Cutting Too Deep.

I take a break from changing out bookshelves as I read about "Deadly Emotions" and I realize that I really do not hate. The description of hate does not match me nor what I feel. Or is it that I feel guilty for hating? No, I do not feel it the way it is described.
So I contemplate, "what is it that I am actually feeling?"
Hurt.
Hurt and sadness.
also confusion; should I believe the messages received?
Anger is necessary -though it too can be considered a toxic emotion- but it is necessary in order to counter those messages received... to keep me alive.
I am at greater risk for suicide because of TBI. I am at greater risk for suicide because of how my brother died. I am at greater risk of suicide because of the bipolar side.
Bipolar was manifesting itself then.
the book about deadly emotions talks about love and how being in love can effect the brain the same way drugs can. It names similar symptoms... it also sounds like mania: euphoria, no need for sleep or food...
Is this why he could not see the mania in me? Because I loved him? He was my drug?
Was I like a drug to him?
or was I simply a toy
and a game
and flattery to his ego
so he labeled it as such, maybe calling me addicted to being in love since I openly stated that I fall in love all the time, though it was not to be taken that way, worded unwise in my state of compromised.
But whether it was the drug of love, TBI, or effects from the other things going on with my brain then, one thing I am certain of: he knew better than I did what he was doing and the mistakes he made. And he held all of the cards.
He can manipulate it however he wants. He knows the industry, he knows psychology and he knows TBI.
It hurts my heart
again and deep
that he and they likely and very literally would rather I die than admit he/they made a mistake or even to simply clarify.
Hurt.
Not hate.
Hurt.
High risk for suicide
coming from at least three sides
Fighting for my life was not a lie
I know the symptoms. I know the reality. I know how and when to hide it. I know how it can hit and take a person before they even realize what they are doing if they are not aware and on constant guard when that is the ailment that plagues you.
Suicide denied.
I fight.
and I will keep fighting
because they lie
to push me to die...
They know better and if they do not then they need to. They are supposed to be the professionals. They are supposed to be the Hipocratic oath takers. They are trusted and turned to. They are paid for their expertise and help. They are the specialists, trusted and admired.
Hits.
Still taking them
The more I learn the more it helps me, yet in the light of these events the sword has another edge that hits with the knowledge that is power; thus the more I learn the more cuts I take and the more it hurts.
Ignorance may be bliss for some
but not to a broken, bipolar brain that doesn't quite work the same
...and was manipulated to take the blame.

high rates of suicide in people with TBI

The more I learn about TBI's the better I understand myself and the more valid I feel.
But I also feel increasingly more angry at the Intermountain Neuroscience Institute the more I learn about TBI.
Like "3 times more likely to commit suicide."
Freaking Jackasses
Such reckless endangerment
and how intentional was and is it?
I am so very angry with how stupid they are or how fraudulent or that they just didn't care for me and so then encouraged suicide.
I am so very angry
so very very angry.
I could be such a valuable asset to them
but instead they would rather let me and even encourage my death.
I hate them.
I hate them because I loved them
and I trusted them.
I hate them because I needed them, if they really are the experts and not frauds.
I will not back down.
I will not back down until they listen.  I will not back down until I am heard, understood, and credited, until they apologize, until they acknowledge and fix the mistakes they have made. Until they make appropriate changes
Or until the entire institution is dissolved.
THIS IS MY FIGHT!!!!!!!
And I will fight

wandering thoughts

...cont.
But the real truth is, it was not heaven at all but a combination of a whole lot of things, a whole lot of things that make both people and the industry of psychology so very complex.
"Unfortunately there is still a human element to all of this."
It was not heaven
It was mania
mixed with my trust
and admiration, appreciation and maybe a touch of infatuation
that he fed while in disguise
with his replies
of little white lies
laced with his secret desire to be between my thighs.
Not heaven but
the mystery of chemistry
being played with by the mastermind.
To bad I know
the best liars hide their lies in the truth.
I see through the disguise
but I do not despise
thus often these kind of guys
confess too freely to me
who they don't want others to see.
But I see
and so too freely they open up to me
confessing without meaning to who they are and what they do
Which is why Dr. He is so very terrified of me

It was all three.

Thus because I am a human, with a broken brain and other brain and mental health anomalies, I was highly vulnerable when I went there in the first place. In the Neuroscience Institute and with their providers (one in particular) I found hope, validation, understanding. My life was making sense from my new perspectives on brain injury. I also found a person with whom I connected easily and whose hypnotic voice calmed me. I felt safe and comfortable there. He seemed to understand how I worked and he knew how to redirect me or fill in the blanks when the blanks came. He could unscramble my scrambled words and seemed to know what I was trying to say. But in reality I likely credited him too highly because I needed what he offered so desperately. It is likely that I magnified or exaggerated his talents and abilities in my trust and flattery. But he definitely understood better so many things about me than anyone I had ever known to that point.
And of course he did. He has been studying head injury for 20 something years. He knows me so well from that context that I am not sure he even realized that is likely what he was attracted to. I was a physical manifestation of his research and the need for him and his occupation all wrapped up in an attractive enough female form. Walking, breathing, talking proof of  the importance and significance of his findings. Of course he would fall in love with me.
Plus I am fun, playful, adventurous, and I love easily. ...with legs that are long enough to wrap around the object of my affection. That is not easy to ignore by men who find themselves married to my female peers that are not so playful, adventurous, or as easily and sincerely affectionate...
While in my younger years I was not the trophy many men or boys were looking for, very many find that there trophies do not satisfy their aging adventurous spirits and the trophies rust and eventually resent what they are or what they represent.
...and I am wandering vicariously in my thoughts at the moment, allowing myself to indulge in the things I previously would/could not see. I am an anomaly to many, not entirely all that unique in my individual attributes but rather unique in their mixing and in my ability to see things for what they are.
blah blah blah. Am I allowing my head to grow big? No idea, don't really care, but I do now understand that my troubles with girls and boys now are not too far off from my troubles with them in high school. I was too easily friends with the boys, playful but not a toy, and the girls would often resent me for it. I am the same, I guess, and another way I am reliving (even still) the trauma of those days. PSTD is not over yet.
I am so far digressed now, that I don't even know what I am saying, why, or what I was initially trying to say...
Except this. I needed his expertise and I loved the package it came in. He found a manifestation of his significance and he mistook that for something else, loosing objectivity completely and at my expense.
He is a small man with a small mind or it is still possible he was grooming and he plays with his patients on a regular basis. A brilliant yet deviant mastermind that has his entire institution fooled.
It could be he was broken himself and made mistakes. It could be my own broken manic misinterpretations, yet he denies that. So then what? How deep do his transgressions go? How deep does his deception go?
Mania?
Grooming?
Countertransference?
It can't be none
but it could have been all three
which is what I feel most inclined to believe
making it ridiculously complex for me
as he tries to hide
it all
from those who need to know and who can and should hold him accountable
and stop him.
He would let me go and let me die
he will even feed the destruction of me
just to protect
what I was also trying to protect:
him.
But manipulations do not work on me
-the manifestation of his career-
because I am the missing link
in all he claims to be trying to figure out, help and understand.
If he is true and trustworthy I am not his enemy I am his answer.
If he is a fraud and a fiend than I am his fear and the one who will expose him.
The yin to the yang

I am allowing my mind freedom as
I wander
and I digress
but do I?
How right am I?
and how wrong?
He is okay with being wrong about me
But I am not okay with that
because it hurt me in many many ways
and it kept me from getting the proper help and care I needed.
And he brought with him, in his wrongness, an entire institution and my reputation.
And I am not okay with that.
Yin and Yang are out of balance
and I cannot seem to convince myself that this is only true for me
that I am the exception that
should be sacrificed for the greater good
 that they claim is only unbalanced for me or because of me.
But I am not the one that is in disguise
nor am the one
speaking the lies.
Just ask the MRI's

Warriors

Sometimes I just want to write things down. Sometimes I want to publish them even though I know it may reflect poorly on me to others.
I have had a lot in my head about warriors and mental health issues and the way they are handled. I think of warriors because we watched Free Solo, the documentary about a man named Alex Hannold who free climbed El Diablo. He is an interesting person. At one point he talks about the warrior spirit. There is also a lot of commentary about how free solo climbers are doing it for themselves and they often do not want the camera on them. It was as if it were some unwritten code of false humility or something. But Alex wanted it on camera. It was never said but it was obvious because he would tell them when he was going and other indications that Alex wanted the cameras there. Some may have that weird "you are doing it for show then" attitude and criticism but I think that is exactly what sets him a part. That is what makes him a warrior, that is the warrior spirit.
I believe that is what sets him apart from the other free soloists that all eventually died free climbing less difficult routes because he is not only doing it for himself.
I am going to diverge and wander here now.
Driving 4 hours from the southern end of my state to go to the Brain Injury Alliance conference a few months back, I had a bit of a melt down. Maybe it was too many hours alone when I was still fragile and stabilizing amidst being actively involved in emotionally taxing activities like watching niece and nephews with my mother-in-law and facing TBI realities by attending the conference. I was still very young in the stabilizing with medication. Whatever the reason, I had a bit of a melt down.
Amidst this melt down I realized I am not strong enough to fight just for me. I was not winning the battles in my head when it was just for me. I was loosing still, even with the medication. But, when I thought of my kids I had to keep fighting. I found strength to keep fighting again. In that moment I realized that I really am not strong enough just for me BUT I can be strong enough for my kids.
However, under the crushing weight of my intensities,  I also realized I am not strong enough by myself ...so I phoned a friend. Probably the first time ever in a mental battle with the dark side (that was winning). I usually face my demons alone and try not to burden others. But this time I was not strong enough and calling CP was wise. I am so grateful for her. She helped me to keep fighting.  She helped me to be a warrior.
That is the difference between a fighter and a warrior; a fighter can fight just for them self, but a warrior is not a warrior unless they are fighting for a cause -for something bigger than themselves- for others. A warrior is much stronger than a fighter for that very reason.
Alex the free soloist is a warrior because he is not just doing it for him and he draws strength from others. When he was on the wall of El Diablo with no ropes, when he would pass the scariest and hardest challenges,  he would look at the camera and smile; he was drawing strength from and celebrating with those who were there documenting his feat. I think if he were doing it only for himself, then his body would have told him to let go a hundred times and he justifiably could have  because it was for him self and he was listening to his body. But with the cameras present and with what he had eluded to previously in the documentary about how part of what drove him was the desire to be good enough in the eyes of his parents, Alex would draw strength and hold on because he knew "nobody wanted to see that" if he were to fall. I admire him for wanting to share his feat with others and for drawing strength from them. I admire him for having a true warrior spirit and determination.

And now I diverge again... I find myself annoyed with myself because it has been so very difficult to "get over" this man that I know I don't really know and that obviously does not actually care for me. He has been a literal and very solid stigmatizing, harmful, and slandering jerk. It is very confusing and annoying that my mind and heart would ever still think to care about him AND even to crave his presence and existence in my life.
So my mind still tries to make sense of why that is and I am reminded of the psychology professor that, in his bio, claimed to be researching what happens to people in therapy and the thought crosses me; "What do you do when you find heaven but heaven does not want you? Instead, expecting you to walk away and be okay."
I could go deeper into this, connecting to others and what are all too common feelings and "problems" in therapy, but I really don't want to, because it simply feels the way I said, and it is very hard to walk away from what feels like heaven, simply because heaven does not want you.
Psychology: the industry of blasphemy. And what a beautiful fucked up man.

The stings that can kill

The worst lie:
“I would always want to protect you...”
No, you would not. You did not when it was your job to. You used me.
Right now I need protecting that I would not have needed if you had actually had my best interest in mind, if you actually cared, wanted, or tried to protect me.
It was a lie
an A manipulation
solid evidence of your lies.
And the words haunt me and sting harsh again, in this moment that I need protection.
...which makes me think of my two last physical stings from the flying yellow and black creatures that sting. Both within the last two years, both turned into cellulitis and I had to take medications to stop the severe overreaction from spreading... My body reacted too extreme...
This seems a familiar theme.
The stings that turn into life threatening infections...
from the deceptive creatures who do not love me.

Favorite Quotes of the moment

"You lose a leg or a kidney, you're still you, but you lose a part of your brain -literally, lose your mind - and who are you then?"
   -Lori Gottlieb

"She is not herself. You have no idea what she is fighting."
   - The character Finn in Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker.

A long day

EEG and MRI results turned into a long day.
Kids coming was a definite positive.
Now, mostly, I need to go to bed.
But I just have to say
Turns out
By Brain really is a fascinating place!
So fascinating that the day ended (I just returned home) with yet another brain scan.
And this is all so funny to me.
HA HA HA HA HA
and that is all I will say about that.
Goodnight.