Ah, Groundhog Day…

I have a feeling I’ve been here before…

I’m not talking about the recent event when the behavior of a groundhog (or groundhogs, depending on your regional preference) determines our future. I’m talking about the movie,”Groundhog Day”  where Bill Murray’s character goes through the same day over and over and over again.

This is my life in a nutshell. I cycle through the same experiences / crap / joys / sorrows on a regular basis, each time without much active recollection of how it was before and what my experience was then. It applies to the good things, as well as the bad things, and my neuropsych is repeatedly surprised that I’m wrangling with the same issues that I was wrangling with, several weeks, months, or even years ago. Sometimes I have “new” experiences that are repeats of what I experienced only the day before, and I have to go through the whole learning process all over again.

One example I can think of was back in December, when I had that business trip overseas. Each day, I got up with this terrible, terrible dread — almost crippling anxiety over what was going to happen that day. It was awful, and I literally did not want to leave my room. I just wanted to stay behind closed doors, where I had no interaction with anyone, where I couldn’t possibly screw things up, and where I could move at my own pace and not adapt to anything new or different around me.

And each day, I literally forced myself to get dressed and go out into the world. Each day, I rediscovered that I was able to communicate, that I was capable of understanding what others were saying, even if I didn’t get every single word, and that the world outside was something to be explored and discovered, not dreaded and avoided.

Then the next day when I got up again, it was back to battling the crippling dread, the fear, the anxiety… the monumental effort of getting myself OUT the door… and the happy discovery that I could indeed handle myself well in the world beyond the hotel room. And at the end of each day, I was able to kick back and really enjoy myself in that space, just reveling — all over again — in the “discovery” that I was really going to be okay.

Now I have another business trip coming up that will take me overseas. This time I am going to a country where I do not speak the language. I have been studying a bit, which has been kind of funny — I found some audio files to learn from, but when I started to listen to them, it turned out to be all “Stop or I’ll shoot!” and “Put down your weapon!” and “How many armed men are there?” — apparently a law enforcement or military training course. At least I know how to say “Don’t shoot!” if I get into any trouble while I’m on my trip. You never know… there are some pretty rough neighborhoods where I’m going.

Anyway, the point I’m making is that for some reason, I seem to have just a terrible, terrible memory for things that have happened to me before. This is true of good things… and bad things. I seem to get myself into situations, over and over again, doing the same thing and expecting different results, and then I suffer and chafe when things don’t turn out like I think they’re going to.

Like trying to get out of the house to get to work… Time and time again, I get up thinking that I can just take a little time to check my email and/or do some little things around the house, and then I’ll be able to get to work on time. And time and time again, I get sidetracked on one thing or another… and I end up rushing and being later than I wanted to be. I make up the difference at the back end, of course, staying late — even later than I would have to, actually, because I start to warm up around 6 p.m., and it’s hard for me to take a break when I’m finally making good progress. Even so, even if I do make up the difference in the hours, the simple fact is that I do this over and over again, thinking that this time it will be different.

Insane? Well, according to some, it is. Whatever you call it, it gets frustrating, and I feel like a complete idiot.

I guess part of the equation of this apparent failure to learn, is the fact that I have to stay very present in the current moment, or I can really lose my bearings. I think this 100% here-and-now mindset has developed over years of having to navigate so many issues — light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, exhaustion, vertigo, nausea, pain of all kinds, headache, distractability, and more — but still needing to be functional. I think I just developed the habit of focusing so completely on the present so that I could function in that moment, that everything else — before and after — just disappears. Or it never has a chance to get set in my mind.

I think also the stress of daily living over the years has impaired my ability to learn. Just having to deal with all the sh*t of my issues and symptoms and the screw-ups and the adjustments and the confusions and distractions… it can get pretty stressful, and I’m sure it’s had some impact on my ability to learn.

Then again, in other areas I learn extremely well — like this language thing. I’m actually picking up a lot of good stuff, and I think I’ll be able to at least ask people for help and understand basic numbers and directions, and be able to thank people for their help, without too much struggle. Languages seem to come pretty naturally to me, and it surprises me how much sense they make to me after a relatively short period of time.

So, it’s not like I’m completely disabled with my learning. But experiential learning? There, again and again, I end up going through the same things, as though it were the first time ever.

Well, I can’t worry about it. If I approach it like it’s a grand adventure of constant discovery, and I treat each situation like a fun opportunity to have a “new” experience, it’s fine. It keeps me fresh, actually. It keeps me interested in my life. It’s never boring — that’s for sure. The worst thing I can do, is treat myself this means there’s something wrong with me, that it means I’m somehow damaged. If I don’t judge myself and I just accept that about myself — and come up with ways to work with/around my very limited memory… and I don’t get it in my head that this means I have early-onset dementia and I’m losing my mind…. I can work with this.

Hell, I’ve been working with it for as long as I can remember. I just “get lost” sometimes and I have to find my way out of the shadows and dead-ends… which I can do pretty well. I’ve had plenty of practice, you see.

Anyway, life goes on. I have a number of very interesting projects I am working on, and that’s keeping me interested and engaged in my life. I’m learning new things pretty well, and I feel good. I also got a lot of sleep yesterday afternoon, after I was done with my work. I worked from home, so I was able to just crawl into bed when I was done for the day. That was nice. I got about 7 hours of sleep last night, so that’s good, too. And I have all day today and all day tomorrow to kick back and take care of myself. Because I’m flying out in another week, and I need to be healthy and whole to make this trip.

So it goes. Part of me would like to have a better recollection of the things that I have experienced in the past, so that I don’t keep making the same mistakes, and I don’t keep pushing myself and wearing myself out. And I’m thinking about ways I could do that — maybe keep a log of what works for me in different situations, so I can draw on what has worked for me in the past… I had that kind of a log going, about 3 years ago, and it was working well for me. I think maybe I need to resurrect it, so I can continue to draw on my experiences and get my sh*t together better than I currently am. It’s an idea….

Anyway, the day is waiting, and I’ve got to get a move on. It’s always interesting and never boring… and I need to remind myself of how things have been in the past, as I work through my present and into my future.

I’ve been here before, I’m sure… now I need to figure out how to make the best of it.

 

Brain Injury – Can it be overcome?

I could go on for hours (even days) about whether or not TBI can be overcome, fixed, healed, etc.

But I don’t have much time this morning, so I’ll be brief.

36 years ago, I was struck on the head  by a rock thrown by some kids who didn’t like my looks. I was knocked out briefly, and after I came to, I started having tons of problems with anger, aggression, distractability, disruptive behavior, and underperformance in school. I still do have those issues, to this day, and they bring out sides of me that are very out of character for me.

But they don’t stop me from living my life. They’re manageable. And they have not kept me from experiencing a wonderful life and accomplishing things that many people either only dream of, or don’t think is possible. I’ve traveled widely, I’ve lived abroad for years at a time, I’ve played a key role at a multinational professional services firm, I have a healthy and thriving 19-year marriage, and I own my own home and am current on my mortgage payments. I am also a lot happier than most people I know – in no small part because I make being happy a priority.

In the past 30 years, I’ve sustained a number of concussions and head injuries, whiplash from car accidents, etc. Each one had specific consequences — loss of memory (not recognizing people who clearly recognized and knew me), loss of social functionality (being essentially non-communicative for about 3 months till I came back “online”), loss of a really good job at a really good company, and sudden, precipitous drinking binges.

But over time, as I’ve walked through my life and done what needed to be done to the best of my ability, the vast majority of these issues have resolved. Oh, sure, I still have memory problems, and there are times when I am not very communicative at all (much to my spouse’s dismay), and I have my struggles at work. I have a hell of a time sleeping through the night, my body generally hurts like hell, and I have a constant headache. But these things have not stopped me from getting on with my life. Not at all. They’ve made things more complicated, but they haven’t stopped me. And I’m back working for the company that 86′ed me almost 5 years ago, working closely with people who literally used to be afraid to come into my cubicle.

As far as I’m concerned, I have overcome my TBIs. And I continue to, each day. It’s an ongoing process — at times a painstaking and frustrating one, but ultimately very rewarding. I haven’t reversed the damage 100%. I may never accomplish that. I still have my struggles. But who doesn’t? The main thing is, I am aware of my issues and I actively manage them, I take responsibility for my choices and actions, and I do whatever I can to make right the things that go wrong — whether or not I think they are “my fault” or not.

Overcoming TBI… it’s a complicated issue. And people have different definitions of what “overcoming” means. It’s important to stress that, yes, brain injuries cause permanent damage of one kind or another. That’s the kind of information that raises public awareness… and also raises the call for effective legislation and much-needed funding.

But it’s even more important, in my opinion, to stress that over the long term, recovery is possible. And it is possible to overcome. It’s not guaranteed. Nothing in life is. But it is possible. And you can’t help it happen, if you refuse to believe that.

As for me… I choose to believe.

The downward spiral of fatigue

It’s wild – it starts with the best of intentions. It’s exciting… very exciting to life my life, to go-go-go, to do lots of things and get tons of stuff done.

But if I don’t watch myself, I can get into trouble pretty quickly. If/when I get over-tired (and at the rate I tend to to, it’s usually a question of when I’ll get over-tired, versus if that will happen), a downward spiral starts in, that just won’t quit, till I start to rattle and shake like the USS Enterprise being pushed through an asteroid field at full speed. (And I hear Scotty yelling, “Cap’n, she’s breakin’ up! I can’t give ‘er anymore!“) I question my sanity, my ability to cope, my ability to live, and I’m exhibiting symptoms that someone who doesn’t know better would interpret as mental illness.

It’s not mental illness, per se. It’s my brain acting strangely under abnormally taxing conditions.

Here’s how things steadily go downhill…

And before I know it, I’m in trouble. I’m angry, I’m emotionally volatile, I’m raging, I’m blowing up at people, I’m melting down into a pile of quivering agitation, I’m irrational, I’m over-reactive, I’m hyper-active, I’m everything I know I should not be, but I am powerless to prevent it.

Also, I am in pain. Not just the muscular/skeletal pain that comes from over-exertion, but the surface pain that comes from fatigue, that makes everything hurt, from my clothing to human touch. It’s awful, and there’s nothing to do to stop it, when it’s full-on.  Advil doesn’t help. Only sleep does — days and days of extra sleep.

The thing is (the pain aside), a lot of the behavioral problems that come up are a result of how I perceive myself in relation to the rest of the world. Yes, I’m emotionally volatile. Yes, I’m losing it when I should be keeing cool, but it’s not so much that I am in trouble over things I’m doing — the real trouble happens and I get bent out of shape, when I misinterpret what I’m doing. I assume that because I’m having problems keeping things straight in my head and I’ve gotten turned around, that I’m screwing up (yet again) and I’m a mess, I’m broken, I’m damaged, I’ll never amount to anything, yada-yada-yada-yada-yada-yada-yada-yada-yada… an unbelievable amount of agitation results, which feeds back into the insomnia/fatigue loop. And that just makes my behavioral issues worse.

I’ve been seeing this more and more, lately, as my sleeping habits have deteriorated. They truly have. It’s been very fun and exciting to do things late into the night (as in, after 10 p.m.), but it’s cost me dearly, in terms of peace of mind, not to mention being able to deal effectively with increasing demands and challenges.

Stop the madness!

Seriously.

So, I have re-prioritized rest. I’ve bumped it up to the top of the heap. And I’ve made some small but important adjustments in how I do my work, so I have a better handle on things.

Objectively speaking, I’ve actually been dealing with some of the challenges and demands quite well — but because I’m so tired, I can’t really accurately assess how well I’m doing. So, when I feel like I’m having trouble, I assume I’m not doing well at all… and my successes are nearly lost on me. Unless someone can talk me through them. Like my spouse or my neuropsych.

Speaking of my neuropsych, I had a really great meeting with them  last night (thank heavens), on the spur of the moment. I was in town, they were in town, they had an opening in their schedule, and I had a sudden cancellation on mine. So, we managed to meet for a few hours. And after checking in with them about some recent experiences that had thrown me for a loop, I realized that I had actually done extremely well under very demanding and challenging circumstances. The biggest hurdle in all of it, was me being so tired that I couldn’t think clearly about what had really happened that was good.

I was so tired, nothing seemed good. But it actually was. So, my neuropsych talked me back from the brink of despair. And then I went home and  got to bed at a decent hour — 9:30 p.m., thank you very much! — and I woke on my own after 8 solid hours.

Wonder of wonders.

And suddenly, the world looked a lot better. The “mental illness” subsided, my mood disorder cleared up, my crappy attitude and biting self-criticism subsided, and I was able to get on with my life. Like a normal person.

And I’m back on track with watching myself more closely than I had been, taking my issues one at a time through the course of each day, and addressing the real underlying problems when they come up, so I can get on with my life, despite them. I’ve refined my daily log for what I have planned and what I really do. I’ve become quite diligent about keeping notes on my daily activities, and now I’m furthering that even more with a better kind of journal that helps me a lot.  Tracking my activities and the results is one sure way to see how I’m doing, from day to day. My brain will tell me any number of things about how I’m doing — many of which may in fact be untrue. But if I’ve got my notes, I can see for myself how I’m doing.

Onward…

Doing it differently this holiday season

I did something quite unusual last night — I went Christmas shopping by myself at a much slower pace than usual. I didn’t manage to buy everything I set out to, but I got everything I could, and I got through the experience in one coherent piece — and I was able to get my nap after I got back.

Normally, this time of year is marked by team-shopping with my spouse. They contact everyone in the family and find out what people want… or we talk about what we think people want, and then they make up the list. We take the list, hop in the car, and head out to stores that look like good candidates, then we slog through the process of elimination, muddling our way through… with me getting so fried I either completely shut down and become non-communicative, or I melt down and fly off the handle over every little thing.

We usually spend several evenings like this, ’round about this time of year, and we’ve both come to dread it a little. My meltdowns had become more extreme over the past few years, and this year we were both really dreading the whole Christmas shopping business — to the point where we are going to be late(!) with presents for family members in other states. That’s never happened before. We were always good about it. But my meltdowns screwed everything up.

We both recognize that doing a lot of social things, this time of year (when work is actually getting more crazy, what with year-end and all), takes a huge toll on me. Even if it’s with friends (especially with friends), all the activity, all the interaction, all the excitement, really cuts into my available energy reserves. And then I get turned around and anxious… and I either regress to a cranky 9-year-old state, whining and bitching and slamming things around… or I melt down, start yelling, freak out over every little thing, and start picking at my spouse over things they say and do, to the point where neither of us can move without me losing it.

What a pain in the ass it is. Of all things, the uncontrollable weeping bothers me the most. The yelling bothers my spouse. It’s embarrassing for me and frightening for them, and neither of us has a very Merry Christmas, when all is said and done.

So, this year we did things differently.

We split up for the day and took care of our respective activities.

My spouse went to a holiday party that was thrown by a colleague of theirs who’s married to an attorney who deals with financial matters. I was invited, too, but we both realized that it would be pretty dumb for me to try to wade into the midst of 50+ actuaries and tax attorneys and their spouses who were invited to the shindig… and try to hold my own. Certainly, I can keep up with the best of them, but marinating in such a heady soup, especially with everyone hopped up on holiday cheer (eggnog, red wine, punch, etc.) and all animated and such, would have been a recipe for disaster.

So, I didn’t go. Instead, I took our shopping list and headed to the mall to stock up on what our families had requested. We had written down in advance all the names and the specific gifts we were going to get, and we had also written down where we were going to get them. That list was my lifeline. Especially in the rush and press of the mall, which sprawls out in all directions, with satellite stores on either end.

I’m happy to report that I actually did really well. I made a few tactical errors — like not parking in the first lot I came to and walking in. But that turned out okay, because if I had parked in the first lot, it would have been all but impossible to get down to the other end of the mall. I studied the list carefully ahead of time and used a highlighter to mark the stores where I’d be going. I also kept my focus trained on the task at hand — even if it was just sitting in traffic. I also walked a lot more this year than other years. I found one parking space and used it for two different stores. And I didn’t hassle with finding a space that was as close as I could get to the building. I took the first decent spot I could find, and then I walked to the store.

Imagine that — in past years, I was possessed with finding parking as close as possible, and I would move the car between stores, even if they were only 500 yards apart.  This year, I just walked the distance. Even though it was cold, for some reason the cold didn’t bother me, and it actually felt good to be out and moving.

I think that my 5 months  of daily exercise has paid off, in this respect. I think part of the reason I was always consumed with driving everywhere was that I just wasn’t physically hardy. I was kind of a wimpy weakling, in fact — though more in thought than in body, but a wimply weakling, all the same. But having a good physical foundation — even just from doing an hour (total) of cycling, stretching, and light lifting each morning — has made a significant difference in my willingness and ability to walk between stores.

It might not seem like much, but the walking (instead of driving) between stores part of the trip actually made a huge difference in my overall experience. Walking between stores — stopping at the car on the way to stash my presents — helped me break up the activity and clear my head. It got me out of that in-store madness, the crush and the rush, and it got me moving, so I felt less backed-up and agitated. And that let me start fresh at the next store.

That was good, because the first store was a friggin’ nightmare. It was one of those big-box electronics places, that supposedly has “everything” but really didn’t. It was exhausting, combing through the stacks of movies and music, only to find everything except what I needed. The lighting was awful — extremely bright and fluorescent and glaring. People kept bumping into me, or walking so close I thought they would run me down. But the worst thing was the acoustics. Everything surface was hard and echo-y and the place was overwhelmingly loud, and every single sound was at least partially distinguishable, which drove me nuts. I’ve noticed that acoustics have a lot more impact on me than light, when I’m out shopping. The store was one big cauldron of loud, indiscriminate noise, and my brain kept trying to follow every sound to see if it mattered. I couldn’t function there. Not with the place full of people — and very agitated, anxious, aggressive people, at that.

I eventually went with a gift card and got the hell out of there. I doubt I’ll ever go back when it’s that full. When the place is low-key and all but empty, I can handle it much better. But at this time of year? Not so much.

Walking back to my car chilled me out. Sweet relief.

At the second store — a bookstore — I started to feel pretty overwhelmed. They had long lines, and the place was packed — which is good for the retailer, but not so great for me. I spent the longest amount of time there, in part because I could feel I was getting overloaded, and I stopped a number of times to catch up with myself and remind myself what I was there to buy. My list was getting a little ragged, at that point, what with me writing notes in the margins and taking it out/putting it back in my pocket. So, eventually I just pulled it out and held onto it for dear life. I must have looked a little simple-minded, but I don’t care. Everyone else was so caught up in their own stuff, anyway. My main challenge there, was not getting trampled by Women On A Mission — many of them carrying large bags and shopping baskets that doubled as ramrods to get through the crowds.

One cool thing happened, though, when I was taking a break — I had a little exchange I had with two teenage boys who were talking about some book they’d heard about. I was just standing there, pretending to look at a shelf of books, just trying to get my bearings, when I hear this one young guy tell his buddy, “I heard about this book I should get — I think it’s called the ‘Kama Sutra’ and it’s, like, about sex, and it’s got these pictures… and it’s really old… like, from India or something.”

Well, I perked up at that, and suddenly very alert, I looked over at them and said, “Oh, yeah — the Kama Sutra, man… You should definitely check it out.”

They kind of looked at me like deer in headlights, and they got flushed and flustered and stammered something about not knowing how to find it. It was about sex, and they didn’t know how to ask someone to help them. I so felt their pain…

I confidently (and confidentially) pointed them to the book-finder computer kiosk, where they could type in the title and it would tell them where to find it in the store.

“Dude, you should totally look into it. It’s got lots of information — and pictures — and it’s been highly recommended… for hundreds of years.”

They got really excited and headed for the book-finder kiosk. Here’s hoping they — and their girlfriends — have a very Merry Christmas.

That little exchange got me back in the game, so I took another look at my list and managed to find the handful of books and music and calendars I wanted to get. I headed for the line and just chilled/zoned out. I didn’t get all tweaked about how long it was taking; I listened in on a conversation for a while, till I realized it was mostly about death and health problems people were having.

Oh – and another thing that helped me keep my act together, was the 4:15 p.m. alarm that I have set on my mobile phone. 4:15 is usually when I need to start wrapping up my day at work. I need to do a checkpoint on the work I’m doing, start to wind down, and begin keeping an eye on the clock, so I don’t get stuck in town past 6:00, which is what happens to me when I don’t watch my time after 3:30 or so. I have this alarm set to go off each day, and it went off while I was in the store, which was a blessing. I had completely lost track of time and I was starting to drift, the way I do, when I’m fatigued and overloaded and disoriented.

It startled me out of my fog, and I knew I still had a bunch of things on my list to get, so I refocused and started thinking about what I would get at the next store, so I could just march in and do my shopping without too much confusion and disorientation. After I paid for my books and music and calendar, I debated whether to have my presents wrapped for free, which might have saved me time in the long run. But I couldn’t bear the thought of having to interact with the folks who were doing the wrapping. They looked really friendly and gregarious — Danger Will Robinson! Warning! Warning! Even a friendly conversation was beyond me at that point.

I realized I just wasn’t up to that, and I must have looked like an idiot, standing there in the middle of the foyer, staring at the gift-wrappers for about 10 minutes, but who cares? Everyone was so caught up in their own stuff, they probably didn’t notice me. And if the gift-wrappers were uncomfortable with my staring, they didn’t show it… too much

Anyway, after I managed to extricate myself from that store, I headed for my last destination. Again, I didn’t sweat the traffic getting out of the lot, and when I got to the final store, I parked at a distance from the front doors and walked in through the icy cold, which was good — it cleared my head.

Inside, I consulted my list again and headed directly for the section that had what I needed. Halfway there, I remembered that I’d meant to buy a very important present at the first store, but I’d totally blanked on it. I started to freak out and got caught up in trying to figure out how to get back to that first store and not lose my mind in the process.  Then, I slowed down and stopped catastrophizing, and in my calming mind, it occurred to me that — Oh, yeah – they probably carried that item at this store, so I went and checked, and sure enough, there it was – score! I didn’t have to back to big-box hell. At least, not that day.

I found some more of the presents on my list, and although I didn’t get everything I needed, I made a decent dent. My partner can come with me and help me sort out the other items either today or tomorrow. Or possibly when we get to our family — they usually have some last-minute shopping to do, and they can cart us around with them. And I won’t have to drive.

By the time I got home, I was bushed. My spouse wasn’t home yet, so I called them — they were on their way home and were stopping to pickup some supper. I said I was lying down for a nap, and they didn’t have to wake me when they got home. Then I took a hot shower to get the public germs off me, laid down, and listened to Belleruth Naparstek’s Stress Hardiness Optimization CD. I had a bit of trouble relaxing and getting down, but I did manage to get half an hour’s sleep in, before I woke up in time for dinner.

My partner had a pretty good time at the party, but they said it probably would have been a disaster for me — so many people, so much energy, so many strangers, and unfamiliar surroundings. I concurred, and I showed them what I’d bought that afternoon.

We’d both done well. We both missed each other terribly, but we did get through the afternoon without one of those terrible holiday incidents that has dogged us for many, many years. Like Thanksgiving, which went so well, this Christmas shopping trip actually felt normal. It didn’t have that old edginess that I always associate with holiday shopping. It didn’t have the constant adrenaline rush. In some respects, it feels strange and unfamiliar, but you know what? If strange and unfamiliar means level-headed and low-key and plain old sane, and it means I can keep my energy up and pace myself with proper planning… well, I can get used to that.

Yes, I’ve done things differently this year. And it’s good.

Dangerously dizzy… but life won’t wait

I’ve been increasingly dizzy, the past few days. My left ear is squishy and has been making its presence felt. Pressure in my head, and fatigue… I haven’t had good sleep hygiene, for the past few weeks, and it’s catching up with me.

It’s a scary thing, because it’s so disruptive for my daily life. I have things to do and stuff to accomplish, but if I stand up too quickly or move too suddenly, the whole world starts to rush and spin and I get very sick on my stomach. It also makes me extremely irritable, so I snap out at every little thing, which makes me very difficult to deal with at times.

The only thing that really saves me, is being totally focused on what I’m doing, and not moving much while I’m doing it. Working at the computer is a perfect solution for me, because I have to sit up straight and stay focused on the screen in front of me.

The only problem is, it’s Saturday… a few days before I take off on my marathon trip to see family… and I have a whole lot to get done. Dizziness puts me in more danger of falling or having an accident. If I’m not careful, I can get in a lot of trouble. The last thing I need this holiday season is another concussion — most of my adulthood injuries have coincided with holidays, when I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off and wasn’t paying proper attention. I was fatigued and disoriented… and I fell or had a car accident. Not good.

Yes,  I need to be very, very careful, in everything I do.

I think a big part of the problem I’m having right now is the impending holiday rush. The prospect of driving through several states to see multiple families, over the course of nearly a week is making me a little nervous, and that’s setting off my schedule and my focus.

I have been doing really well with keeping to my daily exercise, which helps.  I just finished my morning workout, in fact, and I feel noticeably better than I did before it. I worked up a sweat and got my heart pumping, which in turn moved the lymph through my system to clear out the grunge. I love lymph. So basic, so essential, so useful. Without it, I’d be in a heap of trouble, and I count my blessings that I don’t have lymph drainag problems, like folks with edema do.

Anyway, I’m feeling better, and I have a full day ahead of me. But I’m pacing myself. And I’ve blocked off time this afternoon to sleep. I haven’t had a good afternoon nap in weeks, and it’s taking its toll. If I don’t nap at least once over the weekend, it catches up with me — and that’s what’s been happening.

And now I’m really dizzy, with a lot of stuff to do, and I regret doing chores last Sunday, instead of taking my nap. I had three solid hours to myself, to use as I pleased, and I frittered away the time on futzing around and doing little chores that took longer than I expected.

Ah, well,  so it goes. At least I’m aware of my dizziness, so I can accommodate it and work with it. When I’m really, really dizzy, I find that keeping my posture ramrod straight and moving very slowly and deliberately helps tremendously. Also, if I sleep a lot and drink plenty of fluids and avoid sugar, that helps, too. I’ve taken medicine for vertigo, but it didn’t help a bit. Anyway, it turns out the medicine is really just for nausea that results from vertigo, not the vertigo itself — at least that’s what the PCP I had at the time told me. Come to think of it, they could have been wrong. They were a bit of an idiot, by average standards. (And it was a scary six months in my life, when they were my primary doctor.)

But now I’ve got a pretty good PCP, and I trust them a whole lot more than the last several I went to. Trusting your doctor is good. It simplifies a lot of things, in many ways, not least of which is the office visit experience.

But more on that later. Right now, I need to stay focused on my dizziness.

Tracking back over the past week, as it’s gotten steadily worse, I have been looking for what I’ve been doing differently that has contributed to this. The one thing that I’ve been doing regularly, that is very different from before, is that I’ve been eating pieces of chocolate to keep myself going. Not just chocolate, mind you, but those little Dove chocolates with peanut butter in the middle. I thought that the peanut butter would give them more staying power, but what I’ve noticed over the past week is how much sugar is in those little puppies.

Zoinks! Who eats this stuff regularly?! They’re dangerous! Sure, they give me a little pick-me-up when I need it — like driving home late from work when it’s very dark, I’m very tired, and I’m having a hard time seeing. But I’m finding that when I eat one, I crave another one about 10 minutes later — like I spike, and then I crash and am worse off than before, so I need another “little” piece of candy to keep me going… and my system gets totally fried by all the sudden, extreme ups and downs.

Which contributes to my fatigue… and apparently my dizziness.

Not good.

So, while I’m doing my errands today, I’m going to remove the chocolates from my car — just throw them out — drink more water, eat more fruit, and be very, very careful when I’m out and about.

The last thing I need is another accident or fall.

Get on the bike and ride!

Well, I had another good meeting with my diagnostic neuropsych last week. I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping, and they’ve been helping me figure out some possible solutions. After detailing my issues and trying to get clear on when I started having trouble sleeping, how much trouble I’ve been having, and what has helped/hurt me in my quest for rest, I finally remembered (about an hour into the discussion, which is so annoying) that back in July, I was riding my exercise bike first thing in the a.m., and it was helping me wake up better than I had been waking up in a long time. I was also sleeping better, then, than I had been in months.

Now, this sleep business is a tricky thing, and it’s never that straightforward, but by gawd, it turns out that my neuropsych was elated that I’d been riding the exercise bike, first thing. They really got excited by it. It just helps in so many different ways, and if I can have good results from exercise, versus a medication, for my insomnia, so much the better.

So, I got back on the bike. The following morning, and the morning after… and this morning, too. Riding vigorously for 20-3o minutes each morning before I do anything else wakes me up and makes me feel 20 times more alert than I do, if I just have a cup of coffee and try to get into my day. It is just a vastly superior solution for me, on so many different levels.

I know I’ve got issues with attention and wakefulness and being alert and being with it. And a lot of those issues are vastly improved when I exercise vigorously in the morning before I have my breakfast. If I can manage to work up a sweat and get my heart rate pumping, I feel like a completely different person.

And this did it for me this morning, too, even after having a pretty rough weekend that has knocked the wind out of my sails in a number of ways, physically, cognitively, and emotionally.

I’m not 100% yet, but I’m getting there. And getting on the bike and riding is one of the tickets to a full recovery.

Connections between pain and PTSD

The past couple of weeks have been crazy for me, and it’s taken somewhat of a toll. I’ve been busy with work, busy with other activities, busy, busy, and more busy. I also did some traveling for about a week to out-of-state relatives, for a big family get-together. In and of itself, it was a great time. But the change in my schedule, the long hours of driving — over 30 hours, all told, in the car — not being able to get enough sleep, and the change in food choices (how do they eat that stuff?) all threw me off, big-time.

I managed to keep it together and not completely blow-out/melt down during the trip, or immediately afterwards, which often happens when I travel to this particular branch of the family tree. But the past few weeks have been packed full of crazy-busy-ness that I now realize has been a pretty concerted effort to dull the pain of the trip.

I’m not talking about emotional pain… though it’s never easy to spend time as an outsider, when everyone else is connecting and having a wonderful time being together — I’m the oddest bird in the family, and between my difficulties in keeping up with what’s going on around me and my narrow and intense interests that aren’t run-of-the-mill, people often don’t know what to do with me.

What I’m talking about is physical pain.

Yes, physical pain — the kind that burns, that aches, that throbs, that stings. The kind that makes my clothing hurt me, that rakes my legs when my pants rub against them… the kind that makes me jump whenever someone touches me… the kind that sends a shock wave of smacking ache to the marrow of my bones when my spouse puts their hand on my forearm… the kind that keeps me from sleeping, because I can’t stand the feel of sheets on me, but I also can’t stand the feel of air-conditioning blowing across my skin… the kind htat gets worse when I am stressed or tired or upset or all of the above… the kind that I often don’t even know is there until someone makes contact with me, and I jump, and they feel like they’ve done something to hurt me. They have. They didn’t mean to, and they would never do it on purpose. But they hurt me.

It’s not just the emotional pain of family visits that gest me. It’s the physical pain, as well.

Here’s the deal — for as long as I can remember, I have had issues with a whole slew of sensory problems, the most disruptive of which was body-wide pain. I can remember, ever since I was a little kid, feeling like I was being hit, when people would just reach out to touch me in very innocent, social, appropriate ways. I would shrink back from them, and they would often take offense or get angry with me for “rejecting” them. It sorta kinda messes with your head, when the people who love you the most cause you intense pain when they try to show their affection for you. And it tends to muck up your relationship with them, when you can’t accept their (appropriate) affection, but they don’t understand why.

To tell the truth, I didn’t even understand why. It’s hard to explain, unless you’ve been there, but the experience of painful touch is such a visceral, physical thing, it sometimes doesn’t translate into words. It’s just there. You can’t describe it, you can’t even really pinpoint it. Sometimes you have no idea it’s there, until someone makes contact with you. Then, all you know is, it hurts, and you pull away to avoid it, so you can just get on with your life.

And you do things to avoid/mitigate it. You steer clear of expressive people. You avoid demonstrative friends. You always keep more than arms’ length away from other people, just in case they reach out to you. You spend time with people who either don’t like you or couldn’t care less about you, because the chances of them touching you is small to none — and it’s easier to be around those types of people, than the friendly ones who like to make contact.

These things are done on a subconscious, instinctive level, and sometimes they don’t even register with you when you’re doing them. Like pulling away from people when they come close. Like shrinking back from a hug someone is trying to give you. Like jerking away quickly when someone touches you accidentally.

And depending on how sudden or shocking the pain is, it can trigger a whole cascade of other sensations/symptoms/reactions that look a whole lot like PTSD.

Over at Helpguide.org, I found this list of symptoms

Re-experiencing the traumatic event

• Intrusive, upsetting memories of the event — memories of past painful contact tend to show up suddenly
• Flashbacks (acting or feeling like the event is happening again) — yes, it does feel like it’s happening all over again
• Nightmares (either of the event or of other frightening things) — sometimes nightmares do follow an extremely painful episode, tho’ that’s rare
• Feelings of intense distress when reminded of the trauma — yes, it is intensely distressing to be reminded of it, it just sends me in a downward spiral
• Intense physical reactions to reminders of the event (e.g. pounding heart, rapid breathing, nausea, muscle tension, sweating) — my heart sometimes starts pounding, I tense up, and I feel sick to my stomach, when people touch me, sometimes

PTSD symptoms of avoidance and emotional numbing

• Avoiding activities, places, thoughts, or feelings that remind you of the trauma — I tend to avoid physical human contact of any kind; women frighten me, because they tend to be so tactile, and it’s literally too painful at times, to interact with them
• Inability to remember important aspects of the trauma — I tend to block out the particulars of painful experiences. All I know is, it’s hurt me before, like it’s doing now
• Loss of interest in activities and life in general — Why should I get involved, if it’s just going to hurt like the dickens?
• Feeling detached from others and emotionally numb — Oh, yes… ’nuff said.
• Sense of a limited future (you don’t expect to live a normal life span, get married, have a career) — how precisely am I supposed to live fully, if the experience of basic human interactions promises me pain?

PTSD symptoms of increased arousal

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep — could have something to do with my insomnia?
• Irritability or outbursts of anger — yet one more contributing factor
• Difficulty concentrating — it’s tough to concentrate, when you’re on high alert. Especially if you’re working with tactile people.
• Hypervigilance (on constant “red alert”) — someone might be approaching…
• Feeling jumpy and easily startled — but of course

Other common symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder

• Anger and irritability — not being able to establish comfortable human contact makes me nuts and pisses me off
• Guilt, shame, or self-blame — why can’t I just be normal like everyone else and tolerate a hand on my shoulder?
• Substance abuse — been there. Thank heavens that’s behind me.
• Depression and hopelessness — my occasional visitors
• Suicidal thoughts and feelings — once upon a time, occasional visitors. Now, very rarely.
• Feeling alienated and alone — not just feeling… BEING alienated and alone
• Feelings of mistrust and betrayal — it’s hard to not feel that way, when everyone around you might possibly cause you pain
• Headaches, stomach problems, chest pain — the first two, yes. The third, not so much

So there we have it — PTSD arising from chronic body-wide pain. Painful touch. There’s even a word for it — Allodynia (meaning “other pain”) — a painful response to a usually non-painful (innocuous) stimulus. I haven’t been formally diagnosed. That would require that I talk about it to my doctor. And talking about it out loud to anyone has never really been an option for me, except for with my last therapist who is long gone by now. It’s just too painful. Emotionally and physically.

I’d rather keep my own counsel and just live my life. Pain-free. Alone, but pain-free.

Being alone not only keeps me out of arms’ reach (literally) from people who may hurt me, but it also keeps emotional upheaval at a minimum. It’s hard to get worked into a state, when you don’t have much contact with people who affect you emotionally. I can block out all the politics and social drama pretty well. But the emotional connections I have with people… well, they’re trickier. So, I steer clear of them, by and large. And I steer clear of emotionally charged subjects with people — like avoiding talking about my chronic pain issues with my doctor.

It’s wild, how emotional distress can heighten physical pain. Emotional pain sets off an alarm state with me, and that alarm state unleases a whole avalanche of stress hormones and hypersensitive biochemical agents into my system. And the buildup of all the stuff that gets “stuck” in my system does not help me. Not one bit.

Over at Healthjourneys.com, Belleruth Naparstek quotes from her book Invisible Heroes and describes it well:

Chronic Pain Conditions
This constant activation of the alarm state leads to an accumulation of metabolic waste products in the muscle fibers, and the release of kinins and other chemical pain generators in the tissue, resulting in myofascial pain and the appearance of those seemingly intractable chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic headache, TMJ and more.

And because these conditions are generated in the brain stem and the motor reflex centers in the spinal column, and routed through a perturbed, automatic, arousal circuitry, peripheral forms of treatment provide only temporary relief.  Constantly activated by everyday sensory cues, normal muscle movement and spontaneous memories, symptoms grow and become more and more entrenched over time.  In other words, this is one nasty gift from the kindled feedback loop that, if not interrupted, will just keep on giving.

Our epidemiology research has already shown us an astounding percentage of people with baffling chronic pain conditions and “functional” diseases that have no obvious causes, who have been found to have prior histories of severe trauma.  Probably if we could tease out the subset of traumatized people who experienced substantial dissociation during their trauma, and a truncated freeze response in the midst of it, we might find closer to one hundred percent suffering from posttraumatic stress.  Unfortunately for them, they are often assumed to be malingering or engaged in attention-seeking behavior for neurotic reasons, instead of suffering from a very serious, self perpetuating condition with a potentially worsening trajectory.

Included in this group of maligned and misunderstood patients would be scores of people suffering from pelvic and low back pain, orofacial and myofascial pain, genito-urinary and abdominal pain; interstitial cystitis; and the previously mentioned headache, fibromyalgia (FM), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD); irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disorder (IBD), multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and migraine.

And there it is — in part, anyway. The post over at Belleruth Naparstek’s blog asks Is There a Connection Between Fibromyalgia and Traumatic Stress? but it’s not just about Fibro, to me. It’s about the “and more” she mentions. It’s about the “whole lot more”.

So, what the hell can I do about this? I’m of the mind that the best reason to talk about anything difficult, is to figure out what to do about it to make it better. To reduce the quotient of human suffering in the world. That includes my suffering (I’m in the world, after all). What can I do about this pain business?

Well, first, I need to get back on my schedule. I need to get back to my sleeping routine, which I’ve been doing pretty well with. I need to get back to eating the right kinds of foods at the right times of day — and I’ve been doing that pretty well, too. I also need to exercise and do other things that will enable me to discharge some of the built-up stress from the trip. I tried explaining to my new therapist how disruptive that sort of travel is to me, but they didn’t seem to “get” the intensity of it, so I’m not getting much support there. Screw it. I’ll support myself. I’ve been having a lot of good long cries, in the privacy of my own company, over the past few days, and that seems to be helping me. I also need to get back to my regular work schedule and just get some stuff done. Being productive has a way of chilling me out nicely, so I’ll do that.

And drink plenty of water. Take some Advil before I go to sleep. Listen to the Healing Trauma CD from Belleruth Naparstek to deal with the PTSD. Have a good cry. And another. And another. And make sure I let loose in my own company, away from others who neither understand nor want to understand just how hard things are for me… and end up minimizing and negating and invalidating my feelings about what I really go through, and tell me I’m fine and I don’t have a problem and I shouldn’t worry about this stuff,  just because they either don’t have the emotional resources to hang with me, or they’d be too traumatized, themselves, if they knew what it’s really like to live in this body.

Most of all, I need to keep it simple. Count my blessings. Remember just much good there is, along with the bad. And remember, tomorrow is another day, and all things considered, I’m pretty lucky to be alive.

Good progress on the insomnia front

Something quite magical has been happening in my life, lately — I’ve been getting more than 6 hours of sleep each night. To people who have no trouble falling asleep and staying that way until they get 8 hours, this might not seem like a big deal, but it is to me.

Leading up to my last MTBI, I couldn’t sleep much more than 3-4 hours a night. I got 5 hours if I was lucky. I was regularly waking up at 3 a.m. (after getting in bed around 11-11:30)… just waking up. BAM – I’d be awake – and I couldn’t get back to sleep, no matter how I tried.  My system was fried, my mind was fried, my life was fried. I was in a crazy intensely stressful job that was tweaking my PTSD off the charts. And when I fell down the stairs at the end of 2004 and hit my head hard on the top 3 stairs, it was the coup de grace (pun intended) of a long progression of gradually worsening conditions in my life.

In a way, it was a good thing that I had to leave that job within the  year after my TBI, but I really miss the money…

Anyway, after I fell, my insomnia did not improve at all. And then more crap started happening in my life — family emergencies and tragedies, medical crises, personal crises… everything got even more intense, even more crazy, and it was impossible for me to tell what exactly was going on or why things were getting so mucked up. It was like my brain was in suspended animation — nothing seemed to be firing properly, nothing seemed to be working as it should. It would have made me nuts, if I’d understood what was going on, but I didn’t.

As you may or may not know, slowly things have clarified for me, and I’ve taken a lot of steps over the past years to set things to right. But one important aspect has eluded me — getting enough sleep. I had gotten acclimated to getting maybe 6 hours a night, and I thought I was doing well when that was happening. But plenty of people have informed me that you really need 8-9 hours each night, if you’re going to function properly.

I took a good hard look at my life, and I realized that yes, I actually was usually exhausted. I was usually overly fatigued. I had just gotten used to the feel of it, I’d acclimated to the experience, to the point where I thought it didn’t bother me. It was just how it was… I had resigned myself to being constantly tired, and I kept myself going on caffeine and projects and having a jam-packed schedule all the time. I left myself no downtime at all. If I had downtime, I just felt bad, so I didn’t bother giving myself any rest.

Like I said, on a certain level it didn’t bother me. But logically, I could see that something was amiss. Everyone was telling me I needed more sleep — from friends to family to therapists to doctors — and it occurred to me that what they were saying probably had merit. They were folks I trusted, and whose input I believed. They had no reason to deceive me, and I had no reason to disbelieve them.

So, going by a purely rational approach, I decided to try to get more sleep. And I tried to stop pretending that being tired all the time was okay.

I tried:

• Taking naps whenever I could, especially on weekends.
• Taking Benadryl to knock myself out, when I couldn’t even begin to relax.
• Doing very rigorous chores that wore me out.
• Taking hot showers to relax.
• Listening to guided meditation (Belleruth Naparstek’s “Stress Hardiness Optimization” CD, especially)
• Doing progressive relaxation.
• Deep breathing and counting my breaths and alternating opening and closing my eyes at longer and longer intervals, so that my body would get the idea I was going to sleep.
• Closing my eyes and moving them around behind closed eyelids — like I was in REM sleep.
• Sleeping in different places – in the guest bedroom, on the living room couch, in the car.
• Meditation
• Exercising mor
• Tracking the amount of sleep I was getting, so that I could tell — objectively — when I was probably over-tired (when I’m over-tired, it’s hard for me to tell subjectively that something is wrong)

All these things, to some extent have helped me. And over the past several months, I’ve been able to sleep more and more. I’ve now gotten to the point where I can literally sleep 8-9 hours, under the right conditions, which is a really “new” experience for me in light of my past 6 years or so.

I have also found it helpful to learn about the parasympathetic nervous system and the important jobs it does in maintaining health and vitality. Doing things like deep breathing and relaxation to help jump-start my parasympathetic recovery from stress, has been a big part of helping me get to sleep. The more relaxed I am, when I go to bed, the easier it is to sleep.

It might sound basic and obvious, but that fact eluded me for many years.

Recording my hours of sleep each night has been really helpful, just so I can tell how I’m doing and where I need to improve. After all the last thing I want, is to undermine my health just because I can’t subjectively assess the level of my fatigue. If I can’t do it subjectively (when someone asks me how I’m feeling, even if I’m exhausted, if I’m caught up in a project or I’m “locked on target” for something I need to get done, I am honestly feeling no pain or fatigue), I can do it objectively by tracking my hours of sleep each night.

Most of all, I’ve been benefited by listening to Belleruth Naparstek’s “Stress Hardiness Optimization” CD — especially the last 2 tracks for relaxation and restful sleep. I put on my headphones and play the last 2 tracks, and I’m usually asleep by the middle of the first track. If I can’t sleep by then, I’m usually under a few minutes into the “restful sleep” track. In fact, it’s worked so well that I haven’t the faintest idea what’s at the end of the “restful sleep” track, since I’ve slept through it over and over.

I make a point of listening to the CD every day for several weeks, then I’ll take a little break, and go back to it. I’m a real believer in it, and since I’ve become  increasingly sensitive to Benadryl (it knocks me out too much over the following days – it has a very long half-life), the guided imagery has turned out to be my “prescription” of choice for insomnia.

So, now I know I have tools to help me sleep when I need it. And that takes the pressure off… which also helps me relax… and sleep.

The perils of pseudo-psychological problems

Something has occurred to me repeatedly, over the past month, as my sleeping habits have improved. Namely, that many of the “mental health” issues I’ve been experiencing over the past several years, have had a distinctly physiological component to them. In fact, at the risk of sounding radical, presumptuous, and heretical – though I’m seldom reluctant to be just that – I suspect that a ton of my “psychological” issues have actually been physical ones.

I’m sure I’m going to really piss off some of the psychotherapists in the room by saying this, but I have to say that catching up on my sleep and figuring out how to get a full night’s sleep more than one night in a row, has done more for my mental health than two years of therapy.

And no, I did not have a bad therapist. They were great – awesome – and they really helped me a great deal, if only by sitting there and not making fun of me when I talked about this and that.

But let me tell you – as a TBI survivor who had/has a whole raft of physical ailments (chronic pain, insomnia, sensory hypersensitivities, weight fluctuations, heart palpitations, vertigo, tinnitus, and more…), just living with all those issues can really mess with your head. And as long as only the symptoms of my physical distress were being addressed, not much moved.

I did get in touch with my feelings. That’s for sure. I figured out that I actually mattered, and that it was important for me to take care of my own health and well-being, not constantly do the martyr-hero thing and sacrifice my own safety for the sake of others. I had space to learn to look at myself and my life through a less negatively critical eye and consider that maybe, just maybe, I had a right to do more that survive in life. I had/have a right to thrive.

But one of the things I really got in touch with was the fact that my physical well-being is a huge contributor to (and predictor of) how well my mental well-being holds up. When I’m tired and in pain and weak, my ears are ringing like the dickens, and my head spins wildly and I feel like I’m going to fall over every time I move, it’s pretty damned difficult to maintain a positive mental outlook and count my blessings. When I’m not feeling well physically, the chances of me feeling well mentally and emotionally decrease exponentially.

There are some people who manage to keep a cheery, chipper outlook, despite significant physical issues. I’m usually one of those  people, and I usually manage to not let my physical problems bother me. But when I haven’t had enough sleep for weeks and months on end, chances are pretty good that I’m going to feel depressed, anxious, irritable, low — and show other signs of clinical depression.

Okay, so here’s the thing — when I was in therapy with my prior therapist, they repeatedly came back to the suspicion that I was depressed. They asked me a number of times if I thought I was depressed, and if I’d said “Yes,” I’m sure they would have followed up on that, however a therapist does that. And they probably would have plumbed the depths, looking for what it was that made me depressed — some repressed past trauma, some childhood violation, some incident that I’d blocked out to keep from being unhappy.

And lots of talk would probably have ensued. Talk, talk, and more talk.

Now, talking is all very well and good, but as Belleruth Naparstek said at a conference I once attended (and I believe she’s said in her book “Invisible Heroes”), sometimes talking does more harm than good, by dredging up old traumas and forcing you to relive them. That can be very unpleasant, as I’m sure everyone is aware. And for me it’s really problematic, because I prefer to dwell on problems with a solution in mind, and if I’m dwelling on a past incident which cannot be changed (it’s already over and done), I get even more agitated and irate over it.

Some people might say that I’m just not willing to deal with the emotional fallout of misfortune, but I say I’m a solutions-oriented individual and the main reason I think about things, is so that I can change them, so why in the hell would I spend all this time thinking about stuff that cannot be changed? The therapists in the room who would say I’m emotionally “blocked” would probably try to treat me… with more talking about shit that makes no sense for me to talk about.

Make no mistake — I’m not at all reluctant to discuss misfortunes I’ve experienced in the past. But any discussion that takes place with me, has to be about devising solutions and coping mechanisms for the problems I have as a result. I’ve had some really shitty things happen to me, but you know what? It’s over, and I’ve managed to forgive just about everybody in my past for their shortcomings… even myself. The problem is not that I’m represssed. It’s that people want to process the wrong type of stuff with me — problems, problems, and more problems — and my reluctance to discuss stuff I’ve already been through a thousand times in my head is interpreted as repression or avoidance or some other psychological/emotional impairment.

What’s more, when pressed to explore the nether regions of my soul with talk therapy, I tend to get turned around. As good as I am at writing, I’m can be kind of pathetic when it comes to spoken conversation. I have an intensely visual mind, which follows conversations and spoken communication with series’ of images that are like an associational, disjointed movie in my head. I literally see pictures of what people are talking about, and when people start talking about things for which I have no picture — or I have several of them to choose from — it takes me a while to catch up and keep up. It’s not that I’m stupid. Or that I’m slow. I’m just incredibly visual in my own mind, when it comes to spoken language, and visual processing doesn’t lend itself as well to spontaneous conversation.

So, when I’m talking to someone about what’s going on with me, and they start talking about things that aren’t immediately famliar to me — or that I’m not expecting them to talk about — it’s really easy for me to get agitated and introveted. I need time to catch up. I need time to keep up. I need time to translate their words into pictures and process the information visually, so that I can make sense of what they’re saying to me. But I don’t always have that much time, and over the course of my life, I’ve gotten into the bad-but-pragmatic habit of just pretending I know what’s going on, while making mental notes in the back of my mind about what was just said, so I can go back to it later and rethink it all and hopefully make sense of things.

The problem is, in a therapeutic situation where I’m supposed to be making some sort of progress and addressing issues, this really works against me. It tends to make me look reticent and/or like I’m deliberately withholding. I’m not — I’m just trying to process the information and make sense of it. Believe me, if I could answer immediately like other people, I would. But my brain just doesn’t work that way.

I also tend to get really frustrated with myself and get agitated, which looks like I’m uncomfortable talking about certain things. It’s not that  I don’t want to let other people in. I do — more than I can say. But I get so turned around in my head, and I get so upset with myself for not being able to follow, that I start to flail and spin and then shut down. I feel like I’m getting backed into a corner, and I get revved… and by the end of the session, I look like a totally basket case who needs to spend years sitting across the room from someone, before I can get in touch with my feelings.

This sucks on so many levels, I can’t even begin to tell you. The worst thing of all is having someone who is supposedly trained and experienced in these matters misunderstanding, miscalculating, misdiagnosing, and mis-treating conditions which don’t even exist the way they think they do. On the surface, you’re exhibiting classic signs of clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, but underneath it all you’re struggling for words that will explain exactly what is going on with you, and why you’re acting the way you do. And the bitch of it is, because you’re the (sick) client and they are the (trained, experienced, licensed) therapist, you’re not in a position to be taken totally seriously when you do manage to tell them a little bit about what’s up with you. ‘Cause they think you’re seriously mentally ill and you can’t possibly know what your real problems are.

After all, you probably have no recollection of what that nasty-ass uncle did to you as a toddler when your mother’s back was turned.

It’s a problem. I hear plenty of stories about therapists who don’t know  what they’re doing… as well as those who know very well what they’re up to but have no scruples or morals. I hear plenty of tales about over-prescription of medications, as well as  misdiagnosis of mental health issues that have more to do with fundamental differences of information processing, than pathology. The mental health profession has been pathologizing the diversity of human experience for as long as it’s been around — perhaps that’s a hallmark of any helping/caring profession that’s trying to get on its feet. Applying labels like “hysterical” or “deviant” or “sick” to people who are just different from the norm is a time-honored tradition in the mental health field, so there are no surprises there. But it’s a problem that’s been shifting and changing over the past 30 years, and that’s a good thing.

Now, if I can figure out a way to explain to my new therapist the nature and degree of my physical issues, so they can see my issues in light of my insomnia, pain, and physical sensitivities… and not spend an inordinate amount of time focusing exclusively on my past emotional trauma, that will be a good thing.

A day that didn’t start with exercise…

… sadly did not go well

I decided this morning to forego my 20 minute bike ride and just get on with my day, but I found myself frittering away the hours doing this and that, rather than the project I am tasked with completing.

I also had a major meltdown this afternoon over changes in scheduling and unexpected things I had to do. It wasn’t pretty, and I felt like a complete and utter fool after the fact.

Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day. I’m headed out of town to a family event, which should be interesting. But the long drive there and back will be welcome. It will be good to get out of town for a while.

I’m looking forward to starting fresh in the a.m. Even if I only ride for 15 minutes, at least I can get a jump-start on the day.

On a related note, I came across this blog post the other day — Tired, Stressed, Fat and Depressed: What You Need to Know About Cortisol (New Video) It talks about how the one thing that will help you deal with cortisol is exercise and getting plenty of sleep.

I’d be interested to hear how cortisol and TBI intersect. Surely, there must be information somewhere. For that matter, I’d like to know how TBI and the endocrine system interrelate. I’ve heard that TBI can lead to major endocrine system dysfunction/upset, but it’s not widely known or understood.

Makes sense to me — the glands in the brain (and elsewhere) that produce all those chemicals must be pretty finely tuned (for example, the thyroid drives the whole body’s metabolic system on about a teaspon of its hormone each year — yes, a teaspoon-full of TSH does the trick for the entire body)… so if the brain’s finely interconnected circuits are re-routed, surely it must do something to the overall functioning.

Or maybe I’m crazy… being an undereducated lay-person, after all. I’m sure there are plenty of experts out there who can tell me/you better and/or different. But common sense tells me there must be a connection.

Anyway, it’s getting late (for me), and I need to get ready for this big trip. I just hope I’ll be able to sleep. I’ll have to see if the motel I’m staying at has an exercise bike and/or gym. Here’s hoping…