden on others. 

I am going off in a direction I did not intend to, but as I have so many times before and to stay true to my own healing and processing process I will let it be. Though I know it is getting lengthy, today was significant so I suppose a significant post is appropriate. 

I'm going to jump now to another significant part of this event. At one point  I was walking and fingering the green beads in my pocket when I noticed that the necklace had come apart. It was broken. I could not even wear it now if I wanted to. This made me so happy. I even pulled it out and showed the beautiful mom.  I loved that the suicidal struggles of my own are broken. This is a good thing to have broken. I'm taking this as a sign and an omen and I'm going to run with it. I will keep holding on to that, -the breaking of my brokenness- because I have beat this before. And now that these beads are broken I can officially say that I have beat it once again (at least the suicidal part of it) and I will do it again and again if I have to. 

This is what I thought as I walked back to my truck and noticed this beautiful green tree with it's amazing and peculiar long green beans and then it was followed by the tree covered in so many tiny loving hearts. 

My heart has been broken so many times for so many reasons but still there are amazing people worth loving for any amount of time and this world holds so very many special and magical treasures all around. I love that. And I love living which is why I will keep fighting not just to survive but also to live and be a alive. I will keep working to thrive. 

  You'll Never Walk Alone

This is also a fun one You'll Never Walk Alone