Writing my book has been one big therapy session. The more I write, the more I see how TBI and PTSD are affecting my everyday life. I used to think it was just the memory issues, the clumsiness, the fatigue and of course - the facial paralysis. But it is so much more.
For example, something just happened this morning that triggered what I like to call a TBI Fire. Here is what happened....
I sent an email to a friend of mine and in the email, I asked him a question about something that is very important to me and his answer was short and what I perceived was rather flippant.
Now, my mistake number 1, is that I read it during a stressful time of the day. Early mornings on a school day. Getting three boys out of bed, fed and to the bus stop on time is hard enough - add to the mix that one is special needs and who fights non-stop with one of his older brothers and you have the perfect storm.
So I read his emailed response and that triggered a small spark which lit a very tiny little fire in my brain. Very small, even smaller than a campfire, but nonetheless, the flame was lit.
Then I proceed to have my usual 1.5 hours of dealing with three boys, two of whom are fighting with each other in addition to not doing what I have asked them to do (get dressed, eat breakfast, brush your teeth and go catch the bus before you miss it). Believe me, it may sound easy, but it is not. I will do another post about the tumultuous school day mornings that occur at my house later and to all the other mom's out there, I promise you, you do not go through the same thing.
So, in regards to my little fire metaphor, it's grown a little and it's now a decent sized campfire. The stress of my mornings with my boys, well, its kind of like they are fanning the fire to make it bigger. Like throwing a lot of leaves and sticks and kindling to really make it a big fire.
Now, if I was able to - I would simply go to my happy place, a place that is peaceful, quiet and where I could escape the fire until it burns itself out, but I can't. I can't because those three boys are my responsibility and my responsibility is to get them to school on time, which entails getting them out of bed, dressed, fed and to the bus stop.
Do you see where I am going with this?
So here we had the small campfire that was lit and some boys who are fanning and throwing things at it making it bigger and bigger and bigger and a mom who is in dire need of a firefighter with a fire truck to put the fire out, but all she can find is maybe a garden hose which doesn't have much pressure, at least not enough to do the job.
For all intents and purposes - this garden hose is the medication I have been taking to help regulate the chemicals in my brain to keep me balanced.
So the garden hose could have put out the small campfire, even if it stayed lit for a while, but, it has zero effect on the fire that is now raging out of control. And those boys who were making this fire grow - well, they (barely) caught the last bus and got the heck out of dodge and now mom is left here battling what has become a wildfire and because she is not a firefighter, she has absolutely no idea what to do and she ends up catching on fire and exploding because what nobody seems to realize and understand is that this mom had dynamite inside of her. Yes, 18 years ago, she got caught by some terrorists and they sewed dynamite inside of her. This dynamite isn't the normal TNT kind, it's a particular one called TBI.
BOOM!!! My explosion is a rage filled, out-of-control, response and the fire has spread and more people end-up getting hurt.
That is what living with a TBI is like. It's that fire and you need to avoid the triggers that spark it because it is hard to put out and people who say, that this is just an anger management problem don't understand that it is so much more. It is an anger management problem that we didn't have before the TBI and that conventional ways of controlling it don't work for us because our brains are now different. Your brain is a grape and ours is now a raisin and you can't make a raisin turn back into a grape, no matter what you do.
Now - I am proud to say that my TBI dynamite didn't explode. The fuse was lit, but I was able to put it out and the only reason why I was able to do this is because I am writing this book and it was as if for a brief second I was able to see into the future so I stopped the bad outcome from happening. I literally had the email reply written and I was able to stop myself from pushing send, that is how close it came.
Not every person who has a TBI is able to do that. As a matter of fact, most of the time I can't do this either, it is beyond my power. So therein lies the question, what can be done to stop us TBI fighters from pushing that button? Medication? Medication is like one of those nozzles that you can put on the end of the garden hose and has different settings to control how the water comes out. The one that spins and you can choose shower , jet, angle, soak , mist, center, etc. Sometimes you find the right setting that can put out that particular fire and sometimes not.
I know what worked for me in the past and that was oxygen. Ironically, something that is one of the main ingredients of a fire is the one thing that can help me keep it under control.
When I underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) I was able to control that campfire and it was easy. I didn't have to have to mess with all the settings in the nozzle. I found that one setting that controlled that fire. But of course the Government that is controlled by the pharmaceutical companies are preventing me from getting the oxygen I need because they make a lot more money by selling those nozzles.
If only the FDA would approve HBOT as a viable way to manage the side effects that come with a TBI, which would allow me to afford it by requiring health insurance companies to cover it, a lot less people would lose everything they had in a fire that could have been prevented in the first place.
