I Walk Alone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  You'll Never Walk Alone

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

Push back and history. Please listen

My dang head has been in this stupid mess for too long. I had no idea I needed Dr. She's simple words as much as I still do.
"Keep fighting"
Psychiatric PA let me know the double dose was not going to be a time release pill.
I think I am noticing that.
My brain seems to be pushing back. It wants to return to it's homeostatic chaos...
Maybe I just need to be busy. Maybe I just need a real job.
I kind of dislike the identity crises of this whole process.
I dislike that, though this is significantly different than any other time, I have been through this stuff before. The unstable and stabilizing.
I am remembering more again.
I once rolled my car as a result of an up. Sometimes I like to blame the worn out shocks on the little Jetta with over 300k, but the truth is, I was in a "spiritual high" and taking high stake risks that my more level brain knows are not wise. My toddler, who was directly behind me, was falling asleep with the sun blazing on him, so I turned back to position his blanket in the window. The windows were manual, I was driving. This is very stupid and not something I would normally consider doing while driving, especially on a freeway at freeway speeds (at least it was uncrowded and rural). When I turned back I found I was drifting off the road. I steered us back on, maybe over corrected a bit. That coupled with the 300+k worn suspension, made my overcorrection an impossible come back, and it resulted in a fluid floating rollover that landed us top side down facing the wrong way in the dip just off the side of the freeway.
God was watching over us, I know, and I experienced true faith knowing, as we floated over, that everything was going to be okay.
It was.
My babies strapped in their carseats in the back were okay, only babygirl, who was around the age of 4, had a slight red mark on her shoulder from hanging upside down in her carseat a bit longer.
We were very lucky. And I am so grateful.
And while I know God was protecting us, that was also the moment in time when I made a conscious decision to start shutting that part of me off. I was choosing to close the curtains into the realm of the spiritual. That would present it's own new struggles, especially in my family and culture, but I would rather keep my family safe in this human mortal realm.
This is a reminder that my perfectly imperfect may not actually be acceptable. I know this. It is my buried story that needs to stay buried and contained. It is what I struggle to understand, control, and manage. It can at times be what both attracts and detracts people to and from me.
When people say things like "everyone is like that" or "everyone has feelings like that," or "everyone experiences those things," sometimes I think "Well than EVERYONE needs to be medicated."
So the push back to the medication, is unwelcome.
Push back,
please go away,
please don't come again some other day.
I used to think a person is likely better off not having a major break or a major episode. It was a theory of mine; That if we could catch mental illness early enough and prevent major episodes, the person would be much better off. I think I am feeling this breaking of me to the higher degree is proving my theory to be accurate.
I can't go back, I can only move forward, but man it has sure been much more challenging moving forward this time around, and now I'm finding my body pushing back, likely not as responsive to the medication as it would have been had I not broken quite as big and been enduring without the medication and without honest help for so long.
...
...They could learn a lot from me
If only they would listen.

Out of the Darkness!

Tomorrow there is an Out the Darkness community walk. It is about fighting suicide, supporting families and people who are affected by it and trying to change stigma's around mental illness and mental health.
I want to attend and I also don't.
I want to invite my family and friends to come with me... but, I am afraid to.
I am afraid because I don't want to feel the lack of support if they say no. I am afraid to because I know some people will look at me differently, for whatever reason, no matter how I present it.
I am afraid because I don't want them to think things about my brother that may not be true because I know there will be people there that are nothing like him and nothing like how he was. I am afraid to because I am not sure I want to explain that is not just because of him that I want to attend. I am afraid to go because I may find myself in an angry tirade at IHC because they are one of the sponsors and I think that is very hypocritical considering how they have handled me.
...But mostly I am afraid to ask family and friends because I fear the rejection and how that might actually feed those fading thoughts and that core beleif that thinks I might be worthless.
Isn't that silly?
I can't attend the suicide prevention walk because I fear it might fuel it?... But then again, I think that is a pretty normally occurring phenomena. We don't want to be around sick people because we fear catching it. We don't want to accept mental illness because we fear it will increase it. We don't want to hang out with people who are different than we are because we fear we might become too similar to them.
The thing is these fears are not entirely irrational or ungrounded. Some can be, especially in the extreme, but there is some accuracy to those fears. Which is why people listen to their fears. I think when we can identify our fear we can then address it constructively and make a wise and rational decision that can benefit ourselves and others. But that fear is also a nudging into something we need to address.
So as I think of my fear and identify where it is coming from and then objectively look at it and how and why I might be feeling it, the realities of if and the extremes that are not so real or may be inaccurate, and I realize, I am pretty normal for feeling those things.
Which is why I'll go, with or without support from friends or family. They have their stuff and I have safely waited until the last minute to mention it to anyone so I can't really take it personally if they don't go anyway.
So I will go because I am normal and normal people, even good, kind, and intelligent people can struggle with this and be affected by it. I will go because even when I feel alone I am not alone and if simply being there can communicate that to someone else and offer some form of hope, I'll go.

"Keep fighting," she says; and How to change your negative core beliefs

It's not that I don't value myself. I do. But deep inside I am insecure and Dr. She says I "fear being worthless" or having no value to anyone.  She says I have a core belief about this that is in my heart. And when anything happens that will take a hit to my self esteem or sense of self worth that core is going to come out and tell me I am worthless and that what ever is happening is happening because I am worthless and/or unlovable or whatever that negative core belief is.

Yes. She is probably correct. And my brain, being the analyzer it is will often quickly agree: "Yes, that must be true because it is a basic law of economics. Supply and demand. It doesn't matter how amazing or awesome the product is, if no one is calling for it, there is no demand, it has no value." And I am so keenly aware of so many things. It is not just one thing that suggest this to my logical brain there are many. Including, but not limited to, how our flawed primary educational systems feed it. Remember all those dumb work sheets? "Good, better, best." All the sorting and categorizing? "Cut and paste all the picture that start with P, throw out the ones that don't belong"

Then I have to rationalize with things like: "I built that shed" to which the core will reply, "with your dad who was impatient and mad at you most of the time, despite how patient he has become with everyone else over the years."
So I'll try: "I biked 2 countries in 2 months with my 2 kids" to which my core will reply "and lost many friends because you tagged along and they didn't actually want you there, but you were too stupid to respond to the red flags."
"But I have at least walked a mile in the shoes of an elementary school teacher"
"And they did not offer to hold your job while you were in Brazil, plus the two teachers that shot down 100% (wish I were exaggerating there) of your ideas."

..."I am tired of fighting." I tell Dr. She today
 She said I have to keep fighting and fight harder again.
She meant it.
And while I am tired of fighting that was really all I needed to hear.
And she is correct.
So to my thoughts I say:
"now wait a minute, I didn't claim anything more than walking a mile in teacher shoes, and I fully admit that about did me in. My back gave out twice and I had more colds and lost my voice with those more times than I think I have in the rest of my life combined. And I was putting in 14 hour days, did you really want to go back to that? I did not ask them to hold the job either. Plus, those two teachers, that did, in fact, shoot down 100% (I also wish I were exaggerating) of my ideas also snagged many of those ideas out from under me and even pulled them out meetings with the big guys to make themselves look good. There is something to that which actually says a lot of good things about me."

"And I love my shed. I designed it and did a lot of the inside myself. Also it's probably good my dad feels safe enough with me to be ornery and impatient with me. He doesn't have that safety other places."

"As far as the friends, good riddance. You were there, you saw their true colors and you only biked with them for 1 out of the 2.5 months. You did this with your kids, by yourself, and you and I both know (or rather I and I know) they kind of hated you for that because it overshadowed them a bit and stole some of there glory, even though you weren't trying to."
"So core belief, you are wrong again and I am not okay with you being wrong about this so you will have to keep working on changing or be gone."
"You are right myself" and my core is softening, remembering why it has been so determined to change for me, and agreeing with Dr. She, to fight harder.
Because I am worth it.

Yes, others help determine my value

I need to feel loved.
I have felt so easily discarded and disregarded so many times by so many people that I am logically drawn to the conclusion that I am of little value.
How do we become what we are not?

Doubled up

11:45 pm
I can't sleep again.
The haunting images are coming back. My sons pocket knife left on the couch is harmless yet it begs to join the madness in my head. be physically present. And it is showing me (in visions) how it can be.
I HATE these thoughts. They are not welcome and I don't let them stay.
I force them away with whatever I've got. But sometimes they are persistent. If I change my thinking direction they will find someway to remind me of my worthlessness and advocate for killing me off in my own story. Like Antigone, not even the main character in her own play, I must die for the Creons' sake, pride and/or ego because he/they is/are the one/s in power.
Of course I will not, or at least I hope I will not, ...at very least I can say I will keep fighting for my life and resist the urge to hang myself in my forsaken tomb of abandonment- because I currently have a spoon to dig with and a few others that are hoping to help free me.
What a silly analogy.
I am already starting to feel a bit tired. Tired like my husband's patience is wearing with me.
I took 2. doubled my dose. I need to call the psychiatric PAC to get that officially prescribed. I think that may be wise.
Why the change?
Is it simply, like I already know, the medication does not change you and your thinking it just makes it possible for you to make the changes you need to.
At least that is my hope. Is that hope real?
Or is the timeline the culprit?
New neuropsychologist suggested I write one with all the things that happened, that they said or did that may have caused harm, and all the times I tried to tell them what was going one with me and it was ignored or avoided... All the times I tried to tell them that I was being haunted by suicidal thoughts followed by "I know what handle those" to keep me out of a lockup?  And all the times I tried to tell them "I just want to know what is going on with my head"
This is hard... HARD!
As I tried to write the timeline I realize and remember; it is too much. Too many times I tried to explain, to ask for help, hoping they saw what was really going on with me and believing them every time they took a different approach, decided it was something else or that I should go somewhere else.

Today: The previous was all written just before midnight last night and that last statement was exhausting enough (probably coupled with that double dose of quetiapine) to put me to sleep.
Trying to write out the timeline started the whole thing replaying again. "he loves me, he loves me not" flower petals trying to determine my fate kind of bullshit coupled with "You crazy!" and "They be crazy" and what the hell do I do about this?
I am so tired of this cycle, this damn cycle of mediocre crazy. And yet I am also immensely grateful that my crazy is so benign and understood (if only by me) because I know I am nowhere near the crazy of all the crap I hear and see all me and all around the world.
...Which can at times add to the burden I carry, because "where much is given, much is expected"
So I think it is time to walk away from all this today and enjoy my day. And I will.
But I'd like to share this funny story that was playing on the truck radio this morning: The nurse who loved me. ...( revised 9/10: Wait this isn't funny, it's the nurse that is saying hello to the rugs topography... I din't initially understand the violent attack part of it... Thankfully my crazy is much less violent towards others, an embarrassing mistake to think this song is beautiful and funny but at least evidence to suggest my own naive innocence, at least that)
Also I'm happy to say the knife is just a knife that got left laying around again; not a threat to my safety.

Superman takes Kryptonite for his sanity.

There have been many memories returned or revisited these last almost two years.
First the auto accident made everything feel off and unbalanced. My emotions were an instant mess, I felt disoriented and confused,  and even one side of my body felt taller than the other.
Then I started having feelings  and thoughts of "I have been here before, I have experienced this before" in relation to ways my brain was rerouting and functioning.
The chiropractor who suspected a concussion I was seeing did a little test. First he told me some words to remember; they were something like: apple, bubble, and ladder and I immediately recognized the visual pp, dd, bb pattern of the words so I was able to recall them later. I am not sure if he was conscious of this pattern or not, but for me, normally I don't visualize things like that so quickly and hardly care about remembering or making an effort to remember such things. However, it was an instinctive reaction, that was not how I normally function, but that felt familiar. Before he asked me to repeat those words the chiropractor had me track his finger. I was thinking it was silly and wondering why until he stopped. Then all of the sudden my head was swimming and the world was physically and visually throbbing or shaking. "What did you just do to my head," I eked  out as tears started to fall uncontrollably. I had to sit for sometime before the world stopped moving and I was able to drive myself home again.
I didn't know what magic he possessed and how he had done that to my head but I had experienced the world moving like that before, but I couldn't quite place it at that moment.
One of the more interesting things about that concussion was how my brain seemed to know how to accommodate, and even hide symptoms. I could feel the black dead ends that used to be well traveled routes and then I could feel it rerouting; doing something different to arrive at the same place. It was fascinating, confusing, exciting and scary all at the same time. It made me emotional and quiet.
Many strange moments, memories, and realizations have occurred since including the intriguing beard that suddenly spoke my name, and the names and faces that abandoned my recollection as they spoke in familiar tones; including the sensitivities to light and motion that I could not pinpoint as my internal surroundings danced around until my vestibular therapist pointed them out and we put them into controlled contexts. So many strange things I suspect related to TBI/mTBI... So many reoccurrences.
In this last week I had yet another deja vu memory. I feel as though I have been feeling pain more "normally" again since starting this mood stabilizer and I am actually happy for that because I was concerned about how I had not been feeling pain equivalent to the levels of injuries sustained (my ankle and lower back specifically). I laughed as I remembered how I had once before thought of how medication seemed to turn me into a mortal being. I used to claim an iron stomach and rarely ever got sick until I started taking nortriptyline. It worked well but eventually killed my immune system, the culprit for the ongoing flare up of cystic acne, and I was getting sick all the time. It was severe enough I had to stop taking it and my immune system came back. I don't remember what medication came after or if I was able to stop everything for awhile... I think it was lamictal next, but I am not certain. Eventually I went off all of them and was fine for sometime. Though maybe never really as well as I thought. It is hard to tell because so many things can simply be situational. I did go on adderall in 2015 and that has been a God send because so many things would pull too much energy from my brain, that I'd struggle to stay focused and keep up, which caused mild depression.
But since that dang airbag punch the head, my brain and emotions have been all over the place; functioning so differently that I have once again experienced crosses into the immortal realms. Even bigger and "better" cross overs. And as fun and/or fascinating as that may sound, if you have never experienced it, I can assure you, it is not maintainable and a sacrifice worth making so I join the realm of the mortals again (finally)  with the help of quetiapine.
Really, if you think about it: could you imagine how lonely it would be to be Superman? Yet when I take my kryptonite I find I may be more capable.