slipping

 I feel myself slipping into depression. I don't want to and I am trying to fight it, to stay afloat... I am tired. and part of me wants to allow myself to slip into oblivion. What am I actually fighting for? If I am fighting alone? 

This is how, why and when we lose. 

But right now I have to keep fighting because I have kids. Kids that would hurt and be angry. Kids that might blame themselves...

So "fight harder" I hear Dr. She say to me so many months ago.

Fight harder again.... but the fight is more outside than inside anymore... and it seems to be what the world is telling me. Am I selfish for not listening? For not shutting up and disappearing the way they all want me to?

"It's a symptom" I remind myself... 

My Dad

 My dad admits that he was not always the best listener. In my younger years, high school and jr high days, sometimes we'd get into fights and then we'd go for a ride. I don't remember why or how this arrangement would actually come to pass, but I do remember that going for a ride meant he was going to stick with me as we fought through what we needed to and then we would reach some form of understanding. 

These last few days I have been worried a little about my dad. He needs time to process and it seems as if he does not want to stick it out... Is he okay? Is he suffering more than I know. I thought maybe I should show up and take him for a ride. But then he called to check in today. That is a relief. He says he is okay. He is coming around again, caring enough to stick it out even though it makes him uncomfortable. He felt bad about bringing up the emotions again for me today. "Dad they are always there, but it is much worse trying to figure it out and handle this alone and on my own." I was glad he was trying to help even if it does not feel like he is helping. 

It matters. 

We talk more. I explain a little and he starts to pick up on the depth and complexity of how things like what is happening with USU really effects people and how it has been effecting me. "Is that an issue right now?" he asked concerned about suicidal thoughts. 

"It's not suicidal thoughts," I explain, "it is the impulses that come on strong and with a vengeance through crap like this. They seem to hit each time they hit."

My dad surprises me, "Those are very scary and dangerous," he says. 

I don't know why it surprises me that he has learned to understand it so well, because it was very obvious that an impulse is what killed my younger brother and my dad's eldest son. I don't tell him that the fight with him triggered these intrusive impulsive thoughts. 

I think it is just a shocking contrast to how he perceived these issues and his understanding of such things when I was a teen. Depression was handled with, "quit feeling sorry for yourself," "suck it up" and, "get over it." If I had mentioned suicidal thoughts then I'd have been lectured for it and probably given a church type of lesson. In those years my dad would have probably told me that was stupid and I better not do something stupid like that. Or he would have ignored it and just been embraced or disappointed that I ever thought such things. Now he understands, the impulses are scary and they do not necessarily come from you - you as in who you are. They come from something else; nature, nurture, instinct, injury, chemistry, and a million messages received from external sources all rolled up into intense bursts of images and instant solutions to the fights that are constantly wearing on you. 

Impulses are dangerous. And my regulation of those is compromised because of the injury to the portion of my brain that is most efficient at handling impulses. Added external stresses, especially unjust and unnecessary, depletes my abilities to fight while triggering thoughts that directly stem from the messages they are sending; that I don't matter and they want me to go away. 

People talk big about suicide prevention... but when it comes right down to it, most do not care to learn or understand the realities and even those who are supposed to be professionally trained will carelessly and callously contribute to the triggers and messages that feed the intrusive impulsive thoughts. 

I suppose, as I reflect right now, I am glad that I had a dad that, though misguided at times, at least taught me how to push through and how to fight it out...

Half a Glass

 "I don't want you to see the glass as half empty."

Half full, half empty. I don't really care

Sometimes a cup of water is just a cup of water. Maybe it is holding 4 of the 8oz it is capable of holding. Then it is simply half a glass of water. 

Maybe it has more. Maybe less. Is it enough to meet your needs? Can it be refilled? Is it old water? good water? Is it water at all? Has it been polluted by various people washing their hands with or of it? Is it being drained and never refilled? Or left to sit alone because it's neither full nor empty? There are so many variable to consider that might be more important.

"but I am broken." Why is that a "bad" thing? Why do people insist that saying so is looking at my reality as a glass half full or empty? I'm not. It's simply a cup of water and I will use the water inside for whatever I need it for then fill it again and use it again. It's just a cup of water. Half empty or full doesn't matter, it's what I do with the water inside and it's how I use the cup.

And maybe, sometimes, the cup is broken. 

Then what good does it do to debate on whether it is half empty or half full? Because while we are debating, the water is draining because the cup is broken. 

Maybe the real fear is: what to do with a broken cup? Am I to be discarded? It seems so. When your cup breaks then you do get discarded by many, because you are broken and that is what we do with broken things. 

But my broken cup can still hold water

It just can't hold quite as much so if it is filled to full then it will inevitably lead to a leaky mess. A better analogy than you know.

Half empty, half full, broken all the way or just more than you care to accept? 

I don't really care. To me it just is what it is and I need and want to be okay with that. It would also help if others would learn this and be okay with that too. 

kintsugi 

messages received

 I wrote this little poem at some point between 1/1/2019- 7/1/2019 When I was still being misdiagnosed and very inaccurately and mis- treated. 

Sit at home and watch TV 

Being what I am supposed to be

Brainless reflector of mass

media fed personality.

Think for yourself

You are crazy- "you're crazy" - no credit

"I love you but do not want you"

Can't get a job @ Walmart - Too confident

"You need to be humbled"

Stop dreaming

Be happy with mediocrity

 

Out

 I am so tired of fighting to get the help I need....

I should know better by now. Stop asking. It just makes me feels worse.

and then...

image stronger than it has been in awhile... gun to head. 

But out, not dead, I push this image out. It is not welcome.

"In the trenches," they say they'll be right there with you

until they see you cry

or until they see just how scary your trenches are. 

then they disappear

 but not without first letting you know that 

It's you, not them

maybe it is time to sleep again.

Cry and sleep.

I had to fight too hard today for help that may or may not happen

and to explain exactly what happened. 

You are supposed to stand up for what is right. Unless, of course, everybody else is sitting down. 

Stand up for what is right... few people, very few people actually do. They'll just disappoint 

them Blame

you, of course

We have bought into the delusion of majority rule equating to what is "right" 

If it is common and happening all the time then it is right? 

Mad dad. mad me. 

fight it out. push through, 

but did we resolve or did I just drive a bigger wedge...?

Gun to head

"be dead" 

it says.

But still no. I won't go.

Sorry to disappoint

 Breaks from writing to write. That's what my life looks like right now. And this:

Which I am very grateful for.

Now, leading up journal entries transferred into my book, I am digging into the ever deepening abyss of madness. The mania as it is unfolding in my "self-discovery report"

"This is heavy shit" keeps slipping from my lips as I try to sort and choose what to include and what not to ... Dear reader of this here blog, get excited, get real excited because I think I am not going to try to rewrite this story that has already written itself and just share it how it is, as real, raw and embarrassing as it is, in my book about... all of this. 

The shit in these writings (coupled with the stress of the shit going on with USU and the Good ol'boys of the Logan courts) has my filters broken again so please excuse my cursing. 

Side note of TBI. Today during the Office of Equities interview, my brain injury and deficits decided it a good time to show just how fun they can be to have and to have to work with (sarcasm implied). Stress, and especially the very emotional kind this has been, is very hard on the brain and even harder on the broken brain. It was so weird to feel things stop working and get lost before I could get them out. He said things and I could not process them. I repeat, I ask questions, I forget, I don't ask, and today I had to make them wait, for my thoughts and my words to find their paths again so that I could explain what I know and what needs to be considered, documented etc. It's weird because it feels and my brain was behaving more similarly to how it behaves in the earlier phases of brain injury. Words are confusing. Instructions hard to follow. Jumbled. Hard to keep straight, remember, and even how to access the important things that need to be addressed. It really is weird when it happens like this. I think, maybe, it is called distress.

Heavy shit all around. But still I'm up and off the ground.

I will not stay down. 

...And for the record, after reading my emails alone, no way in hell -or heaven or here on earth for that matter- that Jon Pertab didn't know I was manic. Or I really am all that! (and he simply didn't want to believe it).  As I read I want to scream at past me who loved him, trusted him, and kept trying to protect him, "he's not protecting you he's breaking you! He's not defending you, he's abusing you!"...and "he is not trying to help you, he is using you..." Truths, so many times revealed, that I still don't want to believe. 

And the Neuroscience Institute, their patient advocates, No way in heaven, hell, or earth, that they didn't know I was manic or at least that I was broken more severely than had been diagnosed and just trying to get the help I needed. 26 pages, that is how long my side of the story was to them, that they told me the director didn't look at because it was not going to change his decision....

AARGHH remembering. All that I have to write about... aargh realizing all that I have been through and just how bad it was... Again. 

And how pointless. Absolutely pointless suffering and reckless endangerment. 

Heavy shit. But I won't stay down. I won't let it bring me to the ground. Or under it. 

I will keep speaking, keep writing, and keep fighting.

Especially since I know there are others who, they keep telling me, are "not as strong."

 

Set Backs

So the USU police officer that did NOT investigate the phone call my son made, but rather did what he could to make it appear that I was behind the phone call -the officer that intemperately and ravenously ate up Cristopher Johnson's lies and story's about me, has decided he will NOT agree to an informal resolution...

This hurts my heart and it is a setback. I don't want to fight to the next and escalated levels this situation should and needs to be fought to, but now I have to. 

Why?

Partially because I am not okay with being dehumanized and treated with no respect or equality. Partially because I have to fight to stand up for both myself and my family. Our civil rights were violated, period. And, although this is not a final reason and there are many more it is the final I will list here -for now, because of how this wears on my body and psyche. 

Now I am fighting suicidal thoughts again and it is both annoying and angering. They are, once again, a symptom, but this time they are a symptom of external problems that I have no control over. This can be more scary because these externally fed and encouraged symptoms starts to alter my internal chemistry and functioning. Then, with the reinforcement of the external validations of my worthlessness and rejections, and as escape from the problems start to seem more and more impossible, my mind starts looking for ways to escape and the path of least resistance that will save my broken brain from the demanding draws on its energies and reserves that this crap takes... Alternatives to fighting this external fight that I know needs to be fought for more that just me... But that is depleting me and hurting me... For all of these reasons, and maybe more, my tired, broken brain starts reminding me, I could always just move onto the next realm, the paradoxical next phase of existence and the solution of non-existence, thus appeasing and becoming what they are all encouraging me to be; less then human and gone. 

The external insanity of our world and people like those I have had to deal with at USU is bringing me down, making it hard to get up in the morning to face each day, and reminding my brain that there is really only one way to escape...

But I refuse to succumb and thus I fight those people in their positions of power and influence who think it is fun to play games with our -their perceived inferiors- lives. 

BUT wait, it gets better!

I expressed my frustration to the Office of Equities girl that is the one who presented the offer for an informal resolution to the police officer and asked her to give him another chance to agree to an informal resolution. I told her, if he really does not agree to an informal resolution then I would be escalating this to the degree it should be escalated to. Now keep in mind, an informal resolution is the thing that should be least difficult, punitive and consequential to him, and the route that would be most easy on myself and my family even though governing bodies would not be notified and alerted to this officer's bad practices the way they should be. Guess what the Office of Equities girl says about this? She tells me I am coercing and retaliating now if I file those complaints, and in violation of university policy 503 and she has to report that.

WHAT THE HELL?

Stupidest part, even though this angers me, I try to understand, put myself in her shoes, and I respond with empathy for her. Then I turn to friends and family to express my pain, set back and frustration. They are angry and annoyed, and confused with how I could be sympathetic at all to this obviously out of line lady who is now accusing me of coercion and retaliation for: refusing to allow myself to be bullied and mistreated, giving second chances for the perpetrator of harm to have some human decency and treat me with some form of equatable regard, and for letting them know my intentions instead of go straight to the actions that should result in the most consequential and punitive repercussions for this officer.

... Now I am being accused of bullying for not allowing myself (and my family) to be bullied and mistreated. And coercing a man I have never even talked to, but should have, because that was HIS job in the first place. 

This is victim blaming and shaming at its finest. It's heartbreaking again and very literally exhausting. My body does not want to wake up and my mind wants to escape.

So with no further ado I will allow the justifiable anger to escape to the degree that is merited as I bid farewell to these thoughts and offer the officer, professor, and Alison, there well earned regards of fuck you!