The Beautiful People in my world.

Yesterday I got to meet the governor.  I got to speak up about TBI, and He gave me his honorary signing pen. I was there with the BIUA for his signing of a document acknowledging March to be Brain Injury Awareness month or something like that. To be honest I do not totally understand what is was all about and so far it has not been covered on any news sights that I have seen which is a bit disheartening to me.
But I want to share a tender moment.
When the governor and his mini paparazzi came over to me because I had offered to answer his question (when all the PhD holders froze or were trying to compose their answers) I got a bit nervous and forgot what I was going to say. A deer in the headlights for a split second, but I was able to utilize my TBI blunt honesty and humor to state, "I'm sorry, I just got a little of nervous and forgot what I was going to say. Can you please repeat the question to help me remember?" or something to that effect.
But in that moment I started to feel shaky and shy, I felt a hand on my arm and a soothing rub on my back.
My sweet friend Renée was there and she jumped right into action helping me to quickly regain calm and composure.
This is the beauty of what organizations like the BIUA and people like Renée do. They help you find your strength again. They want to build people and they want to find them help. They are a very small, understaffed and very likely underfunded organization, but they keep going and they keep trying to help people. They do all the little things they possibly can do and though they may be few they are mighty fine people and I am so very grateful for the the help they have given me.
I wish that I were bigger and could help them to become bigger.
Then there is my cousin I stayed with the other night. She inspires me to do and be better all of the time. The challenges and traumas she has risen above are astounding. She is a miracle to me.
In our conversation she told me she is always shocked at how many people seem to find pleasure in seeing her fail. She says she fails all the time and fails hard, for example she has been training and working hard to make it to the Olympics in boxing. She barely missed the cut for the last time and she has had to close the door on that dream. She said that is hard, but she is idealistic and she recognizes the good that has come from it and moves on. But, like I mentioned, she is always shocked at how people will find pleasure in her failure.
I was so surprised to hear this from her. She is so easy to love, so kind and never have I heard her even come close to tearing somebody down. She builds people up and yet people still want to tear her down. We had an enlightening conversation about this and I was so glad to hear about this because I know the feeling and it hurts and sucks, but now I know I am not alone and it is not just in my head. She is younger than I and many years ago I was more in the mentor role but now I very much look up to her. I am so impressed with how she handles the put downs and knock downs. I am not so strong and I allow them to affect me too much.
So I find I am especially grateful for her and Renée and the many other people that may play very small roles in my life but that build me up instead of tearing me down.
I am glad these two and others are still in my life, still checking up on me, and still believing in me, it has renewed my spirit at a time when I was beginning to let some jading happen and not so nice things were starting to slip from my mouth.
Though there is a whole lot of mess in our world there is still so much good and so many amazing people.

Memory Lane

My son found our old computer that got bogged down and slow so was replaced but not discarded due to the pictures that are currently preserved in the hard drive. My son got it turned on and found some interesting old games and the preserved pictures of his younger years.
Looking through old pictures is almost always fun to me.
It is fun to reflect and remember.
It can also be very satisfying to see the growth of your children and even yourself.
Yet it can be as equally difficult to see the days that are passed and people that have passed.
After our brief trip down memory lane, I felt rather empowered.
I have been feeling more and more like I am finding myself again, but still very gun shy and insecure, maybe embracing my Pro Crasta Nation ethnicity a bit too much as a result of this.
I have the luxury of not having to do a whole lot of things that most people have to do, like work full-time. And while things like this are luxuries they can easily become vices. Especially when you are feeling timid and unsure of yourself.
Looking through the pictures reminded me of so many things I have done. It also reminded me of how hard I have worked at and through so many things. Often in the midst of a whole lot of negativity surrounding me and pulling me down.
Never good enough and ever challenging peoples negative world, family, and self views, I have managed to live a whole lot of life and do many things.
I have been an involved and proactive mom. I have been there for my kids and I have worked hard to provide them with so many amazing opportunities. I have nurtured their individuality while teaching them to be sympathetic, empathetic and involved. I have worked hard despite intense opposition to maintain an at least a somewhat healthy lifestyle for myself and my kids.
I have down what I can to the extent that I can garnish support, which usually is not much, to remodel houses and create spaces and experiences that are beautiful, special, and magical.
I have tamed the the beasts of duality time and time again.
I have endured unfavorable circumstances and treatment for the sake of others; offering forgiveness and acceptance time and time again, choosing to continue to have faith and believe in them knowing that they also have demons of duality to fight.
I have put others before myself and I have tried hard to be what others have needed me to be while trying to maintain some sense of me.
I do not fight just for the sake of fighting and I do not try harm others and I also try to not harm others.
In our pictures I saw me. And I saw many years of many adventures and sincere efforts. I saw others and the magic and tragic they have brought to my life.
While mostly the memories preserved were happy, it was also clear why I would have become so broken and lost. It is not surprising that the car accident caused such an intense PTSD and that so many things were blocked and/or knocked from my memory.
Life, as beautiful and exciting as it is, is also so very complex. Relationships are so very complex and   they effect us so very profoundly.
So where do I go from here?
Do I continue finding the old me, or do I create a whole new me?
I believe the best answer lies somewhere in between.
Now off to conquer the world one sandcastle pile of dirty laundry at a time.

The Deep Psychology of Me

Humans are incredibly complex beings and yet sometimes I wonder if we really are all that complex. The same formulas, to trick and deceive people or to help and to build and all areas in between, work again and again; often repackaged in a trendy new way.

And if you really break things down so much is fundamentally the same. Their are commonalities across cultures, religions, races, etc. 

And yet we are so different and so many things go into the making and breaking of each person. 

It can be perplexing. 

The beauty in diversity and the dangers in conformity. These words can be just as true in the reverse. 

sigh...

my head is complex

and yet maybe not so much.

Right now I feel I am getting stronger but in it I also feel I am developing and/or nurturing habits of idleness and unmotivated lack of self discipline. I feel overwhelmed by all I feel I should do and that is bungled up by what I can do...

And so I do very little while I think very big. Likely afraid of my own shadow.

thus

...To blog

or not to blog?

that is the question.

blogging I feel like I am at least trying. I am at least putting it out there and maybe, maybe it will help someone else. 

plus, sometimes, when I choose to blog, on low-key sick days like today it forces me to face my deep psychology, to own it, to understand it, to even work through it. 

Or maybe that is what I tell myself to feel better about this somewhat satisfying waste of time?

What am I doing now? why do I undermine myself, my actions and my strengths?

I don't know but right now that is not the psychology of me I wish to examine. Right now I am very curious about bipolar and the effects that a therapist can have on a person. I am not sure if and what the link is in my personal case but I am fairly certain there is one.

But to bipolar

Why aren't there tests or ways to diagnose mania with physical/physiological evidence? I can tell you there was definitely something physiological happening. You can feel it. 

And I really want to know what it is. What is happening to a person's body and brain when that is happening. It should not be dismissed because it is so damn intense and it can be very scary. And Dr. She is correct, a persons rational/ sound reasoning continues to fade without proper treatment. 

I think about this now because I have stabilized enough to start forgetting and to start thinking maybe I would be fine without medication. I even think back to the beginning of the mania and think, "maybe now, knowing what I know, I could actually sustain that initial clarity, energy, spirituality, etc." I seem to especially think this when I read, see, or learn about things that are ethereal and/or transcendental. 

...but then I am reminded by things like watching The Greatest Showman, that I do not have the self discipline, or something, necessary  to contain, reframe and utilize my internal circus. I wish I were capable of tapping into that power to produce a tangible product and/or consortium that is reflective of that...

But I have failed there again and again. 

So I suppose it is not surprising I lack confidence. 

SO how do I change that?

They say you can't really understand the American Dream if you were born and raised in America. I think you can't really understand psychology if you were born and raised in a psychologically healthy environment and you are considered psychologically stable. 

so further down this rabbit hole...

but actually, maybe this is working my way out. 

A thing happened a few weeks ago. 

1st background clarification and my disclaimer is that this information cannot and should not be used without this background information. This confession is intended to analyze my own psychology in a way that may help others and to help me process the emotions I have packed away and compartmentalized. It is to help illustrate the psychology of people and meant to help people, including myself, come to terms with and understand they reasons for their sometimes painful psychological responses/reactions. 

Now remember when I was trying to figure out and stay ahead of the manic-bipolar and who-knows-what-else messed up place my head was in a year and so ago? Well, back then, I realized a thing or two about my ex-neuropsychologist and I also knew, just like he said, I didn't really know who he was. And not because, as he believed, I only knew what he allowed me to see, (because obviously I could see through some of his masks and games or things would not have ended as they had) but because I understood there was a lot effecting my perceptions of him but very little was grounded in reality. I say this because the therapeutic environment is not reality. I also knew that some of what I did see suggested he might be something else entirely. I knew, and he confirmed, that I really did not know who or what I was dealing with in that place that both broke me and gave me super powers (though unstable super-powers). So I did what any logically minded intelligent person does when they are trying to figure something out and need answers. I researched. I researched him. THIS IS NOT STALKING (though it is likely important to note that was an epiphany he either had or was suggesting to me. Maybe a warning that he would/or could make it appear that is what I was if I ventured to contact him. I don't know, the psychology of that day was extremely complex and twisted into a not-so-perfect storm of yin and yang).  When you find that out that the person you thought you knew in whatever the relationship was is maybe not what you thought, researching them is often a wise thing to do. For me, knowing who and what this man was could help me make sense of what had happened. And there is nothing that says I cannot research my medical providers or even that I may not try to contact them. However there are rules that state you have the right to
"Receive information about the individuals providing care, services, and treatment." (IHC Patient Rights )

But in my research I found the address for his home. I obviously have not used it for anything, and I know, based on things he told me, that it was likely not his home anymore but his ex-wife's. But I remembered the location. 

On a different note of background info, I have been looking to move since they took the horses away and turned the fields behind our house into a neighborhood. I have never particularly loved the location of our house but the privacy, view, and peacefulness of the horse pastures made it ok. When that left, I wanted to go too, so I have been watching the housing market from Ogden to SLC for years. I have long desired to move closer to SLC so I check some favored areas now and again even though my husband is not as keen to that idea. 

And now to the psychology of processing the event of a couple of weeks ago. In my scanning of homes for sale I noticed a home in a particular location that was familiar. I clicked on it to find that it was his, (Dr. P, Dr. He, Dr. Perri Cheri's)  old home. 

You can learn a lot about a person from their home. 

Or be completely fooled by the same token. 

I clicked through the pictures and it was very clearly confirmed that this was the home of his family. 

It was interesting at first, a little funny because I had stumbled onto it, but most it was very unsettling to me. It really bothered me.

Why this bothered me so much is strange to me. 

I thought about scheduling a showing, just to see what might come of that, just to satisfy some curiosity, and maaaybeee even to scare him a little. I thought about it for research reasons. Since I am not actually a stalker I did not feel any overwhelming, insatiable desire to do so, so I didn't.  If I had felt that I am certain I would have succumbed to it simply because of the locations of my TBI scarrings. 

So there is that and that is something.
Also I have finally come to accept that he (and they) truly is (are) and will use anything they can against me, and I am not actually interested in the property, so desire to schedule a showing passed rather quickly. 

Yet I was so deeply bothered that his house, his perfect charming, obviously well loved and well cared for house was being sold. 

Why did this bother me so deeply? The psychology of things like this can be so perplexing. It does not matter to me, it effects me in no way, I have no ties to any of this...

So why did it bother me so very much?

I cried and cried. I tried not allowing myself to think about it. I pushed it out of my head only to have it fall onto my heart and break it again, making these strange emotions spill out of my eyes again and again. 

I had to face something. 

Some deep psychology of something.

So why?

Was it because I was sad for his wife and kids?

Was it because I was afraid they were loosing there home?

Did this fear cause me to feel some fear of responsibility if I were to continue down the legal path I feel I have to follow because of how poorly I was handled and treated and the problems it has caused me and my family?

Was it because I had come to love his family due to the things he had shared with me about them and because I had loved him?

Was it simply confusion of emotions due to the mania that was so screwed with?

Was it because some part of me was afraid of loosing him even more since I would no longer have that ability to contact him or learn more about him? 

Did it bring up grieving that loss again?

What was it? and why?

Obviously it was all of those things. 

It was nothing and everything all at the same time, all tied up in a package of false hopes and manic fed and denied fantasies that I will shamelessly (okay, I'm not actually to that point yet) admit because that was my messed up reality that I was diligently striving to straighten out. 

And THAT THERE just might be the main reason it got to me; evidence of how hard I was trying to piece together and understand my reality despite the intensity of those emotions and my attachment to this man that was not real, even though it was and he was and I really did see things of him that were real and that I did connect with and love.

... and I feel strongly that this is why it is such an abuse for one person to make all the calls and not compromise at all even though it was their paid for job to care for and protect that person. 

It is hypocritical, contradictory, and abusive for therapists to have these intimate relationships and then to instantly pull the plug with no regard for the other person and how it is effecting them. Or to believe that no contact and no further discussion is fair if it is all entirely on their terms and the patients pleas are ignored no matter what. They can claim they are threatened or feel threatened and they have an automatic out, and if they truly are being threatened then I do not disagree with that, but the claim should not be used as an offensive preemptive strike, that is fraudulent AND slanderous. 

...and here I go, thinking to process the emotional disturbance of his house for sale, but sliding easily back into my disgruntled frustration about the irresponsible and unjust abuses of their power and of their blatant malpractice. It is extra frustrating because he was not simply a therapist but was my neuropsychologist and filling a much more medical role than a therapist role. He also has (or should) the training, education and licensing to diagnosis, which he obviously missed or used against me. 

These realities, at least, are helping me to see the reality of his lies and how I was simply a game to him and maybe even to them.
...Which at least helps set my heart free from the trap he tried to lock it in. 

Is this the deep psychology of me or of psychology?