The Power of Suggestion; a therapist's greatest weapon

He was afraid of me.
That much I knew. It is another common theme with me. One that I don't fully understand, I just know that I often make people uncomfortable with my ways of thinking and looking at the world. I think it is also because I call people out.
Now I don't remember exactly how the conversation went I just knew part of why, maybe mainly why, he was getting rid of me was because he was afraid of me.
I said something about people being afraid of me.
He tried to give me that therapist reassurance as he straight faced, looked me in the eyes and said, "I am not scared of you."
but was it the therapist?
or a man who was afraid he'd been caught. -trying to bluff his way out, trying to stare down and control what he was absolutely most afraid of
I called him out with the raising of the eyebrow, "really," and the look
"why are you a stalker?" he says with a bit too much enthusiasm to his tone.
He is hopeful
...I am not sure what his cryptic suggestion is. I am not sure what his inflection means.
Is he hoping I will find him that way. Reconnect by finding his contact info on my own?
Or
Epiphany
A way out? his safety net in the power of suggestion. A reason to play with, manipulate, and deny symptoms that will definitely work in his favor. The emails, proper proof of a manic mind, can now be used in his favor with just a bit of twisting.
He is in control again.

I have been feeling the anger part of this coming up in me more as the good he did fades, the way I hoped it would not, but the way I knew it likely would because it was too soon and bad timing, I needed to root deeply his conditioning, but instead his desires (whatever they are) got rooted in the turn of events.
And I find myself wondering if, in the beginning of therapy, I had been able to get away to a place where I could be alone, to heal alone -like the lady he told me about who had a place she was able to escape to near a lake- if he would offered to do home visits? How would that have changed things?
I failed too many of his tests?
...and I am angry in my stages of grief and I am angry about the manipulation, the abuse of the perpetuation,
wondering when it really started

Accidentally Anorexic

At 23 I accidentally went anorexic. This is funny to me because it is often considered such a control issue that it does not seem one could accidentally become anorexic... and yet I bet that is how many people initially become such.
and I did.
I am pretty unbelievable.
Yet, it's actually true, I accidentally went anorexic.
I was a nanny, also married and for about 9 months living with the family I nannied for.
I started the week after the twin boys were born. As they grew I was taking them for jogs in their double jogger up and down the hilly secluded roads of the Pacific Northwest.
The parents were very health and fitness conscious and the lady of the house was very meticulous. I was often in awe at what and how much she would throw out with out a second thought.
I was not that meticulous and aside from growing up in a large family with limited funds and resources I seem to see the world through potential colored glasses -I see potential uses or functions in just about everything. So I am not so meticulous and not nearly quick enough to clean up after myself since everything required some sort of evaluation before I could bring myself to throw it out.
That was one reason I didn't eat much while I was there. Also I'd get busy. Then their was the encouragement, praise, and maybe at times a touch of envy from the lady of the house when I started losing weight.
As the boys grew I slimmed and tightened. I started to feel good too.
Then I started to feel more powerful and in control.
I remember once catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror while I was changing. I noticed the definition to my usually spaghetti arms. I turned and flexed. I had abs and biceps and most my clothes were falling off me at that point. I felt pretty neat.
Fortunately my husband and I went home for Christmas and while snowboarding I rolled my ankle.
Bad enough that it was black and blue from toes to knee. It slowed me down and it was probably a good thing because I was still almost 5'7" but I now only weighed 100 lbs -actually the scale had dipped down to double digits- and I was feeling the addictive empowerment of anorexia before one looses too much of them self (literally).
At 24, when I got pregnant with my daughter, my first child, I weighed a whopping 106 lbs. I took a picture of the scale because I knew I would likely never see that number again on a scale holding me.
And I haven't. I have not gone anorexic again, I do not think I could if I tried, I just don't work like that. I don't try to create problems, I try to avoid them and when avoiding them causes a new problem I try to stay ahead of it when I realize the problem it has become or has the potential to become.
And that is how I roll.

Too Much

I am... was too much...

That poor man. How was he to navigate me? Especially broken me in manic survival mood. Perfectly and beautifully balanced between heaven and hell. Speaking with gods while keeping my feet firmly planted on the ground.

I am so torn.

Do I pity him? Do I leave him alone because I love him? Or do I expose him and let others decide what he is and what to do about it ...because he manipulated a patient to protect himself at the patients expense, one that was vulnerable, fragile and broken, when his job was to protect her, help her heal, put her best interest first... I speak in third person because these are not just my words and it is easier to face it that way anyway.

But the quandary. maybe I hope that getting it all out will solve my moral quandary. I published two drafts that were from a little while ago, kept them in their places chronologically. One I published and then pulled the other I had not quite finished. -Find them my few mysterious loyal readers, and I'd be happy to hear your two cents.-

Now I'll turn back to the me that was too much. "I think we're off track"... we're off track -these three word I said too much and not enough-
I said so much, so intense and coming from places I didn't fully grasp in his world that I didn't really understand, questioning rules and pushing boundaries I didn't know, fully comprehend, nor am bound to follow.

And I was strong and confident. ...at least it appeared that way.

I was strong and confident because at that point in time. my alter ego or my superpowers, had taken over.

"So this is all part of the job?" I don't think he answered. He tried to make is sound like I should have known, seen this end coming. "You're going to work to uncover my buried story and then you're just going to take it all back?"

I felt I was supposed to speak of transference because that is what all the crap I read said. I couldn't do it. But I'd heard a song that week. I am not sure if I had ever heard it before but it resonated. It nailed my feelings. It was too much. Too powerful and too easy to misinterpret. But it was what made sense to me in that moment and the easiest way for me to express what I was feeling.

Christina Perri's "Arms"

In black are the lyrics, in color are what it meant to me:

I never thought that You would be the one to hold my heart (Really, not something I anticipated. He was easy for me to talk to and I thought he was attractive but I was not looking for anyone to hold my heart or have anything to do with my heart. It was supposed to be about my head. But when he didn't want to encourage dependence and the human element caused him to push me out before I felt ready my heart broke and didn't stop physically hurting until I saw him again. I did not understand it.)
But you came around
And you knocked me off the ground from the start (I was always so impressed by him. His demeanor, and his knowledge. He may have been teasing when he said "you wanted the best" but that's what he was. He also knocked me off the ground because from the get go I was like "we should be friends" and he was like "it never works" and he had no interest. And it was always a sad disappointment because he was just so easy to talk to and I knew we'd have made great friends had we met under different circumstances, but I accepted it, it was a a disappointment but I was not hung up on it. 
You put your arms around me this was entirely figurative. He never did this, but it felt this way whenever I was with him. he was safety and comfort. 
And I believe that it's easier for you to let me go that's his job, and I knew it, and I knew it was going to be hard for me. I knew I was getting attached but I was working on letting go. He just let me go way too fast and way to easy when I needed a transition. 
You put your arms around me and I'm home this is why I needed the transition. I needed a processes of letting go. I felt so comfortably at home with him in a community and culture where I seldom feel at home. 
How many times will let you me change my mind and turn around
I can't decide if I'll let you save my life or if I'll drownI didn't really want to deal with what I was there to deal with. I had a hard time talking about it and I felt small, insecure, broken, worthless and so many things. It was confusing and painful the way my mind was reprocessing my life through a new lens of understanding so I'd easily allow things to get off topic. I'd turn the focus on him even because I found him rather fascinating, but he always brought got me back on track giving me something to think about and work on that was helping me understand and fix my my brokenness. But eventually I realized was not fully utilizing him as my therapist by avoiding and I had to decide to let his magic work. 
I hope that you see right through my walls I really did hope that he'd see this. I figured he'd understand better than me.
I hope that you catch me, 'cause I'm already falling I felt like he already was catching me because I was doing so much better and his influence had been so incredibly positive, but I was already falling through the rabbit hole when I came to him and had so many times. I hoped he was catching me to send me back and keep me from wonderland. 
I'll never let a love get so close this was probably the worst thing I could have said if he was broken from his recent divorce, but it is what I felt, because I unknowingly let him get so close to my heart. I was much more broken, fallen, and attached then I realized or would admit to myself, which is why I broke. I am not sure how I let him get so close... I trusted him so completely and he was just so easy to connect with. but he was also a paid for service so I should not have gotten so attached and yet I did. 
You put your arms around me and I'm home
The world is coming down on me This is so hard, this part, because it was. I was so very very broken and I did not feel lovable. I was so buried and my sense of self worth so shot that I really could not see or even believe ...
And I can't find a reason to be loved
I never wanna leave you I didn't.
But I can't make you bleed if I'm alone but I knew I had too. and I knew he was no longer my objective therapist, I even felt that I had hurt him. Hurt his ego, or his hope, or something so, he was bleeding because of me. If nothing else he was bleeding out $ because he'd given me a discounted rate. 
You put your arms around me
And I believe that it's easier for you to let me go
I hope that you see right through my walls
I hope that you catch me, 'cause I'm already falling
I'll never let a love get so close
You put your arms around me and I'm home
I tried my best to never let you in to see the truth I would actually not say things because I did not want to encourage attachment. I would not talk about things that I felt were common interests or bonds because I did not want to feed a connection I already felt was going to be difficult to walk away from. I would not talk about anything that I sensed caused him pain or connection. I also figured he had figured out that I was experiencing transference before I had figured it out. I thought he had realized what I had been denying to myself. 
And I've never opened up this is misleading because I really did not open up in the typical way a patient/client opens up to there therapist. I was barely getting to that point because most of it I had buried or forgotten anyway. I couldn't have. I had not really opened up or shared much with him that I had not shared or was willing to share with others, rather I had opened up my heart and was open to trusting him so completely. I was open to the connectedness I felt. I was open to his idea's, his training, his conditioning. I have literally never opened myself up to allowing someone to have that much influence over me. 
I've never truly loved 'till you put your arms around me Again, the arms are figurative, I just felt that way with him. As far as "never truly loved" somehow I understood better how to love myself and others because of his influence, demeanor or what ever. That and, I wish this were not true and it may just be the therapist relationship, but I really have never felt such a profound connection to another person. 
And I believe that it's easier for you to let me go yep
I hope that you see right through my walls
I hope that you catch me, 'cause I'm already falling
I'll never let a love get so close
You put your arms around me and I'm home
You put your arms around me and I'm home"

BUT we interpret things the way we will. probably it needed to be broken down better. Probably it would not have mattered though, he had already decided, for whatever reason and maybe many,
he was done with me.

He had decided my fate and it did not matter what I said or did at that point, he wouldn't hear it. The intensity of this song likely did not help. It would have fed any reason to distance himself. His reply was "You love me?" inquisitive, schoolboy tone. to which I replied, "yes I fall in love with people all the time, it is not an uncommon theme with me" Somewhere, at some point, (I'm sure it's in my notes but I don't remember exactly anymore) I said "but you are something different, you are something special." 

too much

I had tried to tell him though, the direction my research had taken me, and the intensity of my emotions and chemistry. That part I did not fully understand and I did not think this was a reciprocated or romantic sort of love anyway. Maybe a touch of romantic from me, but I also understood the reality of the transference and that this very likely was something different then that. I sensed that it might be reciprocated in some way but I doubted that sense. I figured it for what it likely was, my own screwed up and far too intense chemistry. I did know, at very least, that this doctor of psychology would know better. He would understand it. He would know what it was and where it was coming from, and why it was messing with my mind and body so dramatically. He would know if that damned car accident knocked me farther out of whack then I had anticipated. He would know if my brain was like my ankle. 

...but...

He didn't hear me 

...on the 12th of November. He had decided then. Now it was just about protecting himself. Why did he entertain my crazy? Why did he play with me?

that is the mystery that perpetuated the cycle of my mental instability and still does to some extent. I am immensely bothered by the fact that they will not hear me, they make it about him. Maybe the field of psychology is a farce. A game. Like everything else

That is what the wealthy and powerful figure out that the rest of us have not, it is all just a silly game and if you want to get ahead you have to play to win. 

...lost track, maybe focus, definitely out of time, but I publish now and come back to edit later if time permits and I feel so inclined because my goal is to get it out. Get it all out. the truth, the reality, no more attempts to protect, at least not here, in my space, the man who forgot that his job was supposed to be about protecting me. not him. and had he stayed focused on that, been honest, he'd have seen, had realized, I was never out to get him. Never. and his insecurities about trouble from me are the trouble. If you go looking for trouble or if you are certain it's trouble, that is exactly what you will get... kind of like: "if you think you can or you think you can't your right." 

I'm sorry I could not be the nothing you needed to be... You were my therapy and

I am only human

teachings of buddha, tao and enemies that we love

I'm finding myself with still so much to say about this whole situation.
about myself.
Last night I went to dinner with 2 of my sisters, my mom and my soon to be sister-in-law.
I love them all
but I struggle in this place
I struggle with my mom and I feel terrible about it.
She had endured a lot in her young life. She was abandoned by one parent while the other shut down... thus neglected by the other.
Life is so weird
-Love and passion, the need for love drives people to do very strange things-
It didn't end there for my mom (it didn't really even start there), she was lucky to get away alive from the man before my dad. And then when she needed it most she was not accepted the way she felt she needed to be by her new in-laws. She must have broken a million times before I was ever even born; daughter #4 at barely 26.
I feel for her
and yet I feel anger towards her and even resentment at times. I struggle to be patient sometimes and I feel bad that I do.
I feel angry because she got messed up and then she messed us up.
When I was a teen I remember seeing her break apart once and realizing it was not actually my fault. She was blaming me, but it was not me. I had no control over what was going on with her and there was nothing I could do about it. I also realized that what ever it was she was in that moment was not her. It was something else. Something I pitied, but did not like.
If I am being honest, I did not care for my mom much when I was a teen. I loved her and yet I also hated her.
But even with that, she taught me so much. The flip side of the coin, the mom that I hated may have taught me most as I tried to understand and love her in spite of my anger and hurt. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was when I realized how she was turning into all the things she was so angry about.
"We get more of what we focus on," "when you point a finger there are 4 pointing back at you" (but it's actually 3 because the thumb points down), "you are what you eat" and so many cliches made sense as I observed my mom becoming more and more manipulative in her self pity. As she started to develop favorites, scape goats and pecking orders. Things she claimed to despise about her in-laws.
It was an interesting upbringing with my parents who came from such different places.
 and it is hard to beat your upbringing.
It is likely part of why I am so driven to solve. To figure it out.
I too am like a pendulum and I know it.
I also have fingers that point back and I know it.
 I am flawed and broken and raised to be flawed and broken, by flawed and broken people who were flawed and broken by other flawed and broken people but striving for "be ye perfect"
always discouraged, always coming up short.
Life.
... Is short!
and so do I come up.
but
but but
I am okay.
 I am not perfect
I am broken
and I am short, always coming up
for more
because I am also human
not a god
not meant to be a god
just me
just okay and I am happy to know that is exactly who I am.
I am still small. Still not entirely in the clear. Still a little stuck in this alternate psychological reality of reprocessing, as an adult and as a child, but I am precisely where I need to be and ultimately I am happy.
I still hurt and my eyes still leak for my losses but that is part of the richness of life and even in that there is beauty.

Comedy of errors or sad reality?

I'm in a much better place and I think still improving but it is difficult still. I will be honest (because I am, painfully so. Not brutally honest, but painfully honest because brutal, to me, requires some intention to cause pain and I am not brutal, just sometimes honest to a fault which can cause pain. And I have digressed in a direction I wish to explore more as honesty is such double edged sword and a value people so often claim but rarely live in reality to the extent that they claim. It is such a tricky balance and people will sell out there honesty so quickly in order to protect some other value or their pride and ego. We all do it. I remember in high school my vegan friend saying, "we are all hypocrites, it's just that some of us are trying a little harder not to be." and I find myself wondering where the balance needs to lie with honest? Because when it comes down to it can we be honest if we don't know the truth? And maybe we choose ignorance intentionally to avoid being put in a position where honesty has to be a sacrifice we don't want to make....
Here in lies a problem altogether with me: I can go too deep too fast ...and sometimes I get lost.
It is a very natural thing for me, to go deep and I do at times enjoy it. I especially enjoy when I find someone who can keep up. But it can be dangerous and it can be very difficult to navigate and stay safely balanced.)
...So back to "I will be honest" I am still in a vulnerable place and because I am well seasoned and experienced and because I am intelligent and I can hold my head up high even when my head is weighted heavy with insecurities people don't realize how fragile I really am. I don't always realize it because I am not always that way "my personality is still changing too much" was another point that was ignored, overlooked by the professional.
I can be fine and great one minute then falling apart the next. I am mostly fine and I know how to manage the falling apart but it is difficult and it wears on me. so why am I here today, what is the point of this rambling?
I am shy about saying it because I don't want to be arrogant, "I need some someone who can keep up with me" I tell her.
The concussion doctor says something to the effect that head injury is healed so now it is mental illness primary. I don't really like that. I don't like it because what is the truth with head injury? Do they heal or do they not? They say when you have sustained a brain bleed like I had when I was a kid that part will never heal, will not regenerate and you have permanent brain damage, but now she is saying it is healed? So that confuses me. And then there is "mental illness" I absolutely hate the term and the connotation. I hate so much about that, but I especially hate the stigma. I think we are all mentally ill but I get the stigma. I hate that I am supposed to accept that I have both negative stigma's:  brain damage and mental illness. I do not want to accept that. I do not want to be a part of either especially since I have been rejected in that world too. So maybe then they are all wrong
...and when I came on here with such a clear vision of what I wanted to share it has turned into something entirely different... which means it is bothering me more that I care to admit. which in the end brings me to my point.
Scared
I am still very scared.
less
but still scared of what this all means for me. It is the problem, the PTSD, my fear of what head injury means for me. I have been so afraid of this. Of what it all means for me and my reality. What it means in terms of aging and quality of life. But fear just may be the problem, which is why I choose to face fears and now I'll let it go.
My life may end up being something very different
maybe I will eventually loose my ability to effectively manage and straddle both worlds
but maybe I won't
whatever it is or becomes it is my beautiful crazy
and it will be okay
"just let it be what it needs to be"

...I wish he could have heard me. I was doing so well before he broke me for reasons I don't understand -and then turned to his own self preservation at my expense.
Was I breaking him?
again. I am here when I want it to be gone but the psychology of it is fascinating and draws me back again and again
another reason I came on
I do not like that I know he messed with my head and not entirely unintentionally. I do not like that I am not sure what to do about that and if I have a moral obligation to blow the top off his covering up. I do not like the position I am in. That I now have to be the judge because I was a sacrificial lamb and not by choice.
And how frequently are sacrifices made to please the gods of capitalism, liability, sex, ego and pride? But this lamb is will not die, because I am not a god. I learned too much before being taken to the sacrificial alter and I did not agree to be the sacrificed redeemer. I am neither blasphemy nor submissive, so I cannot be a savior that is willing to sacrifice myself nor the lamb that will be led to the slaughter.
I am me
and I am a fighter not a flighter so naturally. That's the sense you get knocked into you when you broken but not ready to die.
...a tug on my bag and I turned to see a gun pointed right between my eyes. first I look to who's holding the gun then I check where my kids are. They are out of harms way. The perpetrator has fear. I negotiate. my money but not my bag, not my phone with my photos.
...I'm 22, home alone at night, someone is entering the alcove to my open bedroom window on the 1st floor of our apartment complex. No good intentions will lead a man there. Out of me comes a deep demon of a voice "what the hell are you doing" and before I am aware of what I am doing I'm out the back door chasing after the perpetrator.
...Again in my 20's the man in the car that stops when I give a sarcastic response to his jackass driving move. He's out of the car and threatening my husband, who did nothing, I'm out of the car and up in his face, standing my own ground because the fight he is picking is with me.
While I have calmed significantly, older and wiser [fortunately], I'm a fighter when I am pushed. and that was a buried part of me that came out in this break.
So it is hard to know when to fight and when to hold back. especially when I am straddling two (or more) worlds.
I'd rather be a lover.  Make love, not war. and maybe that is the real reason sex has been so much better.
Money and sex
Is that really what it is all about?
True to what I started I'll publish because it's what came out... but I'll probably be back to edit this one later.

tired brain

I keep thinking I'm done and moved on only to find something nagging again.
The thing is I know he messed with my mind
and it was not entirely unintentional
and so many things
like never being told who his superiors are to file a complaint with,
this whole "investigation" without representation
are just so wrong
and this is supposed to be the safe place

..."we just need to find the right fit, the right person for you" says my concussion doctor.
no.
I am not going there again.
There is no "right fit" and "right person"
I'm not opening myself up to that again.

Jim Kwik

My sister sent me a link to this man's story. His name is Jim Kwik and I loved his story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=6jbpn7Xb7pE&app=desktop

I was not as young and I did not have such extreme problems with learning as a youth from my brain injury but I understand the feelings of inadequacy and not measuring up. I understand and relate to being a product of your condition -only my condition was not understood to be a broken brain; from it actually being physically broken, mine was "why are you broken" "what is wrong with you," ignorantly viewed more as character flaws, when they were not. I wonder if this Jim ever felt that way. It is just now, in my reprocessing with the PTSD from the mTBI (concussion), that I am finally able to understand and say with surety that it was not my character that was or is broken, it is my brain. [I suppose that may be what I am actually trying to stand up for in my quest to resolve what I feel so determined to resolve]
I love the story of motivation and determination that leads to an even more brokenness. It is tragic and heartbreaking but it is reality and I that is why I love it. He paints the reality the pitfalls of with belief  "if you just believe and work hard." Alone that belief is not sufficient or healthy when you have broken brain. When you are intelligent and have other strengths it is hard for people to know the reality of the struggle as something physical. It is not due to a lake of belief or determination it is actually due to a physical problem.
I love that he reframes his thinking. He acknowledges his weaknesses and decides he needs to adjust his goals. He basically realizes that he needs to work smarter not harder and he decides that the first step to that is learning how to work smarter. I also love the superhero analogy and how he realizes he still has powers he can tap into despite his brokenness, he just needs to learn a new or different how.

TBI is difficult.
You become a different version of yourself and you have to figure what that means, and out how to become a new you you can love and be happy with, how to accept your weaknesses and how to live a happy productive life without that part of you that you once had. It is a physical disability, only people can't see it and it is not one you are really able to talk about. You will be stigmatized and discriminated against if you do and you do not have the same protection as someone with a very visible obvious disability. You will hear things like "you are high functioning" which is fine and true but still stings a little as you can't be sure what is being implied or where the comment is really coming from.
It is a disability that is hidden but that you can't always hide and yet you will work to. It makes no sense and we have these tragic ironies and hypocrisies to handle on top of the problem itself. We are very often very much alone.
So I am loving hearing and seeing more success stories.
I also love this video from Jim Kwik not just for the content but because in it, when he is talking, I can see and hear the subtleties that I recognize are actually coming from his broken brain. I can related to those and I love it because I know he is authentic, he is real, and he actually, really does relate. I love his imperfections in this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tCWngax6WE