Ramblings through the avenues of ...

 "It's going to be the same thing," I hear myself saying, "nobodies ever really what they say they are." 

Which I guess is what sets me apart. I really, genuinely am who I say I am and it is surprising how much that scares and confuses people.

Oh well. and I have come to realize that their fear, their distrust and their distortions of me are reflective of them and not me. They fear and distrust because they fear and distrust themselves, not me, as they work diligently to distort others perceptions of them. 

Being genuinely you can cause other problems too. Like being perceptive to attributes of others -that they may or may not want others to see or recognize about themselves- and then calling them out without even realizing you are doing it. But maybe this problem of mine is not due to my being genuinely me but rather due to knowing what it's like to be me and not me at the same time; a phenomenon you are not likely to recognize you are experiencing unless you have had a TBI or battled loosing your mind to mania or some other mental illness -that is just as much a physical illness and medical condition as any other physical or medical condition. TBI's also have a tendency to create lowered inhibitions in the survivor.

It's funny how the attribute of lowered inhibitions is so acceptable and excusable if you are drinking or if a person has worked for decades to achieve it while it is shunned and shamed in those who have this as a direct result of head trauma.

And so I ramble on today the many things that would like to be let out of my brilliant contained brain...

Which reminds me of a phenomenon-al notice I have recently re-noticed about APA (American Psychological Association) affiliated professionals and those in the counseling and psychology oriented professions and it is this: Their seems to be a craving and unspoken desire by those counselors and therapist to be the object of obsessive affection of one of their patient/clients. They brag and pride themselves in their "crazy" client that just could get enough of them and that they had to cut of in their confidently cold and calloused clout that they are beaming proud to own. It is really very interesting and surprising there has not been more conversation about how the therapist might subconsciously, and at times maybe even consciously, be first creating the craving and then punishing the vulnerable and highly susceptible patient for it. And I wonder how many therapists, counselors, etc have noticed or realized that the crazed patient may not really be as obsessed and possessed as their greedy needy therapists are claiming them to be after rejecting them for their therapist taught dependency and affection that rejection is sure to ignite. 

Brilliantly contained can often be hard to explain. Did you follow?

It's interesting and another phenomenon I'd sure like to research but one that would likely not garner much support for from the APA and those professionals whose need and crave being the object of obsessive affection. 

"I pity the fool"

 It saddens me how little regard IHC has for me as a patient and as a human being. It saddens me how calloused and condoning they are of serious unethical and even illegal behavior against patients. It hurts my heart and today I feel sad and slow for it. 

And why do I feel the need to publish these feelings and facts? When I know it is most likely the only people reading this are those who derive pleasure in knowing that they are succeeding in degrading me and beating me down. Those that will smile and think they are winning and getting close to causing me to cave with their cold, malicious and unethical approaches ... 

"Why?" I am asking myself out loud, "...do I feel the need to publish this?" 

Maybe I want them to know exactly what they are doing and the effect they are in fact having. Maybe knowing that they know helps me keep fighting. Maybe knowing that they know eases my mind and conscience before God and I am trusting that He will be the ultimate judge of their character and of how knowing this influenced their future actions against me and others. Maybe that is why.

Or maybe I am still foolishly hopeful that they will stop being such jerks to me or at least to others in the future if they know just how devastating their blows are... It's sad that this is a foolish belief. 

The world is weird to me and people are so weird to me in their desire to harm others ..and this is weighing me down right now. 

Just so you know. 

But to those who derive pleasure in the harm you know you have caused and continue to cause, someday it will catch up to you and I pity you for how bad you are going to feel when you finally understand or have to face the music for the harm you are causing and exactly what you are doing to people. I pity you and doubt you will fare so well. 

So good day and you have not won yet. 

The end is nigh at hand

 Discovery. 

It's a beast.

One of the people at USU, the only one who seemed to care and be trying to help at all wrote this in her report about me "My experience is that Erica likes to communicate verbally, as it helps her be heard, even if there is no resolution."

I have very strong feelings about this statement. 

1. I really care about the person who wrote this and believe she was one of few who was actually looking out for me so while I appreciate her intention I feel a bit betrayed by the stupidity of the logic. 

2. The stupidity of the logic may be a harsh way of saying that but at this moment I do not have better words available to me to illustrate what I am feeling and observing and what I am observing is this weird belief that I am speaking and fighting to be heard for the mere satisfaction of speaking. This in NOT the case. This weird belief that I didn't and don't need resolution is rather absurd.

3. Because I was and am only speaking so much because I absolutely need resolution.

4. To be heard with no resolution is not to be heard.

5. To be heard and dismissed and then ignored is degrading and dehumanizing

6. And this causes even more significant need to be heard

7. because then you are fighting for so much more than just to be heard. You are fighting for your value, liberties, and even your life. 

and I think I will end here

because there is not enough left in me today

Ride On

 Learning to listen to your body can be challenging. 

Today my body is insisting it is tired and it wants to sleep. More. But I don't want to and I have a lot I need to do. Which may actually be why it is saying it is tired. It's feeling a bit overwhelmed by all that needs to be done and all the people that need my thoughts and concerns, and thus I am spent before I even begin. 

Or is it because I spent a lot of time out working in the sun yesterday? Something that tends to wear most people out.

Or is it because I have not taken Adderall today? 

And that is an annoying aspect of my new disabilities. I feel like I need a drug to manage every aspect of homeostasis. I need lexapro to keep me out of the lows and anxiety, I need seroguel to keep me from going to high, having too much energy and becoming too big for my body and to make it so I can sleep, and then I need adderral to help me wake up, focus, and keep going in the day... That is strange. 

But I still feel very lucky that these medications work as well as they do for me and my mixed up body. I am grateful that I can and do function so well. 

On a somewhat related note, I got to ride that trail again with my husband. This time, although it was the same time of day, I did not experience the brain short-circuiting like I did last time. That was nice and I am glad that I can build up some tolerance. Of course my day before the ride looked quite a bit different then the day before the previous ride, but even still, I rode better and never felt like I was over-running my brains headlights. 

So life is good and that which I persist in doing is becoming easier. Not that the tasks themselves have changed but that my ability to do so is increasing and that is a good feeling. 

The Sound of Silence

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence"

            -Paul Simon

The Sound of Silence 

They capitalize on peoples tragedies and they do it by further abusing the vulnerable victims who continue to go unheard when their voices most need to be heard- and so the cancer grows.  

Today I just need a moment to cry

and you and I, 

we both know why

my tears fall 

for the sound of silence... 

The Ups and Downs of the Downs and Ups

 So much too do and so little time that sometimes it is overwhelming. Right now I am not so much overwhelmed by all I have to do as I am by how voiceless and powerless so many people, including myself, are. 

Recently I have been trying to help a sister-in-law who is going through her own legal battles and who has been a victim far too many times and by the "systems" who are supposed to protect victims. My heart hurts for her and where she feels beat down by how voiceless and powerless she has been, I feel angry and I want to fight for her. The thing is she tries so hard not to be a victim and has done and been all that she is expected by society to by denouncing that she is a victim, but this has not helped her and she continues to be beat down by people who don't understand what it is like to be a victim.  

The thing is, it SUCKS to be a victim. And it is an unfair expectation that you are not supposed to be a victim when you are a victim. You are somehow supposed to be proud, brave, confident, and all kinds of bold when you are small, beat down, powerless, and being vilified for your efforts to stand up and speak out while being expected to stand up and speak out. It is sooo much more complicated than people know to not be a victim. 

Take me for example. Clearly I DO NOT make a good victim. I don't succumb to manipulations easily, I talk WAY too much, am too honest and open, and I feel an obligation to warn and protect others. I am a whistle blower when it is needed and I refuse to accept the degradation no matter how bad, how long it has been going on, or to the level it progresses, BUT that still isn't fixing anything and I continue to be victimized in many ways for my efforts, openness and honestly -which pisses me off more while simultaneously annoying others who will accuse one of "always claiming they are the victim" when I try again to point it out and try to end the victimization of myself and others... What a conundrum. Especially when I can relate to all sides. But that is all I want to write out about that today. My frustration is not resolved but also not feeling super productive right now; so I am going to pack it away and tackle it, if I can, on another day in some other way.

Because now I want to write about this: 

I am sorry the picture is not better but I think it demonstrates pretty well what we (myself, my husband and my son) were doing and and how we got there.

For my birthday this year my husband bought me a Sur Ron, which is a lightweight electric dirt bike. I have always wanted to ride motorcycles the way my husband does and has been doing since he was tiny. Now I have had a Honda 150 for a few years, but I have so little experience and I am starting much older. These disadvantages have made the Honda feel like too much bike for me and I am far from skilled enough to take it on the single track trails my husband prefers. Additionally, if I make a mistake on the Honda it is hard to recover from since it weighs quite a bit more than I do. The Sur Ron on the other hand, weighs less than I do and doesn't have gears I have to worry about (which I am not super proud of- but have to admit- does make riding easier for me most of the time), so it is much easier to recover from if I do make a mistake. Overall I find this little bike quite fun and, even though it is said, "it doesn't replace your dirt bike," for me it does and I am okay with that. 

But this little rambling is not meant to be a Sur Ron review, rather I actually wanted to talk about the ride from the picture and how my TBI effected it 

...because I find it interesting. 

Since I am such an inexperienced rider and still learning the nuances of my new bike, I feel like Madonna 1984, every time I ride ("Like Virgin") until I start to settle in again. Because I am so new and still learning it is more cognitively demanding than it would be for someone like my husband who has been riding since he was in elementary school. 

And

I have that damage to my brain from those TBI's to contend with which can wear me out a bit quicker and cause some interesting phenomena. One thing I found interesting was how depleting all the depth and complexity of the mountain terrain was. The visual stimulation that was moving past and beneath me at higher speeds than is normal for a body to move at in such terrain was really cool but also a huge draw on my cognitive resources and I could feel it. Yet, as the sun set and daylight began to fade so did the colors, depth and distant that I could see and I was surprised how noticeable the effects were on my cognitive energies; riding in the fading light was not nearly as cognitively depleting. 

However, by that time, I was truly and genuinely cognitively fatigued and I had to keep that in the forefront of my thoughts because I didn't feel tired physically. Now maybe you think I am limiting myself too much or making up excuses etc for my lack of speed and skill but I assure you I am not. The effects of TBI are, and genuinely can be, very odd. If they are not recognized for what they are there is a lot of potential for all kinds of trouble in so many aspects of your life, so self awareness is absolutely crucial after your brain has been altered. Plus if you do pay attention and utilize self awareness it can be quite fascinating to analyze what is happening as it happens. Which is precisely what I was doing, and needed to, when my brain started shorting on the ride. 

"Shorting?" You ask. 

I think this is quite a common phenomenon that many experience when they are tired. Your brain just kind of misses what's going on for a moment. It happens a lot to kids in school who are trying to pay attention for developmentally inappropriate lengths of time as they try to learn all the new material they are expected to learn so quickly. 

But for me, while riding, it felt more like overdriving your headlights; a phenomenon that does not seem to happen as much anymore, likely due to technology advancements as well as infrastructure improvements that have decreased opportunities to drive in dark conditions on those long, lonely, and curvy highways. Now according to many online definitions, overdriving your headlights means not being able to stop inside the illuminated area ahead of you when you are driving in dark conditions. But by my definition, and what I remember experiencing in my younger days, overdriving your headlights happens when you are driving, maybe faster than you should and usually around a turn, and you actually overdrive the illuminated area ahead and you are, for a moment, driving in the dark while the light is being cast in a direction you are not driving. I don't think I did this all that often and generally speaking, it's more likely to happen in adverse weather conditions, like fog and rain, when the light being cast is dispersed by the reflective conditions you are driving through. Always, overdriving your headlights, is a huge warning sign that you need to slow down. 

And that is what it was like for my brain on the Sur Ron that evening. I had to slow down because I would experience a blank moment that indicated my brain was not totally keeping up with my speed and circumstances. Very interesting, sometimes, the way our injured brains behave. 

Sometimes it makes me a bit sad and frustrated that I cannot keep up with what I used to be able to keep up with but at the same time, I am extremely grateful to have the brain that I have and the irony of these types of anomalies that make me better able to keep up with so many other things and that normal brains often have no idea how to keep up with. 

And so I make the best of it and choose to enjoy and utilize my observations as I hope others may be able to do as well. 

 

The Emperor's New Clothes

"Despite various publications of results where hand washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings, and some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and mocked him for it. In 1865, the increasingly outspoken Semmelweis supposedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. In the asylum he was beaten by the guards. He died 14 days later from a gangrenous wound on his right hand that may have been caused by the beating." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

The solution of washing hands seems so common sense to us now yet Ignaz Semmelweis was ostracized, vilified and treated in all manner of degrading ways; this article only touches on it, but in reality he endured mistreatment for his views and opinions for years even though his opinion was based on years of gathered evidence, investigation, and practice. It is truly heartbreaking how this man, whose work and outspoken determination literally saved countless lives and saved even more from serious illness and the effects of that, was treated for his efforts.

His story runs through my head often and I feel I can relate when I explain to people the very obvious problems and some very simple solutions to the medical malpractice model and to some of the various ways mental illnesses, which are also very real, serious and often dangerous illnesses, are handled, perceived and addressed.

I find inspiration from Semmelweis when I feel beat down by for trying.

Truly it's hard to be voiceless and powerless and then mistreated for trying to educate others when you know very powerful truths that could save lives and livelihood and could relieve a lot of stress on a lot of people.

I was able to talk to a person at the Utah Bar today and she told me, "you may be caring too much about what is in the best interest of all parties to your detriment."

And that about summarizes it.