[TW] Jazzy's Journal: Omega, Part II

[Jazzy]

Thank you so much for your concern and reaching out Snowdrop and Sage!

I spent the day in the psych ward because I was on my death bed last night. I have learned a number of important things today, but these stand out the most to me.

- Living in trauma is so different than living without trauma that I very nearly died trying to figure out that difference.
- Precious few people who have never lived with trauma can even begin to comprehend the difference.

Despite me clearly and repeatedly stating my issues and history, the nurse in the psych ward neglected me, specifically by not checking how much food I ate. She refused to give me water. When I told another nurse my blood sugar rose drastically after eating an orange, she dismissed it, then talked about diabetes, then dismissed it again, then offered me the water which I had asked for hours before. How many times do I need to say "I've been malnourished and dehydrated my entire life so I'm learning to eat and use the toilet" before they get it?

If I was still living in trauma, that would have resulted in dissociation and more, as it is yet another of the same trauma, on top of being locked in a room against my will etc.

Even the psychiatrist did not fully believe me, despite me clearly demonstrating that I understood the intent behind her every question, as well as me pointing out that I was repeating the same answers to her. These people have not yet learned to simply listen, trust, and notice fine details.

Along with everything else, I'm trying to figure out how to improve the situation so more people will understand what living with trauma is like. I think I need to become more "successful" according to what society believes before they will believe me. It's sad that they trust a success story more than experience, or simply listening to themselves.

Mostly I need to learn to relax though... it is so interesting to me that my life is so easy now, yet that nearly killed me. It's because I am in a different reality now, so I don't have any experience knowing how much is too much. I'm no longer in the 120-150% effort (survival mode), but in the 1-100% bracket with the rest of the world.

It's confusing to have my "scale" shifted so abruptly and no one here to help me transition. It's similar to talking about a trillionth of a second... sure we can speak about it intellectually, but we are completely incapable of truly understanding time on that scale. Shifting in to that scale is beyond words, the best I can say again is it nearly killed me. I'm sure I will continue to live through it though. I came extremely close to death, again, but as always, I made it through!

I see now why people say stress is so bad. Trauma is not stress though. CPTSD is not a stress disorder at all. I've never been stressed in my life, because I've been to busy being traumatized and surviving. Trauma is living in survival mode (120-150% effort bracket) for years, 30 out of 34 in my case. Today I was very stressed, my heart rate was 110+ BPM... but I was not traumatized; I was clear minded.

Surely if I had more money I'd have some sort of a parental figure (therapist, big brother, visiting nurse etc.) to help me learn to eat and use the toilet, but I'm poor, so I learn alone... as it always has been. Perhaps this is best in my specific case, given how I educated myself since grade 1. While information given to me in order for me to choose best would be extremely helpful, I will continue to make the absolute best out of what little I have.

Despite me living in a different reality now, I have cheated death yet again, and fully expect I will continue to grow.

[Jazzy]

It's so challenging and dangerous because of how little impact emotions have compared to being traumatized.

I'd say I'm about 80% stressed right now. All of my life I've been "120+% stressed" so 80% feels like nothing, better than I've ever been.

But I just realized that 80% is dangerous, borderline crisis for non traumatized people... so I'm going to go lie down and listen to calm music. I think that's what non-traumatized people do to relax?

[Jazzy]

I'm scared to go to sleep because I came so close to dying in my sleep last. That's a perfectly normal emotion to have though, and normal emotions are new and confusing 

It's very interesting to me that the message I sent here last night as I was almost dying is a clear cry for help before it is too late, yet no one talked about calling the hospital or anything. This is confirmation of my own experience that trauma is living in survival mode.

Almost dying mentally is the normal for trauma, so I didn't expect any such message here. I hope my words help people understand though. The psychiatrist didn't get it because she wasn't open to learning from my experiences.  I hope one day more will be. It's really not complicated.

[Jazzy]

So I just realized that they've been telling me for years what non traumatized people do. All of these trigger worksheets and stuff have the answers on them. That's great! I also realized that normal people take sedatives as their doctor prescribed so I did that too. Ugh I hate the word normal but that's how i feel.

The most confusing thing is that I don't know what to think about. There's no unsolvable crisis any more. Reviewing my every word and every action of the people at the hospital 🏥 isn't necessary.

I can ... learn a new skill or something? hahah what?

This is so bizarre to actually relax my mind. I wonder if my apparent ASD will diminish? I do really like it; though not at the price of living in trauma 

I guess we'll find out we go. That's exciting which is also a new emotion.

I need a guide or something. Going to school with other children would have been so helpful.

[Jazzy]

I just had a huge realization.

The world runs on money and I've been unable to get money because I've been traumatized and just trying to survive for one more day my entire life.

But now that the trauma is broken, I can make money, so I can get all these things I need like a dietician and a visiting nurse etc. It will just take me a bit of time to "catch up" on 30 years of missing life.

But I've waited 30 years, so I can wait a few more no problem.

Ah, I literally felt my stress drop significantly after writing this out.

Again, I only now feel stress because I've broken my trauma... in my experience, talking about stress to traumatized people is not a very good approach at all. That's the approach of non-traumatized people trying to make sense of our reality which they can't understand.

[Jazzy]

Another huge realization from my visit to the psych ward:

With trauma, we live in fear constantly. Most people without trauma live in fear too though, especially of us. I think that's the biggest underlying problem why this "help" is actually damaging; everyone is afraid of each other.

My first thought is obviously the trained professionals should overcome their fear and do a better job. I believe they should, but I also believe they won't. They're soft and weak, so they can't handle the reality we live in.

It shouldn't be us to have to do it, but somebody has to break the mutual fear holding us apart. Despite what society says with their degrees, certifications, titles etc. we are the experts, because we have years of the most extreme experience.

[Hope67]

Hi Jazzy,
I'm just popping into your journal and wanted to send you a warm hug of support and care, if that's ok.    
Hope 

[Jazzy]

Thank you so much, Hope! I always love your hugs and seeing your name and picture pop up. 

[Jazzy]

I am so happy to get this form from the emergency doctor at the hospital. It is the most validating thing I have. A doctor listened and believed me enough that he said I have shown a lack of competence to care for myself that will likely result in serious physical impairment to me.

This is my painful truth, and I love it! My life is in danger because my mother failed so thoroughly! This has been true for 30 years, it's just taken this long for a doctor to realize. I've made it 30 years so far, things are only going to get easier from here, so long as the doctors don't over-react. So far, so good! 

I'm so happy about this I'm framing it!  

[Jazzy]

A little while ago I noticed that song I really like "Ride of the Valkyries" is part of an opera. I've always been attracted to operas with their powerful music and sometimes words. They have a big impact on me.

So I was listening to it today, and I had a scenario running through my imagination of the neighbour coming by and asking why I liked opera, so I began to explain to her what I liked about it and how she could enjoy it like I do.

Then I realized that I now understood why I liked opera, because my mind is clear from the trauma. I sat down and cried tears of relief and joy for a few minutes.

I won't go in to the exact details here, but my mind is exceptional. I was talking to my sister yesterday after I got out of the hospital about noticing details, and gave her some examples of the things I noticed and what those details told me. I realized this is what Sherlock Holmes does, which I quite like. Then I realized Sherlock Holmes is autistic.

I really don't like the word autistic, so I don't know much about it, as I've avoided the topic. However I greatly appreciate my mind, and now that it is beginning to work after being shut down for 30 years, the results are amazing.

My biggest fear about autism, is that every example of it I've seen is limited to one part of the brain, usually the logical part. These are the Sherlock Holmes, the Rainmans, the card counters etc.

However with how quickly and fully I understood that opera it is clear to me that it is more than just my logical mind which is exceptional.

Given all of this, I think that trauma over-activates the part of our mind which best helps us to survive. For some that's logical so we can figure out what to do next, for some that's emotional so we can know which things in our life help us feel better, surely for some it is instinctive... they just know how to do everything right, physically.

Breaking trauma brings the one part of the mind down to a normal level, which lets the other parts of the mind activate. Based on this, I suspect that Sherlock Holmes et al. are living in trauma, using their survival instincts for the world, instead of for getting their mind back to a healthier state.

Surely there are developmental consideration as well, so not every autistic person is traumatized. What I write here is about me and the others like me.

[Jazzy]

It has only been a few hours since I've accepted that my mind is different than most others. Already that acceptance has made a tremendous impact on my life. Everything is so much better now; I feel much more peace, which isn't scary.

I have always intellectually known how important it is to "be yourself", but I only truly know now through experience.

This point: "be yourself" is perhaps the most important thing I have come to realize thus far.

[Jazzy]

I've been really curious about how my mind works now. Most people consider an IQ test to be a good measurement of intelligence, so I was curious what my score would be now that I am free from trauma.

For reference, my highest score in the past is 147. At the time this was labelled "borderline genius"; I see it is now rated "highly gifted".

I took a free test online using my phone, hardly ideal circumstances, but good enough for me to answer all of the questions with time to spare. I'm confident they are all correct.

Unfortunately the results are not free, but this is what they told me for free (SIC):

"Impressive! You completed the test in: 17m 34s Your strongest category is Spatial Orientationwhere you scored higher than 99% of people tested.

They did not give me my IQ rating number, but here are my thoughts on the matter:

- I do not believe Spatial Orientation is my strongest category.
- I am in the top 1% in the category I do not consider my strongest
- 1% of people are in the highest score bracket, labelled "highly gifted"

Based on everything I've written here, I expect my IQ score is at least 160 which is the highest on the score chart.

While there is so much more to how the brain works than what the IQ test measures, I wonder how I can use my "intelligence" to improve my life.

P.S. It is interesting to note that it is so challenging for me to write about this topic that I am slightly trembling. I need to go relax now, because stress is just as deadly now as it is when I was traumatized, yet I cannot so easily access the strength to fight it now.

[Libby183]

Jazzy. I have only just caught up with your journal, after several days away. You seem to be dealing with a lot of new things. I hope you are doing OK.

Take care, Libby.

[Jazzy]

Hi Libby! 

Welcome back! Thank you for catching up, there's so much written here! Thanks for your well wishes too. Things are challenging, but I'm making a lot of progress, so I'm great!

How are you dong?

<3 Niko

[Alter-eg0]

Yeah, IQ is a weird thing...or rather, IQ test results. I mean, there are always so many factors in play, and it's always a snapshot.

I remember getting tested back when I was in therapy. My results were much lower than expected (for them) because I was so depressed at the time that I just couldn't concentrate, and didn't really care to do my best anyhow. Also, I was completely zonked on meds. It also turns out that I have dyscalculia, so when it comes to all the numbers and the spacial orientation, I score relatively low compared to the rest.
Anyway, I remember reading the results and there being something about "there's a risk in overestimating her because her verbal intelligence is higher than the other categories" (in other words, she sounds smarter than she is). And I was like....guys, seriously?

Makes you wonder..