A Fighting Chance

Brains are so weird. The faster they go the slower you are. At least that has been true for me.
Now that my brain is slowing and things are not going so fast all of the time, I am faster at what I am doing and even faster at processing. I can keep better track of where I am and what I am doing in the moment.
I'm more of who I am, even though I am experiencing so much less.
Things make sense and they don't, but I can handle it much better either way.
I don't think I am entirely out of the woods yet, but I am very happy to be feeling so... normal.
Not that I ever am. Not that anyone ever is. But I can say that this feeling of stability, even with the new tired and sometimes tight or dizzy head, is refreshing.
It is times like this that I really feel happy. Happy about being happy. Sometimes that scares me a bit but then I notice how this happy is different. It is just happy and not overly excited trying to contain the burst of my piñata self. It is not overly ecstatic for no reason at all and feeling as a child trying to sleep the night before Christmas. It is just pleasant, run of the mill happy. Which then makes me a bit more happy and I may feel a slight surge of that overly happy ...and that is why I do not think I am entirely out of the woods -yet.
These are also the times when I realize just how "crazy" I am or was, or however you would like to word it. It can be quite embarrassing but I have let that pass, because, just like their is no point to being embarrassed about the tears in the grocery store when I couldn't control them and they were hitting me so wildly and spontaneously that I would have gotten nothing done ever if I let them embarrass me, there is no point to being embarrassed about them now.
...Although I am still angry about them. And there may be a point to that. Anger is my least favorite emotion but right now, it is likely what I need to be, because my friends, I am now okay enough to feel that emotion too.
YAY for anger.
But BOO for the Neuroscience Institute who will feed you suicide and then nurture through Patient Experiences and with their whole team. Such a great patient experience Eh? Jack Asses. Maybe that is now his new name: Dr. Jack Ass and Dr. Jack Ass MD and Jack Ass Office Director and Jack Ass Patient Advocate and Jacked Dr.'s Assistant Ass. I loved them all and trusted them all, and it does make me sad that these are now their names, but at least they can be proud because THEY EARNED THEM!
...and I am sorry it turned to them again. I hope this anger will melt and fade like the suicidal tendencies/symptoms did so quickly with the proper acknowledgment and care.
...Then again, maybe now is really the time to stand up for myself and speak out against their very bad policies.
Maybe now, the journey really begins. And I can actually smile at that, I can embrace my creativity and my side streets thinking and you better believe, this new me, Stands A Fighting Chance!

*really I wanted to talk about how fun my freaked out brain is. It is fascinating, but I'll save that for later. Apparently I have my surprisingly goodnatured guest Anger to host first.

Jack Ass in Neuropsychology

(Jack Ass). His name is (Jackass) Phd. **(name changed to protect me)
And I will not keep trying to protect him anymore. I will not protect him from me and the consequences of his actions.
He would rather let me die than admit any mistakes.
He manipulated me to protect himself. Whether he meant to or not, he did. And when it became very clear that I was not okay, that his mistakes caused and were contributing to significant problems, -to harm- he denied it all and then he slandered me -defamation to his colleagues and employees.
All the while I was trying to protect him. Trusting them and trying to work with them, not against them when, I was broken and vulnerable, trying to get the help I needed at the "right place" from the "right people."
This is not okay.
I am sorry Perri. I know it is possible you were simply broken too, but, you, my friend, were the one in the position of power and you used me and then abused me by discarding me so carelessly as if I were trash. I am not. You most certainly misjudged and misrepresented me.
And even it it is just me speaking out for me, I am worth standing up for and I am worth fighting for.
Just as I told Office Director "I don't know what it looks like but I know I need to stand up for myself" I am now starting to see how I need to, what I need to do, and sadly, it is not so pretty due to the way this has progressed.
Sigh...
stability
brings with it the ability
to fight back.
But you probably knew that way back when
"you broke me"
"I did not mean too"

My mind and heart are speaking to me in slight rhyme again and I wonder:

You used me to stroke your delicate ego, maybe heal your broken heart
subtly feeding me your fantasy
then when it all came crashing down
you ran out of town
claiming it was me that had played with you.
which is not even possible considering the "imbalance of power" and the rules that govern you.

"I'd love to take you home with me..."

"...and tuck you into bed.
I'd love to see what makes you tick inside your pretty head..."
"Do you think your better than me? Do you want to kill me or befriend me?"

It has been years since I have heard this song, but it has been coming into my head lately.
It is a bit disturbing and long but worth listening to in it's entirety.

Oingo Boingo "Insantiy"

"I'm not scared of you" REALLY?

my rational anger is increasing rapidly.

Freaking JACK ASSES!!!

I WAS SUCH A *@$** MESS AND THEY JUST KEPT MESSING WITH ME!

THEY TURNED ME INTO SOMETHING I WAS NOT BECAUSE I WAS SO DAMN IRRATIONAL WHILE TRYING TO HOLD MY OWN!

I WAS **#@ PARANOID AND IT WAS SO OBVIOUS AND THEY TURNED IT INTO ME BEING OBSESSED WITH THE JACKASS THAT MANIPULATED ME TO PROTECT HIM MYSELF!

....breath

and though the all caps magnify the intensity of my emotion, it is not unsound at this moment. I am not at all manic. Which makes me that much more angry. This is rational. This is the reality of the shit you start to see more and more clearly as you stabilize.

It is very, very hard for me, in these moments, to believe that he didn't know what he was doing, that he didn't know or recognize the harm and damage he was causing. 

Now it is getting harder and harder to believe that his "I told you not to try and solve this" was not strictly for his sake; was not reflective of his fear that I was onto what I intuitively was protecting against when I sent those crazy emails; sent because I needed them to not be missed. "Stop emailing me" was a command too late, yet not at all because he still pulled out just in time because I was manipulated well.

Vulnerable

broken

"you isolate yourself"

limited family and social support

slow processor

caring

rejected

hypnotic voice

"I've tested your brain in ways you don't know"

so many things...

BUT I KNEW

broken, vulnerable, fragile, desperate

I still knew

BECAUSE

I have been the expert on the other side of your damn profession since I was 12!

I am the other side of what you do

and 

I KNOW WHAT YOU DO!

The energy to be angry

What a strange journey this has been. The mood stabilizer it a good change so far. I did have a moment of realization and again embarrassment as my mind stabilizes and wakes up still more (I thought I had entirely). And in that moment I felt as though they (the self-centered Ego's doctors and directors of IHC-Neuroscience Institute ) were right, I am of no value and no worth. My embarrassment and frustration ironically exacerbated by the so-easily-had new feelings of okay, that came so quickly with the new medication. I was sure, in that moment, I deserved to die...
Fortunately, I have been through enough of this and I have emerged victorious from deep and dark places before, so I was still able to hold onto, "go to sleep and reset" coupled with the "your going to be okay" energy of the new medication. So I slept and settled and the next day was good again. Much better than before. Still hard to get out of bed but this time it was the exhaustion-after-a-race kind of tired not the can't-even-explain-and-don't-want-to-because-it-sucks-so-much-and-sounds-pathetic tired. Better.
And that is when I started remembering more of those long lost memories and putting together pieces of all I have learned and forgotten/buried over so many years. I am remembering my theory or my disliking of a theory, or maybe it is an assumption and a label based on observations of the inexperienced minds; I am remembering the warning that "antidepressants and other such medications may increase the risk of suicide and/or suicidal thoughts." And I am remembering how this bothered me, because they really only increase the risk because the person now has the energy and ability to follow through. The medications don't cause the thoughts as some statements I had heard and read implied, and it is highly unlikely they cause the suicide. I am stating this as an implied fact with no other alternatives and I know that this may not always be the case, but if there were anyway to prove this opinion of mine, I'd put money on it being accurate the vast majority of the time.
As I have said before; When medication is working correctly it does not change who you are and it does not change the problems you have, really it might not even change your thinking, it just changes your chemistry enough so that you can then make the needed changes.
That is my theory and I could explain it in greater detail with a lot of support and evidence from personal experience and many observations and conversations I have had over the years with many people, however that is not what this moment on my blog is for, instead I go back to my remembering.
I had that moment of weakness from my weakened brain, confidence, self esteem, thinking and all that  had been growing for so many months fed by the Institution that was supposed to be helping me. Nurtured along by a bullshit investigation as I was trying to figure out what was going on with my head. And instead of the simple acknowledgement of the problem and the treatment I needed I was faced with suspicion and walls by those whose job, and ethic responsibility it was to help me figure it out.
Fortunately I recognize this and so that moment did not and will not last. Now I am gaining the strength and the correcting chemistry to face my problems, which was what they actually were, and since I am still paying for it and will be as I seek treatment and sort out the screwed up psychology of the situation that so deeply effected me, they still are my problem.
And I am kind of really pissed.
Because
When I was fighting for my life he turned a blind eye,
He'd rather let me die.
Why?
and considering what I was turned into to by him, or by the whole institution;
what a freaking egocentric ignorant, or brilliant grooming, jack ass!
What a freaking debacle of me.
Maybe they are frauds and maybe they new exactly what they were doing, buying their time to statute of limitations, and gaslighting as a back up, and avoiding intentionally to treat or prescribe in a manner that would give me my strength to both recognize and fight back.
JACK ASSES!!! FREAKING CREEPS!!!

and it is so funny, because now more stable I can actually allow myself to feel and be angry. I can allow it now, because it won't destroy me. But still, I am magnificent even without my mania, and I just might destroy them... maybe.
Not manic, I think I can, because they have brought it so heavily upon themselves in there ruthless carelessness.
But just like I tried to tell them before, just because I can does not mean that I will.
I am undecided still. Some time they still have bought, ...and yet their bought time is still on my tab...
jack asses
hmmm....
to damn bad I still have the negative effects of head injury, I'd conquer this things so quickly, but alas I am slow, and these tasks take there toll.
And this they know
...Oh Captain, my Captain, you may want to return, because this fire doth burn!!! (and not in a sexual way -sarcastic sorry)


** I do hope as time goes on and the medication makes strong my sanity,
that I do not loose all my oh so clever creativity.

TBI patients = Malpractice insurance

A comedy of errors turned into a tragic perpetuation of harm. And all along the way I was begging them to stop the perpetuation of the harm and pain. However they did not want to admit any guilt so it continues as an abuse of power.
"First do no harm" says the APA
and IHC will add "...But if you accidentally do then don't admit it and light those gas powered lamps  to burn the evidence up with the patient."
Right now I feel angry.
When medication works, it does not change you, it does not change what has happened, it just changes your chemistry and makes it so you can then handle making the changes that need to be made.
It is so simple.
And it could have been so simple.
It should (spelled correctly) have been so simple!
I was in the right place, trying to doing the right things, going to the right people to try and get the help that I knew I needed. But they kept moving forward in their errors, by covering and denying and trying to pass me off without following through.
Did they know that me getting the help I needed would make me strong enough to stand up for myself and fight back against the mistakes they made?
How deeply disturbing is this debacle?
Are they insurance frauds?
My emotions, more balanced, are most certainly still strong and more powerful in ability with the "right" help.
Which they -now obvious to me- were not.

To be or not to be?

...now hopes and dreams fall through
knowing they were fiction just like you;
A dream I believed in that just isn't true

This Little Bluebird -thank you Christina

Reality in simplicity
I am finding my way around.
Feet planting on the ground

Still, do I embrace all parts of me
the imperfectly creative insanity
that beckons me carelessly
and wants so badly to be
a part of me?

and wants to be free...

Like a Bird -thank you Nelly