Ramblings and the common good

 I am just feeling a bit emotional... for whatever reason. And I feel like writing it out. freefloww whatever comes out comes out...

School. I love learning and I really enjoy interacting with others in that environment too, so all of this online stuff is not my favorite. But I still enjoy the learning aspect. I am slower though and keeping the correct word matched to the correct definition is more challenging. That is a bit discouraging. Yet kind of cool to because I get to see what it is like to utilize disability services. Not that this is necessarily cool by definition but to gain understanding and apathy I think is a gift that I can be grateful to obtain. 

My mind is also... too... yes, maybe just too. 

As I read I make connections and I see the flaws as I think like a scientist, so many errors exaggerated so often in the science of psychology. 

and somehow, "don't try to solve this" is the command whose opposite is now my life's purpose... further nurtured by soooo many, "you will help so many people." and even more by the, "You already have"s Which I am immensely grateful for... 

but also tearful because I know it is an almost impossible task, especially since I have no ins, no connections that will help me substantially with my goal. And I have lived enough and done enough within many environments to know that those ins and connections are especially crucial for lofty goals such as mine...

... tears well again.

and my heart and mind are in conflict again knowing how much I know and have lived through and how much I really could help others if only given the chance... But the very things that make me a valuable contributor to the world of psychology are the exact same things that I am discriminated and misjudged for... and it hurts so much... and my heart hurts so much for the so many people that have also been used and abused by the-rapists of their souls who hide behind their credentials and claim therapists. 

And they don't care. 

It is clearly evident that Dr. He does not care about the harm he caused me and the damage he did. He does not care that he recklessly endangered my life. He does not care that his games still haunt me and burden my soul. 

And Ms. Reddy does not care. She does not care that she carelessly and/or ignorantly endangered my life from the beginning and multiple times along the way as she feigned care. 

What exactly did I stumble across?  Ms. Jodi, who was supposed to be my advocate, how the hell does she even sleep at night doing what she does? Evidence of greater deviance from within. It just does not make any sense at all what happened to me and why... I can give so many explanations, I can solve this a million times in a million different ways but ultimately the lack of humanity and human dignity and the complete disregard for me... that eats me up again and again.

Second class.

Prime target for grooming.

these things that put me there make it so much harder to take. At least now I am aware. Aware of how I made myself second class too often in my life and aware of how I have established too many relationships with people who reinforce my negative core misconceptions of myself. So I am purging... purging people from my life that do not value me, treat me as second class, and interpret their projections of their own flaws and shortcomings as my flaws and shortcomings... But this loss of relationships is hard and very lonely. And I have to leave family behind as I move forward in developing me... 

Even though I still love

and I still want to believe in others and their ability to change their relationship and perceptions of me...

I still want to believe when they say that they care even when all evidence suggests otherwise...

It hurts and is lonely... and it becomes challenging to know how to proceed with making new connections. 

And I hate him.... so much... because I really genuinely care for a person that values me at nothing...and I have to report.... or something... but still I want to believe and give him a chance because I am in love with the potential and the ideals that everyone else knows is never going to happen... Be very careful now, when I say this please do not misinterpret nor mistake what I mean, and to ensure that you don't I will clarify yet again: the ideals and potential that I am in love with are the validating and assisting in each others life work for the improvements of psychology, TBI treatment, and humanity in general. Just think how beneficial the outcomes could be if he would be honest and allow the conversations on countertransference, how it effected him, how he was expected to handle it, his fears, his realities, his handling. His honest reflections and honest feelings vocalized for me to process. His undoing of his misguided (or manipulative) words that keep something deeper in me locked in a constant battle. Just think how much the honesty of providers could help the clients they have cared (or feigned care) for instead of hurting through abandonment and isolation, blaming and shaming with no allowance of honest, fair playing field, discussions -reinforcements of the pain and shame of so many previous abandonments. Think of the benefits they could gain if I were allowed to explain what was really going on with me in light of head injury and how that effected everything, possibly even the feelings he had implied for me. Or even how we might turn tables of deviance by making him the hero of countertransference... Think how they could utilize the terms and tools of what has helped me be a success in handling so many aspects of TBI and mental illness... such a success that even they, the professionals, were unsure what I was and how to handle me because I was not manifesting according to data. Think of how much more we could help those with TBI if, instead of punishing me, they embraced -by utilizing me, the outlier to the statistics that suggest I should be much more worse off than I am.

But that is the ideal and not the real world that we live in and I am somehow supposed to give up and let go of those dreams... 

when so much of cultural conditions says to hold tight and keep dreaming those dreams. 

Cinderella, so sweet and never loosing her delusions of the life that realistically would never happen. 

... and even in the first chapter of my book of psychology they celebrate Mary Whiton Calkins, the cinderella of psychology... 

SO... what is a girl to do when she has a scientist's mind and a heart that wants to believe in the good of humanity and even of Goliath himself?  

David will take him down in one shot with his slingshot, but Erica would try to make friends with him instead. She'd appreciate his stature, his talents and skills, and his commitment to his people.  She'd communicate her hopes of reconciling the parties at war for the benefit of all instead of just those who have power over the others. 

...Power, money and prestige... oh how people fight to defend those... All the way to the death even of the innocent who don't stand a chance and in reality could add to their power... if they were unified in a common purpose and goal. 

... maybe that is really what it all boils down to. Do we have a common purpose and goal? Yes or no? 

"you already have done insanely hard things to prove a point," says Dr. She to me just now after I tell her that Dr. He's voice commanding me, "I told you not to try and solve this," is now my motivation to do exactly that; solve this. Not just for me but for every other person who has been hurt by therapists in similar ways.

She says I will succeed and I am glad I have her vote of confidence. We all need someone to believe in us. 

back in the saddle again...

 "You can do it but it's going to be really hard for you," says Dr. She.

"Well what the hell else am I going to do?" I say, "Everything is going to be hard for me. Any full time job is going to be hard for me. I'd think it will be easier to do something I really care about and feel like I need to do than just take some crappy easy job that will still make me just as tired." Or something to that effect.

Dr. She is telling me this because she wants me to be realistic and she does not want me going into only to be devastated due to unrealistic expectations of myself... 

I am already glad she warned me. My first pretest, you only get credit if you finish and I did not. I am too slow at reading and a lot of this is new or detailed information using semantics that I am not as familiar with. My head feels tight and tired. This is really hard. 

I know that some of it is just from being out of practice with this level of academia but some of it is new and exacerbated effects of TBI... it has never been quite like this...

This is hard. 

This is really hard...

Ethically Discarded; a Nightmare You Will Never Wake From

 I'm back in school.... coming in too hot on introductions and conversations in an attempt to make sure I have everything lined up as best I can for my student success.

... I am listening to lectures about peer reviewed articles, what they are and what that means... "the highest level of quality in science...'' blah blah or something like that and I feel a bit nauseous because these damn people who are supposed to have "the patients best interest" in mind at all times are so damn full of their own delusions of competency that they can't even see what is happening right in front of them when it is happening right in from of them... 

I guess thats what I am feeling that is making me slightly nauseated... because that is what came out. 

I might have to throw up to digest all this nonsense and I am just at the beginning...

But actually, what I think might really be happening... 

Triggering... blah. and where is the green-faced-about-to-puke emoji when you need it?

I think it is time to call it a night.

Damned manic intensified transference memories getting the best of me tonight... 

Bastard. 

 Tenacious... And I won't give up. 

This is the path that has chosen me 

Nagging Dilemmas

 I have this ever present nagging dilemma... Sometimes it causes real pain in my heart; it physically hurts. Other times it causes a pit in my stomach with an ever so slight nauseous feeling. While others times it is a knot in my throat. It can make my head feel heavy and tired. Sometimes this dilemma causes all of these.

"I need to report..."

but truth be told, I still don't want to...

and that is when I start to feel all of those feelings... as tears well up... 

Tenacious

I am rather tenacious in my faith and confidence in people. 

And I felt things. I know things. About that man that I know I need to report. 

Why do I need to report? Because he crossed boundaries, he absolutely did play with me when I was very vulnerable and trusting him to help and care for me, when I was reliant on him and paying for his services. He has lied about what happened and my condition. He missed and/or intentionally dismissed very serious conditions (mania and even TBI) to cover up his mistakes and/or deviance. He said things and there is evidence that implies that he has done things like this before. He knew too well how to protect himself from his deviance. He was suggestive in a scenario where he absolutely should not have been. He planted ideas and then he set things up to make me look bad. He was slanderous. He lied about me saying that I behaved inappropriately... and other lies... He blamed me for his boundary violations and deviance and when I was in a very child like position with him. He will go to any length, no matter the cost to me, to cover up what happened. 

All these things.. You would think it would not be hard to report him. Clearly I need too.... Cleary I have a duty to especially since that is the path they pushed me down and I was even told to... I was told to, but then repeatedly punished for doing it by himself and his institution. That is important. I was told to and then severely punished for doing so. Even though I tried to do so in a way that would not cause any harm to him or any of them. I tried to explain every time that I was just trying to figure out what was going on with my head... Only to have the manic fed fantasy reinforced with denials and dismissals of the reality of my physiology and conditions.  

SO why the hell is this so hard to report?...

...Because (and here is where I want to verbally chastise myself but I will try to refrain) I still genuinely care for the bastard. I still see the good in him and potential. Because I know that if he would be open to it he and I could help each other in profoundly powerful ways that could then be used to help other TBI survivors ...and possibly help transform how transference is understood and how countertransference is so poorly handled across the board in the US. I am the expert from the other side of the couch that validates his career and life's work AND some talents and skills he has that TBI survivors need. Skills I know he has that others (maybe even including himself) likely don't fully understand the value of, and why they are are so valuable specifically and especially for TBI survivors. 

Because I know [or believe] that working things out directly with him would be far more beneficial (to at very least me) than reporting and going through all that nonsense which may just result in creating a better liar of this man who then would know the degree to which he can get away with his games and using of patients for his own self-serving purposes. 

... there is more

More in me that is resistant to reporting... Maybe not more but rather extensions of what I have explained. Tenacious hopes and desires to reconcile and work with the man I thought he was... But with the intensity of what was, and what was not, cleared up through the simplicity of reality (specifically referring to the transference and countertransference that were manic fed) 

...Resistant to report because then all potential is surely lost forever... 

Which in reality, everyone else seems to know clearly already is...

Due to their pride, ego's, arrogance, and irrational fears?

And yet I hold out with idealistic hope... Praying for an alternative... 

When I know, considering how it was all handled and the very clear misdiagnosing and malpractice, I need to report...

to the governing bodies whom they work for and with whom they pay their licensing fees to

... that don't give a shit about no-name nobodies like me... So I guess there is that too. I have lost a lot, if not all, faith in the institutions and organizations who claim to be there to protect us and hold accountable those in power... who pay their wages and govern their boards... 

But then their is also the recognition of their accusations and the level to which they are willing to take their lies... and I know I probably need to report to protect myself from them and their fraudulent accusations against me... They threatened me with legal and criminal actions... Using false allegations and accusations and scenarios they have carefully set up to make them appear real to some degree. Traps I walked into again and again, loving them, trusting them...needing them. 

As badly has they have handled and treated me you would think reporting would be easy.  And that is the deep psychology that is most intriguing and most unsettling... 

Sigh...

and the dilemma...

the nauseating, heart crushing, weighty burden...

 the ever present nagging dilemma...

"you should have seen me before head injury," I joke as he tells me, according to his testing of me, I am still "one smart cookie" and [he thinks] I have not lost any intelligence from the TBI's. 

A broken brain that is still intelligent. A blessing and a curse. 

...And so much potential to help others, if only they would open their eyes and get over their irrational fears. 

Celebrating The Long Lonely Highway

I wrote this post while driving on Sunday 8/23:

"A lot can happen in a year." 
This is what I am thinking about as we are driving home from Saint George.
As I am contently riding with my husband, two kids, and the dog along the long lonely highway I am reminded of the drive I did alone, from Saint George to Provo for the Brain Injury Alliance Conference almost one year ago. As we pass a particular exit, I remember how I had to pull off and pull over to prevent my foot from turning into lead

in an effort to quiet the noise that was in my head.

…I remember, in desperation, knowing that I was not safe in that moment that I had to do something. But aside from pulling over, I didn’t know what to do. I turned off the car and got out of the sleek silver bullet -weapon of self-destruction- I was no longer safe enough to be operating. Tears streaming, I started walking away and into the hills of cedar and sage.

Now, as we drive pass that spot I tear up a bit as I remember this and I recognize just how far I have come. My heart swells and the tears well up higher as I remember CP’s sweet and sincere response to me as I walked through the shrubs talking with her on the phone. It was a wise decision, to phone a friend, and I feel especially blessed to have a friend like CP who knows me well enough and loves me enough to respond with so much love and such sincere concern.

She talked me down and she reigned me in. She reminded me of who I really am and that I matter. She loved me enough to know that I was in real trouble and stayed with me for as long as I needed.
Which, ironically, is always so much less time than one might expect when the love and concern is sincere.
…and I am in full tears now as I remember this and as I am so keenly aware of how far I have come and how well I am doing now.

I am so very grateful
That I am here
Alive and well
And So eternally grateful
For all the beautiful angels that have helped me get here:
CP
Dr. She
Psychiatric PA
My husband
My kids
My sister
Another sister
Physical Therapist Doug
Renee
Oriant Coach J
CS from Quora
Neighbor friend J
A few other neighbors
Neighbor friend’s mother-in-law
Bob
M
R
D
Ski friends
Little angels here and there

And I am meeting more.
…And myself. I need to credit myself as well because, as Dr. She has pointed out, I never gave up, I kept trying and working to find the right help very much on my own when I should not have been left alone with that task… and she is right, I did save my own live by doing this. I loved me enough to keep fighting for me even when I was losing me and losing with me. That is why I needed to find and recruit others, I was losing against me and I needed back up.
And that is how it works 

that is how you win in the fight against Suicide.
You keep fighting and you get back up.
That is how you beat mania and the crashes that follows.
You keep fighting and you find the right help.
And that is how you get ahead of your TBI
You keep going, you keep trying, and you find the people you need to help you figure it out

…and if the first group fails you or, even worse, betrays you,
you keep trying, you keep fighting, you keep getting back up and
You do it all again… and again 
Choosing to trust again even when you don’t
…Maybe this time trusting yourself more than those that you are entrusting yourself with, and trusting a bit more carefully, but choosing to trust none-the-less.

And I would end there but I feel it so important to point out that the first and critical ingredient needed for this recipe of success is: recognizing that suicidal thoughts are a symptom -not the problem nor the solution, but a symptom.

Once you recognize suicidal thoughts, feelings, ideations, surges, short circuits, or however it is manifesting, as a symptom, then you can start getting to the bottom of what is causing the symptom and what you can do to change the underlying problems.

Some things are worse than COVID

Last week I cried for the first time about all of the COVID 19 crap. I am so tired of all the nonsense and fear mongering. I am so annoyed with how our kids are being treated and how blown out of proportion this virus is. 

I am tired of being treated and people being treated with so much aggressive malice if you differ from the fear driven expectations of the mainstream media. I am so tired of people saying crap about "protecting their loved ones" and how you don't care about peoples lives if you try to point out that we cannot stop the spread and we need to develop herd immunity. I am so tired of the hate and fear. I am so tired of the lack of common sense and abuses being justified and excused in the name of COVID. 

It is starting to wear on me.

I am now powerless to stand up for my children rights to attend school and be treated fairly. 

I am not keeping a calm demeanor in talking to ignorant and irrational facilitators of their educational facilities. I am tired of people, "just following guidelines" and orders...

We are no different than the Nazi's... 

and I felt that when I read Viktor Frankl's book before this whole COVID nonsense. It is becoming more clear how true this is.

I don't want to go into how my daughter is being expected to quarantine and not allowed to participate in school activities because on of the girls on her Pom team tested positive for COVID even though my daughter does not actually meet the criteria for coming in contact with someone who has tested positive. I don't want to write about how the coaches that decided all of the girls should be quarantined, that had the same or greater contact with the virus, are NOT being quarantined and are, and have been, participating in and attending the school events they are not allowing our children to attend... Activities that these girls have been getting up at 5 am and working hard to prepare for through out the summer. 

I am angry. 

and it is wearing on me...

my ability to self modulate this anger when talking with these ignorant and irrational lemmings is feeling very compromised...

I know how this whole COVID crap is being handled is not good and is very unhealthy. I know this because it is starting to interfere with my stability... it is causing symptoms that I know mean something is off and unbalanced. It is even surprising me with the creeping in of suicidal feelings and responses. 

... so what do I do about that?

I'll not join the fear of the masses. Then I die for sure. In life or livelihood, very possibly both. 

Maybe we need a resistance army