MalagaCove

what the next step is, advocacy.

I never thought I’d be an advocate for anyone. Never thought I’d have any ground to stand on so to speak, but I do. There’s two things I know really well: living with PTSD and recovery from a TBI.

It’s my opinion that PTSD, like autism is a spectrum because people are not one size fits all. But because I’ve lived with it so long and because I’ve recovered or integrated so much of it, I’m in a fairly unique position to talk about what PTSD is and isn’t to people both with it and those without it. Mostly I’m thinking about explaining what it’s like, experientially to people who don’t have it. Describing symptoms is fine, but telling someone you go into a panic state at the drop of a pin just either sounds completely out of control OR like you’re making it up. And it isn’t either.

The TBI thing is something a doctor told me years ago. He was a customer of mine and I told him my experience waking up from the TBI and what was confusing and what I did (or couldn’t) do about it. He told me I should give talks to medical professionals. He specialized in brain injuries.

So, it occurred to me that as weird as it is, I DO have something I could stand up and talk about, actually two things, and both from the perspective that’s rarely heard: the patient/client’s perspective.

Big downside: it requires me to lose the last squeemishness I have about standing up in public and saying, “This is who I am.” In some ways that will be a win for me and a loss for the abuser. But in another way, it will mean that for the rest of my life I’ll be pathologized by almost anyone I meet, not a particularly comforting or welcoming vision.

MC

the living room. The new graphics table is in place. The bookcase boxes were moved last night to go behind it (displacing a lot of books and the loom).

The wrought iron table with the typewriters, alarm clocks & adding machine has a new home, hopefully for most of it, their final home, that stuff is HEAVY!

The move yesterday was prompted by the heavy/awkward wrought iron table & machines. The next move is probably going to be to find the final home for the loom & its bench, for exactly the same reason. I know where I’d like it to go, but there’s (of course!) two pieces of furniture there. More planning and figuring is required!

is still true. We’re closer than we’ve ever been (although we had our (Can you believe it?) 32nd wedding anniversary earlier this year! Of course it’s different than it was years ago. But tonight for some reason he was annoying me, we both noticed it. He’s in bed and I’m in the office. I have no idea wtf is wrong, so we’re in “separate corners” for a while. But since we both work at home, we’re together pretty much 24/7, and that gets to one or the other of us, every now & then.

Even with that, the marriage is still better than it was, a year ago or 5 years ago.

I should mark this goal complete, except of course it never will be!

MC