Know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

I decided to stay off of here for a bit. An attempt to shift my thinking. I am so very lost in my life at this moment in time. It is hard to know how to accept what I am and what I have experienced. I have openly admitted to people that I am bipolar and/or that I have brain damage. It is funny- not funny- how people handle these things. I have found that some have surprised me in their apparent acceptance while others immediately distrust or act as though you are inferior. Which is really comical, if I think about it, because $100 says they would not have faired nearly so well through a manic episode AND they are often so drab and boring in their limited thinking and creativity. So at least that is funny.
But today I am coming on to document. I think the break is good and I will be taking more but I still am far from resolved on this issue of the Neuroscience Institute and *.
Dr. She (new neuropsychologist) is teaching me a lot. One thing she taught me is that a person can only have one manic episode in their entire lifetime to be diagnosed bipolar. I think that is kind of sad and maybe unfair since in this country the negative stigma is still very real and heavy for that bipolar diagnosis. But mostly it is sad and unfair because if you have to be bipolar you should at least get to enjoy more than one life altering euphoric high. I am not sure if I really mean that though, because the flip side really does suck... and I digress.
Dr. She also taught me about how ADHD and bipolar can look similar but are different. This especially matters to me because my dear husband is, seriously, the poster child for ADHD. It can be  somewhat comical, ...and it can be challenging, as I am sure you can imagine, especially since I can slip into legit crazy. 
But I am sure you, my most selective readers, are dying to know how they are different and why it matters.
Well according to what Dr. She tells me a person who has ADHD can become irrational in an intense moment of emotion and decision making and because they have that under-active prefrontal cortex they have a tendency to react before their brain has a chance to process and make a rational sound decision, but once that moment is over they are rational and they can think rationally, while the a person with bipolar becomes progressively less rational and progressively looses touch with reality. They can very literally fade... Fading. I have written about that. I have reached out when I was fading. I was punished for it with a call to the police and no follow up from the actual medical providers who can actually do something about it.
I ask Dr. She, "but how is it I was still able to hold on to rational? How is it I could still feel normal a lot of the time?" Yet even as I ask I know that is not entirely accurate and I already know the answer  as she starts to explain, using hand motions to illustrate how I was likely cycling up and down while I was progressively loosing touch over all and fading. Like a graph that has ups and downs cycling regularly as the whole, over time, is steadily declining.
If Dr. He knows this and Dr. Concussion knows this then that is an especially terrible thing to do to a person or to allow to happen. And they absolutely should know this considering their training and their chosen clinical practice.
The more rational I am becoming the more disturbing the reality of what was being missed and or dismissed really is.
 "I told you not to try and solve this" he said. But why? I hope you are also asking this.
I have been trying to make sense of this the entire time and it may be for good reason. I have felt a sense of responsibility to uncover the truth and fight whatever the demon was that was eating at my brain and my heart. I have known I had to stand up for myself and keep fighting even when I did not understand who or what the enemy was and I do wonder exactly how many demons I have been fighting, with only one being my broken brain. I have thought it simply the perfect storm of transference and countertransference and a tragic comedy of errors -hard evidence of why a therapist needs to be so aware of countertransference and  keep it in check. I have wanted to write about this in a book that could be helpful to both therapists and patients/clients of therapists. I have wanted to write about it now and then go back to school to become an expert on it so I can help others and implement changes in the very bad policies and/or practices that caused me significant harm. And write a followed book after that.
I want to do these things but every step is still quite heavy for me because so much is still unresolved and I was too unstable for far too long (when I absolutely did not need to be) so sadly I am still triggered more than I care to admit, although significantly less and the intensity is significantly less. I am slowly working my way out of the brain traps and if they had not been fed for so long by the people who were supposed to be helping me out of them this would likely be much easier (but then this blog would be far less interesting too, so their is that).
I am having a hard time in this moment keeping my thoughts incessant. They are exploding out like a lichtenberg figure.
So I am going to go back and attempt to explain what I am finding so disturbing.
Because I have the desire to write, as I mentioned, about this insanity, this week I decided to go back to the beginning of my obsessive writings, writings that I have not published on this blog, to see if I can use any of it, and to see where I really was.
Going back to the beginning, when I was unexpectedly dropped just when I felt I was starting to make progress, I saw easily my brains slipping into mania. I also saw that then I understood quite logically, as I was researching, what very well could have been happening or had happened in that relationship that was supposed to be strictly therapeutic for me (and that "for me" part is important) with *Dr. He. I very easily could have and very well did understand it for what it was before and after his "so we can agree to a clean break" appointment which he planned on being his last appointment with me.
At that point in time, I still very much trusted him but I was also broken and, as Dr. She's teachings helped me realize, I was still breaking as I would continue to slip downward in my rational thinking  maintaining and my touch with reality.
In the beginning, though I was quite high in mania, and it is obvious when I look back at my writing in those moments, I was utilizing my talents and skills that I had developed over so many years to observe myself and my insanity scientifically (in a sense) and in that way I was not entirely lost to psychosis.
However, I did in fact still need Dr. He and Dr. Concussion and I needed them to see what I was trying to show and tell them all along, that there was something more going on,  and that I was reacting too big. I was, in fact, manic.
But for a time I did not believe that was it because Dr. He did not believe that was it, or least that was my impression since he had not addressed it and he took the angle of it being a transference and countertransference issue and he was supposed limit to 10 treatments and he had others that he believed needed him more. But I could not keep believing that it was not mania as I did not recover the way I would have if it weren't.
So then as I was fighting for my life to prevent further sliding into the irrational I was being told it was not mania and I was being gaslit and treated by the people at the Neuroscience Institute and the Patient Advocates in ways that fed the crazy and the fantasy. The crazy that at first I was actually more rationally able to see for what it likely was within the framework of transference, countertransference, the perfect storm and possibly a therapist that was a bit broken himself but that had definitely played with fire and crossed boundaries -but only in ways that I could easily forgive and initially thought were funny.
But then every time he would not talk with me, he avoided me, they played games, and treated me like a liability it fed this manic level intensity of connection that only true sole mates could possibly feel (and I am allowing the embarrassment of that statement because it is the solid truth of what they fed and of a damned f*@#d up manic mind ...or of therapist manipulated mind).
And even when I tried to tell them this they just kept feeding it.
No apology meant I was the forbidden temptress that he loved so much he simply would not be able to resist and would not give a false apology to because he would not deny those feeling. That, or I was worthless and unsalvageable, not worth their time. Which would you rather allow to be fed in your fading sanity? The latter may be true to them but that is not kind while the prior shit is straight up embarrassing and it IS NOT rational. and I know it. I knew it then.
BUT I was also fading with neither of those options being good for a brain that is progressively loosing its stability and sanity. SO for months that crazy was fed and that is incredibly disturbing as I am now learning what neuropsychologists know and how medical providers should have handled me in that condition.
And at first it seemed as though it would be so easy to pull out of this when the medication started working, because I had put in so much work. But, alas, that was a false start, jumping of the gun because that kind of intensity and rumination for so many months and that level of fraud or deceit is not going to end so easily.
I do feel as though I am making progress and glad that I trusted my gut to not file any further complaints or investigations when I knew I would  make a mess of them in my confused mental state.
Now
The question begs to be answered: Were they keeping me in a compromised place intentionally, so that I would mess up any investigation and/or to out last the statutes of limitations? Obviously there has been a very crooked cover up here or there are some very unethical and/or very ignorant or unskilled people at the Intermountain Neuroscience Institute, in Murray UT.

No escape

I'm tired of being tired.
Medication game or just the residual effects of TBI... or is it residual effects of trauma.
I am still loosing sleep.
It is just so wrong
How I was treated.
My friend says "the worst part is how they vilified you"
And they did.
I never even received any kind of apology from Office Director or evidence of their "escalated concerns" for her denying me my medical records or yelling at me in front of my kids when I was telling her I didn't want them to keep trying to send me other places, that it made sense to me to be kept in house so I did not have to keep trying to explain and thus relive the trauma every time I tried to find new therapists and doctors and I was asking why I could not be seen by a different neuropsychologist there.
They only thing I received form her was that final letter terminating me from the entire facility. A slap in the face or knife to the heart with an added twist.
From the one accessible place in my world that has the different providers I need that are supposedly trained to know how to treat and handle me because of my TBI's... The people I have needed since I was 12.
I can't escape this.
My brain isn't letting me...
I have no idea how to handle it.
But I know there is something very very wrong about this and my conscience will not let it go...
so here I am again writing.
I am and have been slow and trying to be careful and fair even when I was mentally unstable. I do  not want to cause undo harm but there needs to be some accountability or if they are frauds they need to be exposed. I don't want this job, that is why I keep coming here to this silly blog and the rumination continues... I don't want this job, but it is the job I have to do because my conscience and my injuries won't let me out of it...
and garbage cans taking a beating don't take it away, neither do all of the gazillion of other things I have tried. They only time it is subsiding is when I am working to fix it... working to hold them accountable.
If the mistakes that lead to this mess were accidental then there is no reason for me to have been treated that way and for me to be so stonewalled and ostracized so vehemently.
Is it stigmatizing of the "mentally ill?" Is that all this is evidence of?
If so that angers me too.
This kind of stigmatizing does not help anyone but it does feed and encourage the negative nature in people. If people are alienated, ostracized and treated like criminals for seeking help with their mental illness and "inappropriate" behaviors than what the hell do you think is going to happen? It is so plainly stupid.
And I am tired
tired of this stupidity and my malfunctioning brain that now is functioning much better but I know will keep pushing back if I don't make the necessary external changes to support the positive internal changes.
no editing. I want to sleep and I have very limited time right now
*back, I have come, to edit and I am certain, even in my rational sanity, that there is a higher power that works on us as individuals and as a collective whole as I just happened upon this video and choose to watch it even though it was simply out of curiosity and a distraction from my task at hand. J.K. Rowling speaks at a Harvard Graduation
What an incredible woman, what an incredible speech and what a brave human to give such a speech at a Harvard graduation.
And in my own voiceless vulnerable life I can feel proud that I came across this speech while I was working to plan lessons I had volunteered to plan for a teacher I will be substituting for that is an overworked and underpaid single mom, who cares and works hard for others with so very much on her own plate. Normally as a sub you do not lesson plan, but I volunteered to help relieve just a smidgeon of the burden from this beautiful person.
I want these things to be known because people with mental illnesses and TBI's can also be kind, caring, helpful citizens. We deserve fair treatment. We are not worthless or disposable, nor are we helpless but too often a person with problems such as mine will become that because they are not given a chance, they are not respected, they are not heard, and they are treated as though they are helpless, worthless, and to be feared and ostracized. Or simply a real pain in the ass.
This is my battle, that I am very much not alone in but those that I represent really are at such huge disadvantages, so often isolated,  and very often their voices go unheard and disrespected or they are shamed and humiliated.
So no escape... this is my battle, I suppose, and as my beautiful friend Renée reminds me, "We chose to be tough."

The medication game

I had another follow up with my psychiatric PA. She is pleased to see the difference. It is becoming increasingly obvious and I am increasingly stable. In fact the other day I listened to a lady talk at an event for my daughter and I didn't even cry. I have been able to share things and I don't even cry. When people ask me how I am I say rather automatically at times, "Fine" or "Good, how are you" instead of "interesting." Sometimes I still say that when I am feeling a little interesting for one reason or another or just because it is funny and it makes people laugh or at least smile.
Talking to psychiatric PA I tell her this I'm moving into the hard part of taking medication. Initially it was just such a relief and Godsend that no side effects were noticeable or worse then what I had been going through.  I needed increases a couple of times as push back was pretty strong. But in the past week or so I have not felt the physical sensations of manic-style pushback and I am even still finding my mind calming and becoming more "rationally" level. Now we are to the point of fine-tuning the medication. I am not falling asleep as well, my brain has been a bit busy at night, and then I am struggling to wake up in the morning. This is annoying. I remember PA say, about my medication quetiapine, that lower doses can make you more tired and I wonder if maybe, even though I am not having the manic feeling pushback anymore, if the dose might still be a bit too low because my thoughts may still be running a bit too fast at night.
PA suggests this very thing also. We agree that I should try taking it earlier consistently and then she adds 50 more only I will take the extra 50 in the non-extended release. This is our game plane and it sounds like a good one.
But...
Not really but,
but it is a bit tricky, this phase. I am now worried a bit about becoming zombie like, as crazy and... umm... messed up, as it has been I have learned to enjoy it some and embracing my crazy can be fun too.... which ironically I can more fully embrace and enjoy better from my more level place, but I am a bit concerned about loosing that completely. I will miss me if I do.
Then there is the part of feeling normal.
It is amazing how quickly I can forget how high I can go. Have buried this very effectively before and I feel myself doing it again... Probably not so wise. That has caused significant confusion and problems, but actually it was this buried stuff coming out that really caused the problem, so maybe I should burry it even better... but alas silly rabbit whole, I know, there is no going back this time, you broke to big. As much as I want to just be fine without medication I know I will need it for some time to counteract the months of insanity I have endured. So it is silly to me that there is even an inkling of that idea of being fine with out it. But that is part of the nature of this bipolar beast that resides within me.
PA asks me how neuropsychologist is helping. I tell her she is helping immensely. PA is surprised I am able to trust after the last. I explain, that is hard, especially when she says similar stuff, naturally she will but it still causes a distrust reaction... funny, I hide it from her.  I also am working to cut myself off before I get to attached, I told Dr. She that at my last appointment, I don't want to become too dependent on her, so even though I still greatly appreciate the frequent appointments I am cutting back as I feel more stable. I also don't ask her many questions, even though I like to hear about her and I would love to know more about her as a person, I don't allow myself to ask or be interested. I make sure it is about me... I don't love that part. It makes me sad, because I love Dr. She, but I cannot let myself make a similar mistake. Dr. She says, "You will never feel like you are my therapist," and I am grateful, but I am leery, because never is a black magic kind of word.
See, it can be quite interesting to be "crazy" so I allow it and I am thinking I can own some of it and enjoy some of it too. This is why I am writing now. This "crazy" that people are so damn terrified of is really not so scary. In it I can make sense of so much because I can see the insanities that so many people are so very blind too. I am aware of how profoundly even seemingly simple things can effect us, and I have experiences under my belt that look like typical aging problems so I am way better prepared for that. Plus I get the luxury of doing silly things like this blog. Of course I am very fortunate in my circumstances, but and I mean BUT in a big, standing upright, and speaking out kind of way, I have also worked very hard to manage and understand my mental deficiencies, my mood instabilities and my TBI related problems. I know this because I read and reread various self-help books and books on psychology I see so many things I have done and I can see the huge progress I have made. Viktor Frankl,  Man's Search For Meaning, I have not read before but it resonates and I see the same message in Change Your Brain Change Your Life,  by Daniel Amen MD that I have read before. Change your ANTs; Automatic Negative Thoughts. I am quite good at this really. And I am pleased with how Frankl resonates with me because truly I only made it through this crazy messed up manic cycling chemistry because I was looking at my suffering scientifically and I also was able to fight through by attaching meaning to it... Of course this has been ridiculously tricky since the damned people who were supposed to help with that were telling me I was not worth listening to or helping and denying the crazy I was telling them I was managing. There are a lot of things that I am really becoming more fully aware of the stupidity of, like how Dr. Concussion had told me Dr. He had said I had behaved inappropriately, to which I was like "I did, but I didn't. and I did and that is what I am trying to tell you" but also "so did he." Yet these things were ignored. And when she said, "There is something pathological to that," and I said "Thank you for acknowledging that." I am sorry to be rude but it makes me think they are kind of stupid. Or something.
but alas my new dose of drugs are kicking in and I am thinking I may have gone off track in my documenting this here insanity and the path to sanity (an illusion)... and now I shall retire to my bed, to edit maybe later , so lucky you are if you read this before because then you get to really see into the mind and reality of the rational crazy... goodnight.

The Boxer

My aunt.
I am having a conversation with her. Trying to explain where I have been and why this last year. Though I have been physically absent for many family activities it is mostly a psychological explanation because I obviously have been some place psychologically strange this past year.
It is interesting to me the elements that different people will pick up on in my story. She is an intellectual and has worked in research at colleges for all her career that I know of. She picks up on the way my heart felt and the surging of chemicals. She knows something about this and knows what I am saying is real and possible. She finds it somewhat fascinating how I was physically effected by what was happening to me that seemed tied to the relationship with my neuropsychologist.
-She also knows about acid because she was a real, true, Woodstock-attending-hippy back in the day. We don't talk about that today but I find myself remembering a long passed conversation with her about the affects of acid in comparison to some of the highs I would feel with my mental health conditions. This is the buried story stuff that Dr. He had helped bring to the surface and that I initially feared he had dropped me for -with an "oh shit, she is one of those," kind of realization.
Coming back to today, as I am talking to my aunt, and she is adding some insight, and I am -as I stabilize- even still settling into realizations and understandings that I have felt and explored over the months but have fought and really was not able or willing to accept.
Aunt also points out, even before I say much about it, that the investigation was likely just a decoy to get me to say and do things that they could use against me or to justify themselves should they feel they needed to. It was a set up. She seems familiar with this type of practice. I wish I could remember the exact words she used, they were much more intelligent sounding, but that is the gist of it. My sister who works in prisons has said the same thing. She is familiar with how the psychologists can twist things to their favor.
Way back when, when I was convinced I was in love with my therapist and behaving like someone who has been groomed, I remember my sister telling me the that things he said were classic manipulations straight out of a players handbook. I knew it, but couldn't believe it in spite of the evidence. I was so broken and yet I still thought I was immune to being played like that. Plus it did not seem possible in that environment, he is so sweet and charming, everyone loves him, and I trusted him so very much... and I felt things so powerfully
... including yin and yang... I remember... including "I don't know what I can trust" .... and he how he could turn me away so easily even though "you broke me" (me) "I did not mean to" (he). Even though "I've tested your brain in ways you don't even know" (he) "I know. You have even tested how I feel about you" (me) followed by no reply from he. And even though  he was "okay with being wrong" about me. Those things I felt as well... it is likely important to remember, even though I would rather not believe, they may have been significant evidence of foul play...
So at this moment in time as I am looking back I feel like a boxer,
beaten, broken, and bloodied by too many cheap shots when I went to the doctors in the first place.
At first they nurtured me and they were helping me to recover
but as my strength and confidence were returning
they saw in me the reason others had taken cheap shots
and decided that maybe they better also because in their misunderstanding of me and my manic superpowers they believed, if I ever wanted, I could take them down if I were to recover to my full capacities.
They feared they were no match if I had full strength since I was seeing the holes in their treatment before I even knew what I was saying and without even realizing I was pointing them out.
So they decided in the fear of their own insecurity and/or fraudulent practices that they had better keep me down
and they started throwing punches themselves and claiming it ethical treatment because I was a boxer before I came to them
and I had not told them so,
even though the blows to the head had caused me to forget.
So I am a boxer again
only this time beat down by the professionals that were supposed to help me up and that were supposed to help me be strong in this game.
The Boxer
I am a boxer, not by choice but because I have to be. I have to keep fighting to survive.
Mental illness, head injury... girl... Utah... middle child... ECN...
Extremely vulnerable fighters
who don't want to see or accept that they are vulnerable.
And this one, regardless of all these labels, is grateful for my own insanity, my own trials. Grateful to be strong enough, to be intelligent enough, and to be lucky enough to have so many things that are good and right in my life so that I can speak up and speak out and fight for fair treatment.
Not a boxer by choice. I'd rather be a lover, but I'll box until I burn out if that is the life I am meant to live
and I'll find beauty in that too.

Patterns of Injury

My legs are deliciously sore. Because I haven't been doing my physical therapy and I have been lazy in exercising.
My new physical therapist had me stop running until we could build up the lower back and SI joint that the doctors are thinking is the real problem with my hip and locking pains. Last week I got to start running again, but only twice and at broken intervals of 2 minutes. Then he did a gate analysis on my run. I was on a treadmill so that likely made my gate different.
A few interesting things were found:
1. I am taking too long of strides and this can be problematic. This is interesting because as a competitive runner in high school it was always about lengthening your stride, but now the goal, or at least my goal is to get more steps per minute. We used a metronome to make this happen. Apparently 160 is what is best for me to decrease risk of injury.
2. I am too high. My stride that is. I am almost jumping in my stride. The more steps per minute help bring me back down so I am spending more energy going forward instead of up. This is interesting because it also reminds me of high school running when I learned to pump my arms straight, breaking the natural cross-over pattern people's arms follow when running, thus putting your energy into moving forward instead of side to side. This too high is also rather comical because... well, I am too high and needed a mood stabilizer to bring me down so that I had the energy to move forward.
3. I swing my right leg. This is very strange and I am not sure how or why I do this at the point of the gate analysis, but as I have run since I have reflected on this a bit. I feel that my injury had my foot loose like an over-stretched elastic that no longer returns to its normal size. I remember getting out of the car after the car accident that injured this ankle and feeling like one side of my body was now longer than the other. So it makes sense that while running I would feel a need to swing this longer over stretched leg. I have been doing it for so long now that it will take conscious effort to correct. This is so true of all the adaptive behaviors we do.
I have been fighting to understand my mood instabilities and discrepancies and trying to take care of it myself for so long that it is taking significant effort to correct some of these behaviors. I don't really need to work so hard to understand anymore because I think I understand it really well now but rather I need to figure out how to stop trying to figure it out because that is such a ingrained habit now. Yet that is not nearly as significant or as difficult as learning to not try to do it all on my own. That part is tricky. Especially since self reliance and independence is a highly valued trait in my culture and society.
What is also interesting about this gate problem and the correcting of it is that I am relearning things that have come very naturally to me and I used to be very talented at, but that were dramatically effected by an initially overlooked and seemingly insignificant injury that was left untreated for too long.
This is a pattern that is common in many ways and many lives.
But what I love about this new pain is that I feel muscles alive and working in ways they have not felt in a very long time. Somehow shortening my stride is making those muscles come back to life. And that makes me happy even if it also causes some pain.

hearts and heads and husbands

Hearts and heads and husbands
these things are so hard to keep straight
My heart wants to be there for my cousin
my head says it is impractical
and my husband says he supports whatever decision I make
but my heart doesn't want to use and abuse him -it's impractical and costly at this point-
my head doesn't want to either and my head says it's impractical but still maybe important
and my heart
is treacherous half of the time
it has betrayed me and my husband before
so...
how on earth does a person ever come to a decision on such important matters as
loving ones cousin and hoping for them to feel that love? and to know how cherished they really are in spite of time and distance?
...and yet (and of course) the situation is much more complex than I can explain here or maybe even at all.

Our garbage can doesn't know the answer either.
I could not even beat an answer out of it
but it did not mind the beating at all
I am glad for that massive blue bin
provided to us by the city
it will take a beating and doesn't mind at all.
it even makes a pleasant sound letting me know it is happy to take it.
It probably feels a bit alive as I forcefully kick the complicated and perplexing energy of life into it,
...this big blue inanimate insentient can.

...Last night husband opened up about his anger, confusion, frustration, shame, and betrayal, from the previous months (now about a year) of my treacherous heart...
He has handled it heroic, for sure...
But how does one ever make decisions with a treacherous heart, a brain that breaks, and emotions that feel far too intensely?

"At this point it is not the physical pain that hurts the most (and this applies to adults as well as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all."
-Viktor Frankl

Artificial Intelligence

I am tired.
Working but on break.
Sometimes I get requests for answers on Quora.com so I visit there periodically and read what others have to say. I am shocked and amazed at some of the experiences people have. I am appalled at the way countertransference and/or a therapists feelings toward clients are handled by so many. I am surprised to hear how far people have gone into these places.
It is so strange.
It is strange to hear the similarities and differences. At times I can see and understand why ex-therapist Dr. He would avoid me and treat me like the plaque. But the problem is I am not those people and I am also not the plague. And if I am those people then that is just further evidence of how he screwed up or was screwing with me intentionally.
One thing I am struck with is the intensity of emotion people feel in therapy and the strange detached sympathetic apathy the therapist is somehow supposed to feel and maintain. I don't understand this and something feels very wrong about it.
I see that the environment is artificial and quite fantastic in it's make up so it is not surprising that people who are looking for real help to real problems in their real realities can get so turned upside down.
It is not a real environment.
It may be something more like LARPing really. If you are not familiar with that term LARP refers to Live Action Role Play.
I think it would likely be beneficial if therapists would disclose this from the beginning.
A disclaimer
something like: "It is important for you to know and remember that this is an artificial environment designed for you to discuss and work through your issues, but it is not real nor reality. So remember no matter how close you may feel to me and no matter the intensity of your emotions toward me they are not real and they are not reciprocated. They are artificial and so am I" maybe to be followed up with, "no matter how much you may think you feel it I do not actually love you and you are simply a paycheck to me."
I think that would have been much more helpful than, "I will never have anything to do with you outside of therapy because I could see myself falling in love with you." That statement and others just intensified the extremely intense and apparently artificial emotions and connection I was feeling. And then denying it and being unwilling to clarify or allow me clarification, to tackle the situation for what it was just reinforced the fantasy when I was in a pretty fantastic place already.
Then it starts to appear that it was a worst case scenario.
Could it be that he really could not handle me and he would use me and abuse me no matter what? Could it be that he really had feelings but knew all the stuff I am reading and so then convinced himself that I am a statistic and not a human? Or was he actually intentionally grooming? The way it was handled suggests that it was.
And the thing is, this therapeutic environment was not a typical one, I was just there to address head injury, we never even got into anything deep or very personal.
This therapy creature is a bit scary.

Shattered Worlds

Life is too short

and so very tragic

how is it our worlds can be shattered so many times?

and we have to keep picking up the pieces. Keep going...

my cousins

Oh, my beautiful cousins

only two on my mom's side

...but now we are down to one...

And my cousin, his sister,

I know how her heart breaks 

only she has no other siblings to help her pick up her pieces and survive

and no mom either

her mom is the one who died falling from the sky when my one remaining cousin was one. 

How our worlds can be shattered.

we all go through it

but some more than others. 

....my head hurt before, 

it really hurts now

But my heart is strong now for the survivors

Life is too short...

Please God, love my cousin and help him to find his mom and his cousin (my own brother) in heaven or wherever they hide. 

Please God, help and watch over our sweet beautiful cousin whose heart is broken and breaking and feels so very left alone...

Words

they only fall short

...yet silence can be so much worse...

a different person.

Twice today I am told, "you are a different person" in a good way. I am hearing this a lot lately.
I am.
And I am not.
I am happy to hear this and I am happy I can talk about things without the flood of tears that had been accompanying way too frequently.
I am glad that I feel so much more level and rational on a more consistent basis.
I am happy about it and motivated.
I come home and take care of some things I have been needing to get more consistent about. I edit an essay and offer revisions. I find myself looking at the process of applying to a graduate program.
I find it a bit hard to focus on reading things like what I need to read to figure that kind of stuff out.
Maybe it is just because I am out of practice.
So I keep going knowing it will get easier.
It does.
But really it does not.
My head starts to feel swimmy and it all starts to feel like a giant load of ... fake
Games
foolishness.
Maybe because I am trying to read about the professors of psychology and their interests of studies and how to get into a PhD program with them.
It is silliness and ego
and maybe I am too jaded for this field now.
But the real problem is that this intense focus is making my head hurt and feel swimmy. So I stop. I am shaky. Very shaky.
I am sensing frustration from my husband. Our kids need to help out more.
I try to get them going with helping to take care of stuff. My son pushes back, for no good reason, probably just because he is a kid and that is what they so often do...
But I explode. I am yelling at him.
... Now my husband is even more annoyed and my head is swimmy and my ears are ringing and so shaky and I don't understand why. I begin to cry because I can't keep up, because I want so badly to do these curricular things but I don't know if I am actually physically capable.
I am a different person but my cognitive stamina is not... It is still too low for me.
And the yelling and crying is just further evidence of that.
I will try to get more sleep, eat less sugar and adjust a few things in hopes that tomorrow it will be better... But it is hard to accept and I don't want to.
It is especially hard because I don't have my "head injury expert" team to help me figure this out...
"there is something pathological to that" says Dr. Concussion the last time I saw her.
"pathological? explain," I ask. She does and to it I say, "Thank you for recognizing that."
But she still would not see or help me. She tells me she will help me find a new team. But then her response two weeks later when I followed up was she could not find one with the qualifications I need so I should just go through my insurance and have the wrist doctor refer to the neurologist. My insurance and others say go to them but the problem is they will not see me because of my "previous undisclosed" pathology that I was trying to show them and explain the whole time.
...
They refuse to see me and treat me but they continue to bill.
How on earth can this be ethical and okay?
It's not.
but I have no voice and no rights and no protection.
And that is why I will keep talking.
I'm tired.
but strangely hopeful again
as I have written it out to speak out.

Why do our hearts betray us?

There other day, at physical therapy, I talked with a beautiful lady whose fun, short, wavy, perfect hair I was coveting. She told me she hacked it because she is going through a divorce and in her bright blue eyes that can't hide her pain I saw pieces of me.
Hacking hair as a way to severe -almost literally- the attachments to boys who did not value. That was a pattern of my past that I did not really think was a pattern until I saw a mirror of me in this lovely lady.
That was something interesting, but the thing I saw in her that stirred me the most was her pain as she spoke of her exes. This lady loves and loves deeply. She is beautiful, lively and fun. But she is also in deep heart-wrenching pain. I know the pain. I can see it in her and I know it but I cannot feel it right now. I cannot allow myself to feel it again. I will not. I cannot take her pain and I know this, so I don't try to.
Instead I want her to feel the love I think she deserves to feel but I can't give that either because it is not my place and I am not the person for the job anyway.
Heartbreaking.
And I am struck with confounding wonder about our hearts that are so treacherous at times.
How is it we can love and be hurt so deeply?
How is it our human hearts can love so deeply and completely somebody who does not return it?
We are told to trust our heart but I am beginning to wonder if this is very smart, as treacherous as they can be.
They betray us.
Why?
This is so confusing to me.
Like the way that it felt like a dagger puncturing and twisting so many times over so many months.
How do we survive?
Our bodies are so strong and resilient
and yet I am positive these breaks take there toll.
I hope this beautiful lady finds a love that will last and bring joy that is equal or better than the pain she is feeling right now. ..and yet if she does, eventually one will be lost at very least to the process of mortality and then a heart will be deeply wounded again. Which is probably the real reason no one lives forever in these mortal frames.
May our hearts be settled in forever and until then I pray they may bare the burdens of breaking, time and again.
And I pray we will be kind to each other.

Write a book

Write a book.
Write a book
It is a request I have heard a lot lately
Requests for a book about TBI- concussion
Requests for a book about transference and countertransference
Requests for a book about my therapist either grooming or falling for me and me exploding into a million amazingly managed manic pieces
Requests for a book on mental health
I want to.
But I also kind of already have
at least twice
one here on this blog
and one in my own report of myself, the flooding of memories and other processing that mostly was written in that first two weeks of my breaking.
So I am going back and reading some of what I have written trying to figure how I can meet those requests with a product that is quality enough to be published.
... I have books but they are not typical, in a typical pattern. That maybe could make it interesting but I also see, as I read about me, that I have been repeating a lot of the same stuff while stuck in my loop of insanity and working so hard not to be.
Looking back and reading is funny, interesting, embarrassing, annoying in my ruminating, infuriating, and probably a whole lot of other ings.
One thing I surely am is terrifying.
So intense. So deep. I'd be scared of me too. Wait, sometimes I am.
But it is also incredibly comical and some of the poetic intensities that have come out of me are so very amusing because I kind of don't think I am really like that and yet I am. Some make me really laugh because I can't believe that it came out of me at all; so angry and scary, or deep and disturbing. To me it is funny it is me because it's really not me and I'd rather be funny anyway. Not angry, scary, deep or disturbing.
Laugh and the world laughs with you.... unless you are bipolarish and have had a TBI then, unfortunately my friend, you will often laugh alone in your broken, deep, and fallible ways.
But at least someone is laughing.

Realities, and Writing out a Headache

Every trial, trauma and/or experience in life seems to have little -and big- side effects that those who have not been through it or similar have no idea of or would not expect.
While headache is probably not a surprising effect of TBI, headaches like todays are especially annoying to me and because of my TBI experiences I find myself maybe more concerned and annoyed than I may need to be.
So I thought I'd try and write out my headache or at least the annoyance with it.
It is pushing on my eyes and making me tired and irritable.
I want to sleep but I cannot because my head also wants to solve and understand why and what is really best to do about this particular kind of headache - a new kind of headache. I feel only slight pain and pressure but I feel a bit funny and slightly disoriented. My vision is slightly strange but not blurry or spinning just slightly weird in a way I don't know how to explain. One deep breath seems to help but as I finish releasing the breath the headache feels more intense and more deep breaths seem to deepen the pain. ...
I think todays may be linked to too many nights of taking my medicine and going to bed later than I should. The medication was doing a pretty good job of knocking me out within about 30 minutes of taking it. This has made me not want to take it until my kids had gotten home and were at least close to getting to bed. My kids are teens and my daughter is dancing until 10 pm some nights. Then she comes home and wants to do homework or is taking too much time winding down when she needs to be up at 5 am for her extracurriculars she is determined to do. My son just won't follow through and takes about two hours to get ready for bed. My husband is a night owl and the irresponsibility my children have developed with getting to bed and getting enough sleep I can definitely pin on him (I say this not angry but rather humorously annoyed)... though I'll admit I have gotten more lax. So I am struggling with the balance here since if I take the medication too late it is extremely hard to get up in the morning and the medication is not knocking me out as quickly anymore. My mind is up wandering later than it should be. I do believe this nightly mind wandering could now be a habit formed from the racing thoughts I had to endure for too long.
I think this,
and I want answers. I want to be able to ask the professionals.
But those who I started this TBI journey with me have abandoned me with the blame for my ex-neuropsychologists indiscretions. The experts I have now do not have the equivalent training or expertise in TBI. My new neuropsychologist might comes close and in some ways I am certain she is much better, but the psychiatric PA is just that and though she wanted me to have a neurologist or physiatrist to over see the TBI stuff she cannot get me into any her company is affiliated with, which may be due to insurance, and the other suggestion her companies schedulers made is...dah, dah, dah... the damned Neuroscience Institute -who refuses to treat me because I have been defamed and labeled unjustifiably. And all for what?
So my tired headache is exacerbated by my inability to get any answers and I guess for most people their ailments are this way. I believe more and more and especially after so many conversations with so many people that our medical industry is full of egotistical fraudulent money grubbers...
So in reality I maybe should  credit myself with being a true expert in the industry because I seem to know better than they do.
If the definition of mania is what it is, it does not matter their opinion or why they missed or dismissed diagnosing, that is what I was and the chemistry and shit I have endured ever since has been absolutely exacerbated by the way they did and did not treat me.
I struggle to let go because, since I was a child, I been an advocate for justice and others and I know in this they need to be held accountable or they at least need to learn and improve because they are being ignorant and unintelligent, bias, discriminatory and deliberately harmful in a field where those traits and actions are not at all okay.
Am I judging? Yes, I am, because I know what happened to me and how easily it could have been avoided if they had not so quickly and arrogantly or ignorantly misjudged me and then continually tried to dismiss me because they felt I was a liability or not worth their time and effort.
I am labeling too. I see that also, but bad milk by any other name would smell just as sour, so I am calling it what it is after being too kind and forgiving, and putting so much faith in them....
...I am afraid I might be getting sucked into the rabbit hole again.
so time to get out... via a flashback memory?
"because I will just keep coming back, trying to kick the door down" one of the last things I said to him, begging him not to shut the door completely on me. It was an instinctive response that came out of my mouth not knowing what I was saying or why. But I did know, without any doubt, that I still needed him and his expertise. I was heading to Italy in exactly 7 days, just me and my kids for the first week and a half, and the discussion I asked him for I could not actually allow or even comprehend because of the condition I was in.  It hurt too bad and I needed to keep some strength just then.
What I needed Dr. He to see and understand was not that I loved him or that he could possibly get into trouble for loving or grooming me, I needed him to see that I was high and unstable, with flooding and racing thoughts. I needed him to see the intensity and I needed to know what it was from and what to do about it. He made it about him and I trusted him professionally and personally so then, deep in me, it also became about him. Manic was compounded and became much more complex because now it was all about him when initially it was about me and it was supposed to be. I also initially thought it had more to do with head injury, but he would not see or agree, personally or professionally. Can you see how this would mess with me? Mistakes I was fine to forgive, but he was not fine to admit.
Embarrassed, no doubt,
but is that fair to, on me, take it out?
Don't take out your embarrassment on the embarrassment. It's like craping on crapped in pants. Or was he simply wiping his ass and throwing away the pants that he accidentally shat in? Oh my, I have gotten of track with junior high or lower level potty humor... This it the kind of stuff I probably should take out but I'm going to leave because it is so stupid it becomes funny to me.

... and so as I am writing
my headache is subsiding
remembering how much I really do understand
breathing is settling
my thoughts are finding
the simple solutions at hand.
And I will be okay
alive another day
and living a life that's quite grand
I am glad for my struggles
over those of others
and I am happy with the progress I have made.
(even if I am shat in pants)
A headache will go away
or come back to destroy my days
but either way
life is a grand adventure and I love that I get to live it!
(because pants can be washed, you know)

High as a Kite

"She's sooo highhh, high above me she's so lovely."
Sometimes I feel as high as a kite
it just isn't right
but what do I do?
shaky and high
Probably why I was such a good runner in high school. I held school records.
I want to run now
but it is much harder these days
because age and my regular lazy phase
make injuries happen easily
plus I am still healing
it is pretty ridiculous how prolonged the healing of the ankle and back and hip are
but it is likely because I pushed it too hard too many times in the initial healing stages
push crash
push crash
head injury is so lovely
or is it just me
just how I am?
I don't know
I just know that right now I feel high again
similar to normal me high that is not manic and stuff
but different because I am shaky and sometimes a bit scared that I am flying too high yet again.

In my younger years this problem was also a blessing because it kept me form drugs, drinking and other bad stuff, because I sure didn't need any help getting high and screwing myself up. It happens so naturally with brain injury. Is that an advantage or dis?
I don't know again but it is kind of funny on one hand or two.
So high I fly and I don't know why
but fun for the faint of heart
to Work I must go and keep it contained -sometimes so much easier said then done
but hi ho hi ho it's off to work I go and
people will think more things of me that just aren't true
because I can't quite explain
though I manifest far different then the plain
that I am

Actions speak loudly. So does neglect and stonewalling

I'm still dragging my feet...
and I am sad and scared
I am sad because of all of it
I am scared because I don't know what to expect from myself and what is realistic for me. I am scared because my brain and chemistry got so very messed up and I felt it so very intense for so long but I was ignored and disregarded and punished, branded and vilified for being honest and managing or presenting well when I was quite broken. For doing exactly what the therapist are hoping to help people accomplish.
I am scared because I know mental illness does not get better with age. I am scared because I have been so discarded and disregarded by the professional that should know how to handle me.
I am scared because my brain still malfunctions.
I know I am not alone and I am likely better off then even the completely stable because I am so aware of my holes and my flaws. I will be able to see the breaks and crises's coming as I age, when for them it will come as a surprise with little experience to know how to manage.
So that is a good thing for me.
But what do I do about the professionals that abused? I think I can't just let this slide, because new dear friends of mine almost died... from similar neglect, stigmatizing and misdiagnosis.
But tired this battle makes my head.
and tired so many other things also
so slow I will continue to go
not knowing what and why
but proceeding with what was laid out
I am sad to say that they treated me that way because it really makes it appear that dear Perri was grooming.
I can tell you just how a psychologist might get his patient to take off their clothes without it seeming it was ever their suggestion. I can tell you this because I did not but from what I have read and what I have experienced and then the way that he hid and manipulated to make it look as though I was pursuing. The patient advocate, **, (I will refrain from adding the not so nice adjectives that I feel right now) said that I am "quite creative" but the thing is (and if you have seen my art then you know) that I really am not, I was simply relaying what happened. I can tell you how now because I see, with the exception of me, how his words and his actions would work very easily on other women who had head injury and presented the way that I had.
Why am I the exception? For many reasons, but ironically, number one is the very thing he could have banked on to make easy progress; TBI. He forgot or did not realize that mine I have been handling since I was 12 years old. I had worked very hard with, high moral standards, to gain and stay in control of my emotions and inhibitions and part of how I do that is by talking and being far too open and honest in the places I know it won't be missed (email, in this case). I have also always been easily comfortable with men and, broken the way I was from relationships and neglect, I did not perceive myself as a women that men would find attractive enough to act on. Which could have made me a more prime target yet also could be why his plans backfired, I internalize and accept responsibility blaming myself for far too much far too often, so by bringing to light just how I had broken I brought to light his transgressions without even knowing I was...
Sadly it is a possibility that at this point should not be disregarded.... I know because no one who loves you and is supposed to be your protector, not because of personal but professional obligations, would ever treat a person or allow a person to be treated the way that I have been treated.... I also know because how I was effected. Some stuff I have not shared here and maybe with nobody, because it is to profound, wrong, and confusing.
And I hate that I am going to have to keep remembering and telling myself these things to make it through this final stretch and make sure they are somehow help accountable.
No one should ever have to endure the months of crazy, abuse, neglect, hurt, and unstable when the problem and solution could have been addressed so simply and easily at the beginning but was not simply because they did not want to admit or be held accountable for their mistakes.

A thing or two about yesterday

Yesterday I wrote three entries and this is interesting because my intensity/chemistry has settled significantly, which historically (in the last 11 months of this blog) only has happened on days that I have felt too intense and the processing was a very needed relief.
I am not sure if yesterday was just more needed then I realized or if the scenarios I was processing seemed significant and important to my rational brain.
I really don't want to analyze it too deeply, all three entries helped me process very quickly things that I am trying to deal with and handle.
But a bit of fill-in might be helpful to followers and the industry of blasphemy itself (or at least those in it that are not actually blasphemous).
Off-putting, I already explained, came form a conversation with a friend but I want it to be very clear that it was simply a term that I grabbed hold of and my brain took artistic liberties with because it seemed to fit in with my processing and something I have long been unable to pinpoint, so the exploration of that word and how it ties to me had little (to nothing) to do with my friend and our conversation.
*side note: today Dr. She and I talked about off-putting and she wanted me to think of the opposite. It'd be something like appeasing and (she suggested) it can even at times be deceiving; so off-putting is often necessary honesty.
I also reached out to one of the people who has much more voice and influence than I and said he disagreed with, "IHC can do what they want." He felt he might be able to help find someone who will hold them accountable. He gave me a number and some hope... but that hope led to the second entry about how difficult it is to proceed.
But then, going onto my email to get that number, I saw that a different lawyer I had reached out to had responded and as I read about how "Unfortunately, as a result of these "tort reform efforts" fewer and fewer people are able to recover for their injuries, and negligent healthcare providers escape responsibility-even in serious cases such as yours."
I am sure the paragraph this is pulled from is a stock answer and who knows if they think anything serious, however I know what I have been through and how I was treated and I know that the patient advocate and the team that had branded me must also have known how easily they would be off the hook, so that really hit hard and I was feeling quite low, again with the feelings of "lets really drive her worthlessness home."
But fortunately their is a God in heaven and at some point yesterday I noticed my Instagram request to the lady I was afraid had lost her battle was answered and my following accepted. So somehow in that hit down I also found a message directly from her and I know that she is still alive, not doing so well, but alive and trying again to heal once again.
The hit was still hard -but good news to ease some - I took once again to blogging and in "Solved" I did just that, lots of solving. I apologize for my language though I am leaving it their because the authenticity of that moment of rapid processing and healing has its place and anger is what pulled me through quickly this time. Okay, that coupled with the miracles of modern medicine.
So there you are, even anger has it's place, just ask the merchants who got thrown out of the temple by the only perfect being who has walked this earth.
And I am glad I do have a team that, though new and a bit confused by the trouble the old stupid teams has caused me, are helping me to keep getting back up.
Knocked down 100 times get up 101!
Oh thank you Chumbawamba
and I think I have to add this song that followed
...because for a moment in time, I am fairly certain this was me and it makes me smile. (but not high)
She's so high

Solved

I heard back from a lawyer. They can't help me, because it is too costly and basically everything everyone has said is true; they are IHC and they will do what they want. So it is especially stupid that he would not and will not even apologize and they were such jerks in how they treated me. They did because they could be and they knew they could get away with it.
hmmm, that makes me feel even better about myself!
No, no it does not.
Now is when I will be real put-offish (and I know I am overusing that term today)
but doesn't really matter what I say, how nice I try to be, I'm not worth shit and they wanted to be sure that I knew it
WELL FUCK YOU Neuroscience Institute in Murray Utah!!!
AND SORRY DR. HE IT WON'T BE IN THAT WAY
what an unbelievable ass and coward, what a shit and what a fucked up manipulative man.
And you women of the Neuroscience Institute in Murray Utah
aughh... I can't even waste my breath on how pathetic you are, the harem of precious sweet Dr. He.
He has played you, you fools and what ever ass of a "director" who won't even be named, what a coward.
And yet, that said, a bit empowered I am feeling that they were so damned scared of little old me, knowing what they know about head injury and the laws that are stacked in their favor!
HAH
you stupid dumb jackasses!
and maybe I should not publish because certainly I will offend but in this moment I just don't give a shit.
 Not that I wanted to sue but the fact that they really can just get away with this shit and treat me like trash when I wasn't, but was very broken and needed their paid for expertise is... disgusting. and their stupid paranoia liability labeling is immature, unprofessional and straight up wrong.
I WAS NOT A LIABILITY I WAS MANIC YOU IDIOTS, the liability should have been in not treating. Your games I do not understand but I think maybe you really are just plain stupid and no degree or PHD will ever cover or disprove that.
...settling now.
poor sad PHD and MD and Directors, you have worked so hard to prove yourselves just to be tripped up by a sad little screwed up brain damaged nobody like me.
HAHA HAHA HA
Sorry friends about my offensive language and rant here but tonight I will let it be, because in it I processed and I feel happy as I am further pushing away from the insanity of the fake institution that simply capitalizes on others' tragedies.
Solved.
Now why was I dragging my feet for so long to contact the lawyers they way they kept pushing me to?
Because I am a fool and I again trusted them and cared and I believed them yet again in their lies that I was truly a liability and someone that they should fear because of the mistakes they knew they had made.
No more believing in them, they are cowards that played games to prove their self appointed god status that they think should never be questioned. They had to make sure I knew that the imbalance of power would remain in their favor no matter the cost to me.
Oooh so sweet and caring the medical and IHC industry.
Solved again.
No more care for you.
Now on to my next big adventure
BRING DOWN THE WHOLE DAMN INDUSTRY!!!!
And I say that with a laugh and a smile
because that is what I do- and now I know that I know better then those schmucks or they really are quite the frauds.
I know TBI and I know manic and I know when help is needed and I know how they can mess with and mess up your head. and sadly I know that they will just to cover their paranoid-arrogant asses.
To anyone reading, don't trust them. They are not there to help you, they are simply there to collect a fat pay check.
now to publish or not?
sever
the ties
completely
...but that is what they want...
hmmm
now don't head down that rabbit whole
sever
without it being my head.
I will not die for you today or ever because you are not the gods you that think you are

The Hold Up

Every step is wrought with a pain I can't explain in my effort to erase the source of the pain.
Anger, I am sorry to say, is likely the strength I need to tap into as part of my grieving process.
Otherwise I am just hurting and slowly dying while I burn out to the professionals that I so desperately needed.
And I say that not because of romantic transference but because they really were the right place and the right professionals
but they could not handle me simply because dear Dr. He (though he's already denied it) in his own brokenness, developed feelings and lost objectivity.
...and because he is so sweet and charming and perfect, (I know, I have seen how this man works)I will be disregarded and painted quite ill because
 we all wanted to protect him.
I am the fool
but I was also quite broken, not there to simply play games.
I have a phone number or two
and I am supposed to call and set up
I have given chance after chance for clarification
I don't know how or who to see or even where to start in knowing what the prognosis for my head will be...
But I know I have crazy chemistry
and I don't know what to make of my life anymore.
Keep fighting they say
but I don't want to fight
I just want to be a lover
not a fighter
and I am so sorry if that is off-putting
but my eyes keep on telling me so
even when I think I can move forward with the fight
that I have little choice but to fight
because the alternative is
utter failure
...
processing
trying to tap in
to the inner strength
that is fighting for me
trying to keep moving in the forward direction
ever severing
with a surety
that tie
that I wish did not need to die....
today I cry
while tomorrow
I'll try
once again for the tiny victory
of standing up for me.
I am not what they made me out to be
And I am not really angry
just hurt and confused
and intelligent enough to know
that anger holds power
even has it's place
when hard things have to be done...

Off-putting and processing.

Off-putting.
That is the word a friend used to describe some of my... behaviors? today in a conversation. I can tell you that not all that long ago that very part of our conversation would have been too painful for me to hear. Not because I don't think that I am, but rather because I know that I am or can be. This is something I have struggled to understand about me for a very long time. I know that I was in some ways or many off-putting with Dr. He and it hurt me so bad that he wouldn't tell me what it was I was doing. It is part of what I was fighting to understand and in my eyes it was part of his job to help me know what it was I was doing so I could learn what I needed to change.
Off-putting comes with the territory of brain injury you see, we are often far too honest and blunt. The paths of our brains don't funnel the same and the creative ways we adapt can seem quite offensive when really they are not at all intended to be.
So this time, my ears perked up and it did not even sting to hear this label attached to me, rather I was glad to hear the honesty. It helps that it was said lovingly from a friend whom I trust and that I know is trying to help me.
Conversation with her, and then working with the adolescent I am academically advising, I am feel the turning of points today.
What is tricky and hard and what I can't quite figure out, but apparently is off-putting, is that I am still  somewhat attached to damned Dr. He even when I think that I am really not. So this is off-putting and maybe also the anger in the word that proceeded his name.
Some friends have related to me by connecting this to boyfriends of the past, and I have myself done that to help remind me of how wounds will heal. But the real problem is he was never my boyfriend (though I have on occasion sarcastically referred to him as that) he was my therapist and a crucial medical provider for me.
So I am not sure if this honesty now is off putting but I would like to continue to process.
As my therapist and medical provider, one with expertise that I have needed since I was 12, I became his problem the moment he choose this profession, so it becomes rather complex for my brain and apparently my body/physiology when he rejects and denies me his attention and services because he may have developed misguided feelings for me.
It was not me that could not work through whatever it was I was feeling. It was he. And because he refused to see or covered it to protect himself I was sent to a much worse off place and this does stir in me anger. An anger that is off-putting?
So what do I do about it and how do I handle the medical malpractice that then spiraled out of control with his associates who happened to be the "right" place and "right" people that simply did not want to serve me any longer because of their own paranoia.
Is this public shaming of a woman for a mans indiscretions? It certainly seems like it is.
There lies in this story so many hot ticket items of the kind that no one likes to speak of.
Regardless, off-putting and vulnerable I am learning how to stand up for myself. And maybe I am choosing to no longer be so sweet that I will simply continue to turn the other cheek when I know that others are also suffering in sweet, kind, sympathetic, self-destructive silence. Countertransference another hushed hot ticket item.
I hope my friends like this friend keep offering help and guidance and I hope that as others listen they will also see that even people like me deserve to be protected and guarded from the lies of ethically discarded.

Adventure, Physiology and Guns

Yesterday we had an adventure. Spontaneous, not super significant, but an adventure like we have not had in awhile. My husband had reason to drive out to west desert country, Tooele, to be exact. He asked if I wanted to come, actually it was probably more the other way around first, I had to drop hints that I wanted him to ask. I asked if we could go to the wonder stone quarry. They are some of my favorite little rocks. So plain on the outside but quite interesting and beautiful inside. He agreed so we were off to have an adventure.

Outside

Inside

My daughter laid out a few of her favorites.

It was nice. I loved it. I felt the chemistry push back a little, it was wanting to go to high ...and if I am really honest and documenting the effects of the dropping of a patient in transference and mania I will tell you it is annoying that those feelings bring Dr. He to mind... because he is now tied to my messed up chemistry and especially the happy more high feelings. What a kill joy, even though he probably is not, so I don't let it and I try to stay present and find the balance in my reality and mighty fine moments.
I know that I need him to fade since he is really a jerk (even though he presents as quite sweet and charming) who won't take responsibility, professionally or personally, and has no respect or concern for me.
And that is all I want to say about that.
I do hope you see I am rational and can see it for what it is but the effects are still rather psychologically profound and significant. And I hope anyone else experiencing anything similar knows they are not alone and what they are going through is really not right.
In spite of the annoying physiological association, our fun adventure helped me feel more of me again and reminded me of the simple things I enjoy.

After our fun little adventure my husband was craving a good hamburger and it was surprisingly difficult to find. We ended up at some .357 place because it had good reviews. .357 is a reference to guns since the place was connected to a shooting range and gun store. We weren't sure it was quite what we were looking for so we decided to look at the gun side of things while we discussed our decision.
They had a display of hand guns you could handle and I was looking at this as we discussed. I picked them up. They seemed like toys. I have handled guns plenty before, but a chill ran through me as the thoughts that I have been fighting to shut down came into my minds eye once again. I put it down and said with out even thinking "I think I need to leave."
My husband seemed to see something in me so he did not object or delay. And as we walked away I realized again just how easy it'd have been for me to have ended it all, like my brother, if I had easy access or if a gun had been left laying around.
They never are in our house.
My brother had served in the military in Afghanistan and that may be why he slept with a loaded gun.
But we do have guns in our house and I am glad I don't know exactly where they are or how to load them. (Actually I probably do know how to load them but have conveniently forgotten and I am choosing to keep it that way right now)
...Last night I thought of the gun safe in our garage, the one that my brother-in-law brought over when my sister was not doing so well.
And I have mixed feelings about guns all of the sudden -a right I know needs protecting after being held up a gun point in a country where they are illegal, yet a very real threat to me right now.
And I don't want to go into the politics and nonsense of it but right now I am glad I don't have access ...and so last night I let my husband know to make sure it stays that way for some time.
It is a symptom and this is an intelligent preventative measure that I would suggest to anyone else who may also have this symptom.
This is reality.
Please understand.
My fight I will fight with bare hands.
and I feel this is important to share.

The Husband

The other part of this equation is the relationship with myself and my husband.

 I don't share so much about this but obviously there are going to be problems.

And when there are, guess what it feeds?

No one is fighting for me

Even though he is,  just in his own way, it hurts because of our differences. 

Too many years neglected, overlooked, under appreciated the way that most good wives are. And yet he has had to endure the intensities of me, so for neither has it been super easy. He does say that how I handle has always impressed him... 

We have always been friends, usually best friends but

Relationships are hard and we have struggled a lot.

Between us I have always been honest and he has learned to be also.

But maybe I am too honest.

...The trait that gets me in trouble. 

So honest that he (husband) realized before I did that I had fallen in love with my therapist. 

But he didn't mind 

he knows how I work 

and he knows that I'll keep it in line. 

Now he minds. I am no longer "in love" with my therapist because he is not my therapist and he will have nothing to do with me ever anyway. But it is stupid and hard that he is still tied to my chemistry and it still hurts so damn bad.

I do not know how to handle all of this.

And neither does my husband. 

I am working on it.

I am

But sometimes I still stumble and fall with my haywire chemistry

which is what the previous entry is about.

Right now what bothers me is the intensity of the stumbles now in relation to the rest of the time.

Now, they are intense in something different. I can mostly keep it hidden that I have bruised a few knuckles fighting me back.

I actually phoned a friend the other day. 

I don't think I have ever done that before in that state.

I keep thinking it's done, gone, I'm good, I can move on, but then silence too long, push back, or off handed remarks, brings something quite scary back out. 

I want to say I am out of the woods and I think I will eventually be... but my physiology still sometimes thinks it is supposed to be rid of me...

This battle at times is so very hard.

I am right now writing from a much better place then I was in my previous entry. 

And as I reflect I see that I did not eat right and slept terribly. I actually dreamt of medical bills...

It is annoying how fragile I am.

TBI realities? I think so. Exacerbated by the medical and therapy gods -arrogant buffoons who own the word ethical and decide who is and isn't worth saving.

...not worth the fight so I write

I’m still struggling.
Still stuck in this place
Because “I will never have anything to do with you”
And he’ll make sure
But you is me and me is you when enmeshed in therapy
It’s overwhelming
Life
My dreams and aspirations
And somehow just writing still helps
It’s better then the image of a gun to the head
Even though that gun is just for cleaning

“Do you really think that”
Asks Dr. She when I tell her “at least if she has she’s in a better place”
Because I know that God will still love her

Why keep fighting?
I sometimes wonder
Just so Dr. She can feel like a hero?
These are thoughts that go through my head
And they bother me
Especially since I am so much more level
...slow...
Sometimes it is taking too long to recover
And I am not worth the fight
So I write

Bipolarity -The Confusion and Effects

New neuropsychologist is working to get herself fired. I can tell. And while I’m glad she is (because that is what good therapists do) it makes me a touch sad because I quite like her. Today we talked a bit about what I blogged yesterday. How Dr. He is now tied to my physiology, so when I feel push back on medication or that up excited chemistry, I feel him... I am angry about it and she understands. It's like smells that bring back memories etc. She asks if it has faded at all. Yes, mostly but in the intensity of the chemistry it can bring it all back. A tie that was strengthened over the months of my trying to undo it while they kept tying me to it in the denials and neglect of my chemistry. AN then further nurtured by taboo and forbidden.
I tell Dr. She I don't know how the hell I survived without the medication. She wants me to fill in with new passion. And I have and I am. She asks me "so when are you going to become a therapist?" I love that she asks and how she asks because she thinks I'd be good and she knows I've got a lot to offer but need the credentials to be heard.
I also had her read the letters from the Neuroscience Institute. After reading the termination letter from the entire Neuroscience Institute she explained how communication was probably poor. Obviously.
She tells me they obviously terminated me because they felt I was a liability and she says of the letter, “this is retaliation for opening the investigation.”
But I didn’t even want to open the stupid investigation. I did not understand it. I was doing what I felt like they were telling me to do... trying to follow their rules.
And that makes me wonder if the investigation was the intentional scheme from the get go to justify exactly that; the terminating me from the entire facility. I wonder this especially considering these points:
-I had told the patient advocate multiple times that I did not understand the investigation or the point of the investigation,
-I was refused multiple times in person communication with anyone about it,
-and I even asked them to stop the investigation until I understood better or could explain what I was asking for better, but they did not. In fact, at that point, they changed their tone from "you have plenty of time" to "we need it tomorrow by 9:00am" in an email that was sent late afternoon. The patient advocate, **, even said something to the effect of, "we can't just start and stop the investigation at will."
And then the information they came back with did not even match what I was asking.
The confusion and mess of emails sent to Patient Advocate would have been really hard to decipher. The tears and emotion, the begging for help coupled with the statements of, "I don't want him get into trouble," would have most certainly led to confusion. But they refused me in person meetings with anyone. They refused, once again, to see the very obvious problem: that I was reacting too extreme and something was not quite right with my brain; the point I was trying to make. I needed clarification, and I needed a diagnosis or at least medication and I needed it from those who had present during my breaking, who were the professionals, who had agreed to help me and whom I trusted. I was a fool to trust them, yes, but I was also quite broken and trying to go other places was just contributing to the confusion for me and for them (the other places).
What a fiasco. What an ordeal. And I was trying so hard to play by their rules and understand what it was they were saying and asking.
So here is an important lesson to learn and remember if you are a provider: If ever you have an intelligent patent that has always behaved rather well, but suddenly they are too high and too happy and then significantly confused and confusing, no matter their composure, they are really not right in their brain or their physiology. When they are telling you "I am just trying to figure out what is going on with my head." and "I don't know who I can trust. I don't know if I can even trust myself." and if that person just keeps coming back proclaiming their love and their trust, and things like "the message received is I need to be rid of myself" (that one is suicidal, and I really thought they were intelligent enough to understand that) then you should know that they are not stable and medical intervention is desperately needed and it is your responsibility to make sure they get it. 

My daughter illustrated this well
and with her permission I am sharing.

I'll explain. She is in an IB art class and she has to do some projects. One day she texted me a "mock up" for one of her proposed projects. She told me the idea was born from placing a flower cutout over the eye of a face in a magazine picture. She said she liked the imagery and so she started to develop it, not really planning, but letting it evolve. When she finished she told me that to her it represented bipolarity. She asked me what I thought. I love it. And I tell her so. I think it is a great representation.

I do have a little bit of feed back but I think on it for a day or two deciding if it mattered enough to be offered. When the picture comes up in conversation I decide to offer my feedback (or maybe requests) and I say "I want to see the manic side more confident, open and euphoric." Our conversation is sweet but honest, constructive in our acceptance of each other's opinions and I feel, as mom, I have done something right. I am so impressed with this beautiful young lady. She tells my why she does not want to add a slight one sided smile or brighten or broaden the shoulders of the manic side.
First she wants it to be uniform because "there is still uniformity in the two extremes." But what she tells me next takes me a day or two to really understand as she tries to explain the vulnerability and mossy darkness of both sides she is showing. She also says she does not want the bipolarity to be too obvious because it isn't always so obvious and people can and do hide it.
...You would think this girl has witnessed something very interesting to have such profound interpretations... She has.
I see in the picture my pain and her pain and she wants people to see the vulnerability of both sides.
The vulnerability, the exposed, and the trying to cover the raw tragedy that just can't quite be covered up...
Can you see how lucky I am? to have such an amazing friend that happens to be my phenomenal daughter.
And my son I can also thank for profound understanding that has also helped me to survive.
Bipolar or not, manic cannot and will not be denied by these two
and at least I am one lucky mom.

tied to my surging chemistry

I'm crying again.
The push back is too much
I don't want to keep it down and keep it in
I want to explode.
I want to understand what the hell happened to me and why
But I am just not allowed.
Which makes no sense at a all and it is frustrating because I still have the damn (want to swear worse but holding back) symptoms that were denied. My body is still fighting.
And what makes me angry tonight is that when I feel that push back I am brought back to damned Dr. He that won't talk to me. I am brought back there because of the association of chemistry that is now tied to him and not just by me. He tied me more tightly with his words that he didn't even mean -except the wanting to have nothing to do with me, that he obviously meant. And the reason he gave was because he could see himself falling in love with me; so I hope you can excuse my confusion and frustration that has come with the territory.
How can you ever think that is okay to say to someone who loves you and trusts you so completely... Especially in therapy... especially with a person who has just sent you 6 emails progressively more weird and one being an article about the troubles of being too much and feeling too deeply.
(I just edited out some seriously adult content that my friend Bob will be disappointed I took out) But I also do wonder if he is punishing me because the mania was not manifested to him the way it was to my husband...
Maybe he hoped I would kill myself, to be rid of me. The more I see of the countertransference population I see a lot of commonalities and an intense suicidal battle is one of them. He had to have known that this could not end well for me. "I see that you love me and I maybe might love you so I'll never, ever, have anything to do with you again even though you need me and trust me completely" is the ethical way to handle this? I'm calling bullshit. Those were not his words exactly but the gist of the conversation.
The people I am seeing who have also suffered from abrupt countertransference related termination are caring, fair, trying to be reasonable, trying to be responsible, kind and concerned about others even giving thanks to responders who have subtle and not-so-subtle jackassness.
... as you can see from my response to this one I am increasingly expressive in my anger: Quor.com: My therapist and I developed a co-dependent ...
I keep thinking I am moving along in my healing and closing only to be again hit by the chemistry....
Dear Dr. He, I will keep talking and I will keep fighting until this is resolved and if you would rather it not be a public debacle then you probably ought to talk to me, because these things need to be talked about and these issues resolved not just with me but within your industry.
I will not be sacrificed and I will not so easily accept the burned out fate that you wish for me.
I am tired of fighting my screwed up chemistry that you carelessly exacerbated.
I would have loved you. I would have helped you, I could have been a part of your team. But instead you decided I was trash and you sent me out as such, convincing the whole institution to agree... If I am wrong correct me. You were wrong about me and okay with it but I am not, and my voice counts when we are speaking of me.
... I'm written out, the nightly dose of medication working now; working to knock me out... I will edit tomorrow. or never. who cares and good night

Dr. Concussion

"You don't understand, I can't not try and solve this, it just depends on how I try to solve this," I say (or something like it) to Dr. He.

I am fairly certain we were talking about different things or at least not entirely on the same page. Solving. My brain just does that. I can not really stop it. If I do it does it when I am sleeping and I wake up to it... And it especially needed to then because I was manic while memories were flooding back. 

I saw a clip from the movie A Beautiful Mind awhile back, in it the main character comes to the realization that the girl he is hallucinating never ages. He is trying to figure out what is real and what is not. He cannot stop solving because half the characters in his life are not real and telling to do some strange things. 

I do not hallucinate like that, but it is a good illustration of why someone who has an altered mind cannot stop solving. The consequences could literally be deadly. 

My mind turns on me more than outside forces if I try to stop solving and my chemistry takes me to very strange places that I just don't know how to handle. I would likely be much more reckless if I were to stop solving. It could be fun and at times I am tempted but my morals may be far too high, so they keep me grounded and sometimes buried in the quandary of humanity. 

...That is too deep. 

Back to solving...

I have thought about how I have been a bit unfair in my focus on dear Dr. He because really Dr. Concussion was the one who neglected to get me on a mood stabilizer in the time that she saw and said that I was unstable. She was the one who could have and should have prescribed that mood stabilizer long ago. She was the only one I trusted too, and I told her so. 

I have been thinking about this and how much she has hurt me and why I have not said much about that... Why my focus has been so much on Dr. He. 

Here is where I am at in the processing of that:

#1 Dr. He is a drug to me. Obviously.

#2 He seems to me the root of the problem or at least the one who was there and who I somehow have foolishly trusted could see that and help to get everyone there without me having to talk about his boundary violations that greatly enhanced the ordeal.

#3 It hurts.

It hurts and is too heavy a burden when I think how they all have behaved toward me. It hurts that Dr. Concussion treated me so strange and even said some of the things that she said. It hurts and I loved her too. Not nearly the same but I did. I trusted her and I told her so. She said she would help, she acted as if she was but at the same time she did not listen or acted as if she was while just trying to pawn me off on someone else but without the follow through that I needed and careful not to allow me to see anyone else in her facility. 

It hurts so I think I have avoided taking on another deep hurt when I was barely surviving. 

#4 I don't want to believe that another had failed me, treated me as nothing more than a liability. But she did. 

#5 I already have such serious trust issues with women and I really liked her and she is the professional... It is again another unresolved issue in my life confirming that I must be the problem. 

#6 I just don't want to play these stupid games. I don't want to be a victim, I don't want to blame everyone, I don't like this place at all

#7 again; I don't know how to handle this and I do not know what to do about this.
...So I stop analyzing now, I don't want to anymore because I feel a pain in my chest, a lump in my throat, and tears starting to well. 

However this was the halfway state solving I struggled to wake entirely from this morning. When your brain is solving in your sleep it makes it hard to wake up and you wake up feeling exhausted. 

Do I allow myself to try and solve in the day allowing the tears to flow freely or do I suppress and then solve in my sleep again waking up exhausted. I don't know. 

But my mind, as it levels and moves ever more out of the unstable psychological thriller of dear Dr. He, begins to see more clearly the things I could not handle before... so the pain intense and heartbreaking continues as I find I have been unfair to him in my desire to protect something else.. Me or Dr. Concussion? 

Office Director or Patient Advocate.

Even ** the assistant to Dr Concussion 

and the girl at the front desk who stops the new girl I have never seen before form telling me "check in is down there" because "you check in over here."

...Not so Alone? in Yet Another of my Trials?

The thing about Dr. He is that he is easily lovable. It is not surprising that he has ancestors from India and that he thought I saw him "as some sort of guru." His voice is soothing and even hypnotic. He seems to put other first. He is knowledgable and somewhat philosophical and he even knows how to use Jedi mind tricks. He is good at connecting with people, he told me so. He is careful with his words and thinks before he speaks.
He has a sense of humor, an accent, and he calls people "mate."
I have seen how eyes light up when they see him. I have heard the voice tones that are used.
He is well loved and easily believed.
I was not alone in my desire to protect him.
which is why it baffles me so very much that he had no interest in protecting me. That he refused to see what I so desperately needed him to see... my bipolarity; I was too high, I wasn't quite me, and really thinking and speaking a bit irrationally.
It hurts so much worse than it would if he were as arrogant as so many doctors come off.
Maybe I really did not see through his mask; although I do know that his oh-so-subtle sarcasm suggested some ego and he expected me to obey his commands.
...Yet as I reflect I find myself knowing it is very unlikely I am the only patient to fall for this man.
Is this simply how he handles it?
Has it worked in the past?
Does he honestly not know how irresponsible the way he dropped me and the things he said really are, especially if he really does not mean it, especially leaving a patient high and dry not hearing what they have to say because they are simply another client who has fallen for him?
He denied countertransference. He denied mania. He denied that he lost objectivity. He would not allow for clarification and denied making any mistakes. When asked by Dr. Concussion, in the medical records, he makes it sound as if I was pursuing him, there was no concern for my wellbeing. How foolish to think an intelligent person would think that would be the way to win a person over. That's crazy and I was-but not stupid- and I was telling them so, but that they denied, so how they have twisted should be transparent... except that he is a charmer.
He needs some training.
Or he needs to be caught.
I am certain I am stronger than others.
I fear how they have faired
I maybe was more confusing, more buried and broken, and maybe much more alone... but certainly stronger, I likely have far more years of buried experience with TBI then most he has known...

My friend says, "the wounded wound others"
Is that he? and yet that does not make sense to me, he is so immensely adored.
And that I don't want to be me... the wounded wounding others...
So I am baffled.
and I am concerned.
I am hurt.
I am discredited and disrespected by such a respected and well adored man...Knowing that I am hardly alone in my warped abandoned adoration.
Am I delusional about that?
And he has people so charmed and charms so easily... I know, in reality, I stand no chance standing up for myself since he is where this whole mess started... Why would he treat me so badly? He knows that I don't stand a chance...
All were and will be easily convinced that I am whatever he portrays me to be.

If I am not careful these thoughts will bring back with a vengeance the "let it burn out" and "have nothing to do with you" and I will start believing again that I must be bad, unsalvageable, and that I deserve to burn out. Completely.

I suppose if you find this blog and you find you feel anything similar or have had any experience similar, please, oh please reach out to me, and I will stand up for you too.