teachings of buddha, tao and enemies that we love

I'm finding myself with still so much to say about this whole situation.
about myself.
Last night I went to dinner with 2 of my sisters, my mom and my soon to be sister-in-law.
I love them all
but I struggle in this place
I struggle with my mom and I feel terrible about it.
She had endured a lot in her young life. She was abandoned by one parent while the other shut down... thus neglected by the other.
Life is so weird
-Love and passion, the need for love drives people to do very strange things-
It didn't end there for my mom (it didn't really even start there), she was lucky to get away alive from the man before my dad. And then when she needed it most she was not accepted the way she felt she needed to be by her new in-laws. She must have broken a million times before I was ever even born; daughter #4 at barely 26.
I feel for her
and yet I feel anger towards her and even resentment at times. I struggle to be patient sometimes and I feel bad that I do.
I feel angry because she got messed up and then she messed us up.
When I was a teen I remember seeing her break apart once and realizing it was not actually my fault. She was blaming me, but it was not me. I had no control over what was going on with her and there was nothing I could do about it. I also realized that what ever it was she was in that moment was not her. It was something else. Something I pitied, but did not like.
If I am being honest, I did not care for my mom much when I was a teen. I loved her and yet I also hated her.
But even with that, she taught me so much. The flip side of the coin, the mom that I hated may have taught me most as I tried to understand and love her in spite of my anger and hurt. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was when I realized how she was turning into all the things she was so angry about.
"We get more of what we focus on," "when you point a finger there are 4 pointing back at you" (but it's actually 3 because the thumb points down), "you are what you eat" and so many cliches made sense as I observed my mom becoming more and more manipulative in her self pity. As she started to develop favorites, scape goats and pecking orders. Things she claimed to despise about her in-laws.
It was an interesting upbringing with my parents who came from such different places.
 and it is hard to beat your upbringing.
It is likely part of why I am so driven to solve. To figure it out.
I too am like a pendulum and I know it.
I also have fingers that point back and I know it.
 I am flawed and broken and raised to be flawed and broken, by flawed and broken people who were flawed and broken by other flawed and broken people but striving for "be ye perfect"
always discouraged, always coming up short.
Life.
... Is short!
and so do I come up.
but
but but
I am okay.
 I am not perfect
I am broken
and I am short, always coming up
for more
because I am also human
not a god
not meant to be a god
just me
just okay and I am happy to know that is exactly who I am.
I am still small. Still not entirely in the clear. Still a little stuck in this alternate psychological reality of reprocessing, as an adult and as a child, but I am precisely where I need to be and ultimately I am happy.
I still hurt and my eyes still leak for my losses but that is part of the richness of life and even in that there is beauty.

Comedy of errors or sad reality?

I'm in a much better place and I think still improving but it is difficult still. I will be honest (because I am, painfully so. Not brutally honest, but painfully honest because brutal, to me, requires some intention to cause pain and I am not brutal, just sometimes honest to a fault which can cause pain. And I have digressed in a direction I wish to explore more as honesty is such double edged sword and a value people so often claim but rarely live in reality to the extent that they claim. It is such a tricky balance and people will sell out there honesty so quickly in order to protect some other value or their pride and ego. We all do it. I remember in high school my vegan friend saying, "we are all hypocrites, it's just that some of us are trying a little harder not to be." and I find myself wondering where the balance needs to lie with honest? Because when it comes down to it can we be honest if we don't know the truth? And maybe we choose ignorance intentionally to avoid being put in a position where honesty has to be a sacrifice we don't want to make....
Here in lies a problem altogether with me: I can go too deep too fast ...and sometimes I get lost.
It is a very natural thing for me, to go deep and I do at times enjoy it. I especially enjoy when I find someone who can keep up. But it can be dangerous and it can be very difficult to navigate and stay safely balanced.)
...So back to "I will be honest" I am still in a vulnerable place and because I am well seasoned and experienced and because I am intelligent and I can hold my head up high even when my head is weighted heavy with insecurities people don't realize how fragile I really am. I don't always realize it because I am not always that way "my personality is still changing too much" was another point that was ignored, overlooked by the professional.
I can be fine and great one minute then falling apart the next. I am mostly fine and I know how to manage the falling apart but it is difficult and it wears on me. so why am I here today, what is the point of this rambling?
I am shy about saying it because I don't want to be arrogant, "I need some someone who can keep up with me" I tell her.
The concussion doctor says something to the effect that head injury is healed so now it is mental illness primary. I don't really like that. I don't like it because what is the truth with head injury? Do they heal or do they not? They say when you have sustained a brain bleed like I had when I was a kid that part will never heal, will not regenerate and you have permanent brain damage, but now she is saying it is healed? So that confuses me. And then there is "mental illness" I absolutely hate the term and the connotation. I hate so much about that, but I especially hate the stigma. I think we are all mentally ill but I get the stigma. I hate that I am supposed to accept that I have both negative stigma's:  brain damage and mental illness. I do not want to accept that. I do not want to be a part of either especially since I have been rejected in that world too. So maybe then they are all wrong
...and when I came on here with such a clear vision of what I wanted to share it has turned into something entirely different... which means it is bothering me more that I care to admit. which in the end brings me to my point.
Scared
I am still very scared.
less
but still scared of what this all means for me. It is the problem, the PTSD, my fear of what head injury means for me. I have been so afraid of this. Of what it all means for me and my reality. What it means in terms of aging and quality of life. But fear just may be the problem, which is why I choose to face fears and now I'll let it go.
My life may end up being something very different
maybe I will eventually loose my ability to effectively manage and straddle both worlds
but maybe I won't
whatever it is or becomes it is my beautiful crazy
and it will be okay
"just let it be what it needs to be"

...I wish he could have heard me. I was doing so well before he broke me for reasons I don't understand -and then turned to his own self preservation at my expense.
Was I breaking him?
again. I am here when I want it to be gone but the psychology of it is fascinating and draws me back again and again
another reason I came on
I do not like that I know he messed with my head and not entirely unintentionally. I do not like that I am not sure what to do about that and if I have a moral obligation to blow the top off his covering up. I do not like the position I am in. That I now have to be the judge because I was a sacrificial lamb and not by choice.
And how frequently are sacrifices made to please the gods of capitalism, liability, sex, ego and pride? But this lamb is will not die, because I am not a god. I learned too much before being taken to the sacrificial alter and I did not agree to be the sacrificed redeemer. I am neither blasphemy nor submissive, so I cannot be a savior that is willing to sacrifice myself nor the lamb that will be led to the slaughter.
I am me
and I am a fighter not a flighter so naturally. That's the sense you get knocked into you when you broken but not ready to die.
...a tug on my bag and I turned to see a gun pointed right between my eyes. first I look to who's holding the gun then I check where my kids are. They are out of harms way. The perpetrator has fear. I negotiate. my money but not my bag, not my phone with my photos.
...I'm 22, home alone at night, someone is entering the alcove to my open bedroom window on the 1st floor of our apartment complex. No good intentions will lead a man there. Out of me comes a deep demon of a voice "what the hell are you doing" and before I am aware of what I am doing I'm out the back door chasing after the perpetrator.
...Again in my 20's the man in the car that stops when I give a sarcastic response to his jackass driving move. He's out of the car and threatening my husband, who did nothing, I'm out of the car and up in his face, standing my own ground because the fight he is picking is with me.
While I have calmed significantly, older and wiser [fortunately], I'm a fighter when I am pushed. and that was a buried part of me that came out in this break.
So it is hard to know when to fight and when to hold back. especially when I am straddling two (or more) worlds.
I'd rather be a lover.  Make love, not war. and maybe that is the real reason sex has been so much better.
Money and sex
Is that really what it is all about?
True to what I started I'll publish because it's what came out... but I'll probably be back to edit this one later.

tired brain

I keep thinking I'm done and moved on only to find something nagging again.
The thing is I know he messed with my mind
and it was not entirely unintentional
and so many things
like never being told who his superiors are to file a complaint with,
this whole "investigation" without representation
are just so wrong
and this is supposed to be the safe place

..."we just need to find the right fit, the right person for you" says my concussion doctor.
no.
I am not going there again.
There is no "right fit" and "right person"
I'm not opening myself up to that again.

Jim Kwik

My sister sent me a link to this man's story. His name is Jim Kwik and I loved his story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=6jbpn7Xb7pE&app=desktop

I was not as young and I did not have such extreme problems with learning as a youth from my brain injury but I understand the feelings of inadequacy and not measuring up. I understand and relate to being a product of your condition -only my condition was not understood to be a broken brain; from it actually being physically broken, mine was "why are you broken" "what is wrong with you," ignorantly viewed more as character flaws, when they were not. I wonder if this Jim ever felt that way. It is just now, in my reprocessing with the PTSD from the mTBI (concussion), that I am finally able to understand and say with surety that it was not my character that was or is broken, it is my brain. [I suppose that may be what I am actually trying to stand up for in my quest to resolve what I feel so determined to resolve]
I love the story of motivation and determination that leads to an even more brokenness. It is tragic and heartbreaking but it is reality and I that is why I love it. He paints the reality the pitfalls of with belief  "if you just believe and work hard." Alone that belief is not sufficient or healthy when you have broken brain. When you are intelligent and have other strengths it is hard for people to know the reality of the struggle as something physical. It is not due to a lake of belief or determination it is actually due to a physical problem.
I love that he reframes his thinking. He acknowledges his weaknesses and decides he needs to adjust his goals. He basically realizes that he needs to work smarter not harder and he decides that the first step to that is learning how to work smarter. I also love the superhero analogy and how he realizes he still has powers he can tap into despite his brokenness, he just needs to learn a new or different how.

TBI is difficult.
You become a different version of yourself and you have to figure what that means, and out how to become a new you you can love and be happy with, how to accept your weaknesses and how to live a happy productive life without that part of you that you once had. It is a physical disability, only people can't see it and it is not one you are really able to talk about. You will be stigmatized and discriminated against if you do and you do not have the same protection as someone with a very visible obvious disability. You will hear things like "you are high functioning" which is fine and true but still stings a little as you can't be sure what is being implied or where the comment is really coming from.
It is a disability that is hidden but that you can't always hide and yet you will work to. It makes no sense and we have these tragic ironies and hypocrisies to handle on top of the problem itself. We are very often very much alone.
So I am loving hearing and seeing more success stories.
I also love this video from Jim Kwik not just for the content but because in it, when he is talking, I can see and hear the subtleties that I recognize are actually coming from his broken brain. I can related to those and I love it because I know he is authentic, he is real, and he actually, really does relate. I love his imperfections in this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tCWngax6WE

a not-so-straight gait

I'm here to complain today.
but first I have a saying, and my kids hate it, so it must be a good one: "your not allowed to complain about it unless you are willing to do something about it."
but sometimes we complain because we aren't sure what to do about it. or even where to log our complaints. Sometimes we cause bigger problems by complaining... but now I am getting sidetracked into the philosophical unknowns that can turn into black holes
So I'll just complain.
My lower back sucks right now.
Walking again after so long of not and when some part of you is recovering from surgery is so much harder than I realized. Mine was just my ankle. A mere 2-3 inch scar that wraps the ankle bone is all that shows (not entirely true, it's swollen still and my calf muscle on that leg is still skinnier) Yet at 3 weeks able to walk again more things hurt now then did before or immediately after surgery.
My lower back hurts so bad and my heel, ankle, calf and all these muscles and parts of my foot, I didn't even know existed before, hurt. My gait is very off and has been for some time so it's throwing everything else off.
I'm so glad to be able to move again but I am still so limited in what I really can and can't do and it's hard to take it slow...and to not fall into the push crash cycle.
And here we go again, but really,
It's the story of my brain once again mirrored or parallel in some other form that is helping me to understand the life I have long been so confused about.
That stinking broken brain of mine, that was so grossly misunderstood, was throwing off my gait and making it hard to keep things straight.
Push, crash
and other seemingly simple concepts and problems to solve to the professionals become much harder to overcome when they are so deeply ingrained.
And hide.
Hide the symptoms because you are ashamed and you will be judged, or berated.
...or simply things like you won't be allowed to learn how to drive corvettes racing style at the Spring Mountain Motor Resort. Stinking ankle.
...I do wonder if just as the ankle -initial injury was overlooked and misunderstood- needs to get worse before it can get better the brain may also have needed to get worse before it could get better? Needed to be broken again in order to be reset correctly. Man, I hope this reset is better in the long run.

Awakenings to sane things

I am meeting with my accident attorney tomorrow. I had thought to fire him. I have not been easy for him these last few months. I had to asses my fears and the why's for them. I had to talk to him, have uncomfortable conversations. He was patient. I have sure needed that.
And in the end I have realized my fears are and were being fed also by my condition... I was in state of distrusting everyone. My lawyer was a friend from high school and I love him, because that is what I do, I love people, but it is not a romantic thing it's an appreciation thing. I am sorry for the hassle I have been for him.
And I see that I am still coming out of this.
My brain is a fascinating place.
I am hearing my conversation with my brother-in-law and wondering if it is time to switch medication. See someone more specialized.
I did not want to do that until I really understood what was going on and what had happened.
That is where my Neuropsychologist messed up. He lost objectivity with me and that combined with the dictates of the rules, policies and procedures of his profession resulted in a dangerous place for my mind. I think he could have managed except he was forced to follow all these rules that were meant to protect him but at my expense. I think I was right all along, and so was he. Except that he misunderstood me and the strengths and weaknesses I had at that time.
I am sorry for this. And I am sad for this and I am sad every time I know that I have lost him forever.

I asked my lawyer if he could look over my medical records with me, help me know if I even need to worry about it. My brain has been stressed and scared because it did not know what was happening. It was scared that I had crossed over into a irreconcilable place. I have not been the same, my mood and cognitive stamina are coming up short. Too many influences and voices have been playing with my mind. That has been a problem for me before. It was why I used to not watch television much or read too much. It is why church is often times not a safe place for me.
I am still coming out of this shock and heartbreak. I am still not completely understanding what happened to my brain and I know that he has the knowledge and expertise and he probably could explain this in is intellectual way from a neuropsychological perspective. But he can't for me or hw won't. And that still hurts. And it kills me that he does not understand me. He does not realize all along I mean no harm I just need to understand what is going on with my head. I need to fix it. It has to be solved. It would not be wise to continue in my madness and the only way to not is to figure it out and fix what I can.
I have digressed once again. But as I was looking over the concerns of my medical records. The ones I need to meet with my lawyer about, I know that I was wrong. I was misinterpreting so much so very incorrectly when I was broken, hurt and scared, when I was still somewhat straddling two worlds.
I am sorry. It is why I did not want to file a complaint. I knew I was not right in my brain and I did not have the help to do it. I am so sorry. I really was not ready to mourn that loss. I will maintain that he was helping me so much and exactly what I needed. His work with me still is what is helping me through. He was so good at letting me philosophically wander but then reigning me back in....
I miss him. and I have made a mess.
but I really was doing the best I could all things considered and that is the irony of it. I was wrong in who I distrusted, I was wrong in my interpretations of somethings and I knew this was a possibility that I needed clarification on but in my mind I could not risk what I was wrong about, so I was confused and confusing and the very things that I was wrong about made me difficult to help while being the evidence that I needed help.
And this, my friends, is why mania does not mix well with reality. Proof in the pudding that we think we have it more under control then we actually do not.

A Guide Denied

a lot of tears through a lot of years
but Depression
that was not my problem at that point
that was why "I think we are off track"
he got lost in the Tao
needed a spiritual guide
but that he denied
because he doesn't believe in forever anymore?
Depression
...satisfied with his life, if he died today he'd be okay
I was his drug
he needed a hug
further he's dug
...he needs a drug
And I don't know what to do,
I don't know how to help
because it was supposed to be about me
not he
literally and ethically
not that I cared
but that I dared
to mention reciprocity
and seek for clarification
and his professional explanation
for the dogs that needed fed
then inside my head
When my buried hell was flooding out of my broken box
breaking down my walls
...kicking down doors
words that I don't fully understand coming out of my mouth
a guide denied?