Saturday, November 16, 2019
fighting to survive again. I will not die so easily
I WILL NOT DIE FOR YOU!!!
I SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE AND WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO REINFORCE BUT I WILL NOT DIE SO EASILY.
I WILL NOT GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT JUST SO YOU CAN COVER YOUR INDISCRETIONS!!!
I WILL NOT DIE FOR YOU!
I WILL NOT COMMIT SUICIDE BECAUSE YOU WANT ME TO. BECAUSE IT WILL BENEFIT YOU.
I WILL NOT DIE FOR YOU AND YOUR LIES!!!!
AND I WILL NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT YOU SAID, AND HOW I WAS TREATED. I GAVE YOU EVERY POSSIBLE CHANCE TO CLARIFY, I GAVE YOU THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT AGAIN AND AGAIN, I FOLLOWED YOUR RULES PLAYED YOUR CRYPTIC GAMES. I TRUSTED YOU. I TRIED TO GET THE HELP I NEEDED FROM THE MEDICAL PROVIDERS THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONES TO SEE THAT I NEEDED HELP WITH BUT YOU HAD SLANDERED AND TWISTED ME INTO SOMETHING I WAS NOT AND THEN YOU WOULD NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO TALK WITH ME TO CLARIFY, TO HELP ME. YOU MANIPULATED THE ENTIRE INSTITUTION TO WHATEVER IT WAS YOU WANTED THEM TO BELIEVE ABOUT ME, WHILE I WAS BROKEN AND STUPIDLY STILL TRUSTING.
DEFAMATION IS UNTRUE, I HAVE NOT CLAIMED ANYTHING THAT HAS NOT HAPPENED OR THAT IS CONTRARY TO MY UNDERSTANDING, HOWEVER I HAVE SOUGHT CLARIFICATION, WHICH YOU AND YOUR INSTITUTION HAVE DENIED ME. I EVEN TRIED SO HARD NOT TO HURT YOU OR CAUSE UNDO HARM WHICH ULTIMATELY HURT ME IN GETTING THE HELP I NEEDED. I HAVE BEHAVED LIKE A PERSON WHO HAS BEEN GROOMED AND I KNOW BETTER THAN TO BELIEVE I AM THE ONLY ONE. I DID NOT WANT TO BELIEVE THAT. IT BROKE MY HEART TO THINK IT BECAUSE I LOVED YOU AND I CARED AND YOU SEEM SO KIND AND MODEST... BUT IT IS A GUISE. AND I HEARD THE THINGS YOU SAID, ALL. I SAW YOUR EYES CHANGE, AND I KNOW HOW YOU MANIPULATED THROUGH IMPLYING. YOU CLAIMED YOU WOULD ALWAYS WANT TO PROTECT ME WHEN YOU WERE NOT EVEN DOING THAT WHEN IT WAS YOUR JOB TO, YOU WERE INTENTIONALLY HARMING ME.
I HAVE BEHAVED LIKE A PERSON WHO HAS BEEN GROOMED AND I KNOW BETTER THAN TO BELIEVE I AM THE ONLY ONE.
I WILL NOT SIT BY AND SAY NOTHING KNOWING YOU ARE GETTING AWAY WITH THIS.
AND I WILL NOT DIE FOR YOU!!!!
thoughts processed and out.
the reason for this very unknown blog...
I will keep fighting to survive. I will keep fighting for my family. I will keep fighting for others like me who are being mistreated and abused by these very powerful and apparently very corrupt systems. I will keep fighting to stay out of the darkness of the psychological mess this has caused. I will keep fighting.
I choose to live!!!!
I CHOOSE TO LIVE!!!!!!!!!
And I will not break again for you. I am stronger and I will keep getting help. I WILL NOT BREAK FOR YOU! I will not die for you.
Friday, November 15, 2019
the closer you get to the truth the harder people will fight you to keep their illusions up
One thing I have learned in life is the closer I get to the truth that someone is trying to hide the more vicious they become in their fight to hide it.
...This is very bad.
This is very very bad...
I have been absolutely gun shy about trying anything, about returning to previous projects and even occupations because of the hit this last year has taken to my confidence and because of the hit it has taken to my belief in other people...
I am scared for this world.
I am scared because of what is happening to me.
As a kid I never really felt bullied but as an adult... this is happening on terrifying levels...
this does not make sense to me.
...This is very bad.
This is very very bad...
I have been absolutely gun shy about trying anything, about returning to previous projects and even occupations because of the hit this last year has taken to my confidence and because of the hit it has taken to my belief in other people...
I am scared for this world.
I am scared because of what is happening to me.
As a kid I never really felt bullied but as an adult... this is happening on terrifying levels...
this does not make sense to me.
Monday, November 11, 2019
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
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."
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."
Monday, November 4, 2019
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.
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.
Sunday, November 3, 2019
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.
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.
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.
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