Within three weeks of the exposure I lost my balance, ability to focus my eyes and speak,  life became unreal to me as I simply watched others around me.  Of the few visitors to make the trip to see me in the hospital in Boston, there was really only one who did not leave my room weeping.  It was too difficult for most people who knew me to stand helplessly by and watch the price I had paid for my loyalty.  My sister tried to take care of me as best she could and read to me, but in truth she was wasting her time trying to distract me from realizing what was happening to me.  She had tried so valiantly to make the neurologists in Lowell understand the gravity of what was happening to me and she was told that my EEG was normal and I was psychosomatically sick.  All that had seemed evident to doctors at the time was the excessive amount of zinc in my Heavy Metals Test and the presence of far too many white blood cells. In light of my projectile vomiting and the deterioration they witnessed, I was sent to Boston.  I remember how shocked I had been when my Neurologist from 1986 saw me later that year when I had gone blind in my right eye and he told me he had sent me to Boston to die.  The truth of my condition by that point was so obscured as to be completely ridiculous!

My family tried to endure the stress of trying to get help for me medically and the almost total indifference of anyone to involve themselves in toxic poisoning.  No one attempted to deal with the fact that I had been exposed to 52 neurotoxins for over an hour because no one else had symptoms like mine at the time.  The problem was that no one else had been overlooked during the evacuation.  I was in the Controlled Vapor Deposition room which was remote and had no intercom.  I was bustling about in the areas thinking it must be lunch time, I could check the lots quickly and effectively when I happened upon areas where the personnel were on break or at lunch and I felt grateful for the opportunity to get ahead of my schedule.  In the Thin Film room where I was finishing my rounds, I checked the lots there for mask 7-8 and was almost finished when Jimmy called into the room that the air handlers were down and I had to leave immediately.  As I came out of the room I realized that I had been in Test, Photo Resist, Etch, Thin Film and the Diffusion room for well over an hour.  I said a bit disgustedly, "I kind of wish, someone had told me!"  Neither of us thought more of the event that night, but the following day I saw the company doctor and then my own Allergists.  The consensus of opinion was that I should stay out of the areas until I felt better.  Unfortunately by the 3rd day when the blister under my nose broke, I lost all feeling in my right cheek; but then a tingling numbness occurred.  Shortly after that, within a week I could no longer make it to the bathroom without the assistance of my sister.  My condition became more intolerable and I sought professional help from a Neurologist.  What was known back in 1986 is limited to no history being available on the topic.  I was assured by all the medical staff I encountered that one thing had nothing to do with the other.  I was to believe that my condition was due to Atypical MS.  In the first year after I recovered from my paralysis I tried to learn everything I could about the brain.  No one gave me any help with trying to live with my poor physical health and no one even knew about the bizarre mental balance I had to learn to control.  Life today is very much as it was back then.  I just recently had another incident of what I had referred to as 'sleepwalking' and psychiatrists ignored the doctor I had a year in NY because he died in May of this year.  Again I slipped between the cracks.  I had an excellent team of doctors in NY and Dr. Thomson was the center of the circle.  The last hospital almost killed me and I felt myself deteriorating to the point I am at presently.  The humor of this is lost on me, all I can do at this time is consider the irony.  I try to maintain my sense of humor and strength in my belief in God.  How can I expect these Psychiatrists to listen to me when I have my medical history so convoluted by half truths and 'mean well' misconceptions.

The truth of my life became so evident to me after I met and married Alec, my fabulous husband.  Of anyone in my life that I might have trusted, only he makes the attempt to support and comfort me at these times when I have the innocence of a child.  I do not have the ability to sense danger or appropriateness.  Due to my complete faith in God and the fact that I speak rapidly I appear mentally ill to psychiatrists.  When the truth of my past is learned they assume I am an emotional basket case and totally ignore the point of what I am trying to explain.  Now I understand that I am considered off on a tangent when I try to get someone to listen to me.  For me, the point remains inviolate; I am sleepless 3-5 days/nights then episodes of an alter ego appear.  All the medicine in the world could not possibly help if it is not needed for the illness in question.  In actuality, it is often very dangerous!  Having lost so much of my brain to lesions back in 1986 qualifies me to know EXACTLY how it feels.  Yet, much to my dismay; NO ONE cares.  Perhaps people suffering from similar situations can be helped by what I write, perhaps not?  I need to purge the bad taste and get on with my life.  The anger and resentment I am feeling right now, must be vanquished in a manner that is healthy and productive.  No good can come of feeling this unparalleled rage.

This account of the 'history' of my own personal struggle with brain damage and the final enlightenment just prior to Dr. Thomson's unexpected death this year, are the closest anyone should ever come to the horror I am now trying to accept as my past.  I can only hope that in recent years people have learned enough to thwart the tragedy that can occur due to irresponsible handling of such dangerous toxins.  For a long time I believed that the child Bette died in spirit during that awful time in my life; my mother actually did die less than a month after I was released in 1986.  I had also lost the vision in my right eye by July Fourth that year.  I was feeling the effects of prednisone therapy and a return of most of the vision the day before she died.  I had explained my 'thinking' at that time to no one else except her.  I barely understood it myself and came to know the feeling as simply "walking in the light of the Lord".  How disturbing this phrase is to people I can never fathom.  It is not necessarily a bad thing, it simply requires the internal mechanisms of the brain to fight the otherwise overpowering sensation.  I am fortunate that I do not suffer from the heart problems that often ensue.  I have no real physical ailments except for the total dismissal of my inclination to interpret the specifics of life.  I know the enlightenment I feel at such a time is belief that God has everything happen for a reason and joy that the Hell of my life is finally over since meeting Alec.  I do not have guile or expertise of any kind and find that I am totally dependent on my husband.  These episodes only happen when I am stressed out and unable to sleep for 3-5 days at a time.  During such an incident I find that I accept nothing as reality or truth.  I do not have the ability to determine the significance of anything.  As much as Temporal Lobe epilepsy allows for such a situation to exist, there is also the reality of my life.  At 8 I was inches away from my face being burnt with hot cooking oil when I prayed, "Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in Thee." I expected to die, but my sister returned unexpectedly from baby sitting and I squirmed away and hid.  That marked the beginning of the trust I placed in God.  He was always there for me and in truth, except for my husband, the entirety of my trust.  I have always had a very difficult time trusting and when I look back at the years of my life when people tried to get close to me, I shied away.  I was never really completely honest with anyone about what I thought or felt about everything.  So much of my life was lived only within the confines of my heart and mind that I stopped reacting to my own life long ago.  I was able to sense anger and hurt without question but the simplest emotion, love became obscured.  To me I was the center of the circle, surrounded by the triangle, then square, etc., adding sides to polygons until I required polyhedrons which are the three dimensional equivalents having space, volume and surface.  What a lonely life I led and shutting out my sister from my life turned around and bit me later.  How could she even hope to help with problems I took great pains to keep from her.  I never wanted her to know the truth of my life because the guilt an older sibling automatically feels when the youngest cannot or is not spared ordeals is overwhelming from what I have heard or read.  I was at that time in my life, what I considered a 'dissociative personality'.  I knew I was odd at best, but had no true understanding of the reality I perceived.  I have always held unique beliefs in life, I accept a Supreme Being in my life because I choose to do that.  I read all I could about psychiatric illness in hopes I could find words to explain my Mother's oddities when I was younger, as well as, the odd state of 'sleepwalking' which occurred from time to time in my life.  She loved me the most of her three children she had told me once, but I thought that all parents did that.  It seemed that she was always trying to make which ever child feel the most important, as we needed it.  For the most part she claimed that if we three were all drowning she would not be able to choose which of us to save.  However, she was always taking me with her when she was going to leave and I never had any idea of what was in her mind.  She had her own demons in her life, though sadly she taught fear to her children and a workaholic father figure only made me less trusting than ever.  I realized how withdrawn I was from the entirety of my life and yet, I was so thoroughly in touch with the rage and pain.  My belief has always been that FAMILY is the ever important commodity.  For the most part, I was quick witted and mocked most of life.  My sister always knew where I was at work when I brought her to the modular home company where I was employed when I was 18, because she heard insane laughing or screaming when she stopped and listened.  I was always able to express extreme anger or mock anything to the point of humor.  I never knew real happiness until I met Alec though.  Love was only something I thought I understood.  Fear was an emotion I ignored because God had everything happen for a reason and I felt you could always find a silver lining no matter how deep you had to dig.   My life truly began in 1996 when he came from Latvia.  We were married soon after despite all the nonsense helpful friends and relatives heaped upon me and it was the best decision I have ever made in my life.  He is my soul mate, my love and all the reason I live.  I knew in 1986 that I was supposed to die according to the experts, but to me, I knew no good would come from that and expected to just miss my then, boyfriend's birthday, June 19th.  When I was released from Spaulding Rehabilitation on June 23, 1986 everyone was surprised but ME!  I was late sending Bill a card and felt badly, funny I just accepted him as he is and did not feel the anger my sister did toward him for his absence from my life that year.  He had mentioned more than once that he was older and I would have to be the one to move to where he lived.  He knew I had no way to replace myself at the key shop working for my father and to me the thought was 'moot'.  When Alec and I began computer dating in 1995, I realized soon after that he was coming to America and he and I had discussed more than I ever had with anyone.  He was even more excellent than I thought as it turns out and so much of the past just pales in importance.  The rapes and my half-hearted attempt at 15 to kill myself had continued to plague me psychologically until Dr. Thomson, the psychiatrist who got no records until  weeks after my first appointment with him; really listened to what my husband and I had to say.  Alec knew first hand about the times I woke up in the bath tub and those times when I was 'sleepwalking'.  For years I was finding ways to keep current on my own life when this, 'incredible lightness of being' hit me.  Always it was after periods of no sleep for 3 or 4 days/nights and when I lived upstairs from my sister would just 'go missing' for a day or two until I could pull myself together.  Since the medication I was being given was to treat manic depression or chemical imbalance in the brain, it seemed it had little or no effect on these altered states of consciousness.  In the absence of any working medication most often I sought drinking until I fell asleep.  I knew sleep was the answer, but a sleeping disorder had begun at a very early age.  Sometimes holistic remedies like Valerian would work.  I had thought that the first psychiatrist I had seen had left notes about what I thought I had explained to him.  Such was not the case and when Dr.E who had taken over for him, stopped all my medication in 1996 because I moved out of state, the incredible incidents of 'sleepwalking' erupted dramatically.  Last year I saw him again when I was hiding in one of my 'cast of characters' identities, as I had learned to do very early in my life while hiding from impending doom.  I lost 3 days of my life fearing that my sister was the REAL truth and Alec was just a fantasy.  I just did not have the strength or courage to face my life if I had no Alec.  Somehow, Neurontin and the strange sense of a 'heart beat in my head' brought me around.  I live in fear that the amnesia will occur again as it often does when they treat me with Haldol or Depokote.  I lose all sense of myself.  Being me, for various reasons was never that easy for me.  We learned young not to display actual feelings for anything because then for certain it would be destroyed.  Sad that such beliefs will alter perception enough to curtail sincere hopes.  My sister told me a long time ago that it was so sad for her to know I had no dreams.  I had thought then that I was the realistic child of the three of us.  My brother had seemed pessimistic and she seemed too wistfully optimistic and in truth one needed both components for safety.  "Be prepared for the worst but expect the best", came to be the core of my being.  In 1986 when doctors prognosis for me was impending death, in my heart and soul I realized that they were partly correct.  The nature of who I was and had been was lost.  Bette to me had indeed died.  I left the hospital with the condition existing that I now realize had nothing to do with almost dying.  I believed that my perception had changed due to the complexity of survival, yet now I see that the subtle alterations to me were more than mildly affecting my judgment.  Never had I dealt with anger properly and now I just don't know how.  I am blinded by pain, the hurt feelings that result when someone ignores my existence or betrays me is overwhelming.  I confuse hate with indifference.  In my mind the perception is the same.  If someone hurts you then it stands to reason that they hate you or it is just pay back for something you have done.  In my mind, much as one attempts to justify a dream, I need to explain to myself that the terrible things people have done to me either personally or in a group, have meaning.  My mind cannot conceive of 'random acts of cruelty'.  For years I had believed that no one outside the family cared enough about me  to hurt me and after I was raped I suddenly was unsafe in my heart from everyone.  That period in my life was unsettling for me.  I have always cared too deeply and this sense of empathy is my undoing.  I accept unkind behavior more readily that I can perceive it.  I felt the hurt and anger being misdirected.  Often I ignore the people who cause the original hurt and yet, it erupts in my heart and mind and now my wonderful husband is left to watch the end results.  Never is that more painfully obvious than during a 'sleepwalking' incident.  I had thought it was a kindness to my sister to not explain the roots and depth of this peculiar behavior and was content with intermittently waking up in my bath tub.  After all these years, I still attempt to perceive kindness where none exists.  I don't accept the truth of man's inhumanity to man.  This seems so sad to me, that I would rather convince myself of one of the many childhood fantasies I had created so long ago.  Last year when I started thinking that Alec was not real and was a "dream come true"/fantasy man I had created to endure my life makes me understand how thoroughly removed from a concrete grasp on my life, I had fallen.  When I am sleepwalking I automatically try to prove the reality of the session.  I know in my mind that is not reality as it should be.  One example is rereading cards and letters from Alec or looking over at him when he is within physical proximity.  Neither 'safeguard' was available to me last year as he had returned to PA to finish our moving to NY.  I was lost in what I termed my own Bermuda Triangle.  The triangle consistently surrounds the circle and consisted of A, B, C.  A referred to my life with Alec, B represented me and C consisted of childhood and most primarily my sister.  I tried to keep the balance and yet the separateness of the two 'families'.  I was so confused when she was the face looking at me in the hospital, not ever my husband and then what I perceived must be the solution to my dilemma was that in fact, I must still be living  unmarried in MA and he was the most amazing fantasy I could ever have created for myself.  I thought I had invented him because I had no involvement.  This is what I fear the most.  Not retaining control of those memories and just accepting the amnesia.  Throughout the altered states of consciousness I always tried to document the lapses to recall what I said and did at the time.  My ability to retrace my steps made it possible to control the episodes of 'amnesia'  for years and in time when I became aware of when or how something had happened, I accepted this bizarre behavior in my unique world of the brain damaged.  I really did not fully understand.  This worked for awhile but around the time of my father's death in 1990, I had graphic changes occurring in my vision as well as physical alterations in my health and worried that I was going to lose the ability to focus my eyes as in 1986.  After 3 sleepless days/nights I began having the sense of non-reality invade every portion of my life.  I became very afraid of and for myself.  Up to shortly before that point, my sister and I had remained in the same town.  I could usually locate her to deal with the self documenting I needed and I usually had a male friend that I had trusted with the enormity of what I was experiencing.  I have been aware since the inception of my malady that the scope could reach beyond my identity to the web of confusion I was required to endure the first 15-20 years of my life.  It seemed to me for most of my life that I just annoyed people or drove them away because I was so driven to do my best and found ways for this intense demand for overachieving to continue.  The obsession I had for Russian Czar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra became the basis of my internal reality which I recognized then as flashback memory from when I needed to escape the confines of my life.  I had such a vivid imagination and found solace in my mental escape from reality.  How very blurred the steps between sanity and concept can become when you suffer the degree of damage I did.  Temporal Lobe epilepsy best describes the unique sense of confusion I lived with for so long, but the fear of seizure activity has reached a point where I can interpret the degree of the manifestation more accurately.  In 1998, I actually had the impression I was in someway connected to that Russian fantasy and said I was the Czarina Anastasia.  I remember thinking at the time I said that was my name, "Why did I say that?  That isn't really what I think.  How odd!"  Yet, for days prior I was pretending to be a Russian peasant girl to my sister, I was told.  The quality of life when you live with the duplicity I did, is intricate and exhausting.  It also puts such demands on you that you are constantly trying to PROVE everything and that makes you extremely resentful when people deny the sense of yourself or humor you and there is absolutely no basis of truth existing in your life.  This is the atrocious state of affairs I encountered in MA this month.  None of the medical staff treating me had any idea what Dr. Thomson had managed to glean from the appointments I had with him and the fact that I was making peace with the enormity of the breakthrough that started just before he died, it was difficult because I had to deal with it alone.  My husband knows the entire story and all the particulars, but for the most part he is ignored and my sister is in the position of discussing something she has no facts to convey.  She knows little of these 'episodes', none of the pertinent facts fall on ears that are listening and when I speak I am simply considered psychotic.  For me, that is where I am in my heart and mind.  I am floundering around while I am trying to reconnect to someone like Dr. Thomson who will give my husband assistance when I have sleep deprived episodes of complete innocence.  At times like that, life circumvents my sense of what is necessary.  When I first met Carol, my sister's roommate  in 1990, the question I asked her when she and my sister came to see me was, "Do you know who I am?"  The interpretations of that question confused me tremendously when they said my name.  What my mind needed to hear was, "yes or no".  It was to me, a simple question, did she know me or not.  The intention of the question was simply to establish in my mind whether or not we had previously met.  Then it appeared to me that people around me thought that I did not know who I was.  This prompted later disintegration of myself and my reality.  Had I explained the situation to anyone fully I felt they would become afraid both for me and of me.  However, prior to marrying Alec I thoroughly explained my 'sleepwalking'.  He has taught me more about it as my firsthand witness and that is why Dr. Thomson valued his ability to act as a spy for him and safety for me.  He explained the hesitancy of TLE patients to discuss their symptoms and in view of my life history it had a marked effect.  I was not able to judge the stress in my life because now I am with Alec and I am happier than I ever imagined was possible.  Neurontin, 900 mg, controlled the spiking in my last EEG and both my NY neurologist and Dr. Thomson planned to keep in touch unless I required further neurological care when I could again contact him.  Shortly after Dr. Thomson's death, I relived the episode in 1998 when I slept walked in PA.  I had memories of the event in detail.  Suddenly my life appeared as a very bad movie which I could not turn off.  With the stress of moving and relocating as well as massive neurological variations, I was unable to sleep and after 3 days I knew I had to get somewhere safe and I went to the hospital down the street from where we lived and they treated me as though I was psychotic.   Yes, until I slept I was not myself, but the truth of physical changes in my health disturbed me.  I often still require simplistic terminology or ask foolish questions to ascertain my level of competency until I can equate the drastic transgressions occurring mentally and reassert.  The problem for me has always been my ability to cloud the issue so I won't require dealing with it directly when it concerns too much emotion.  I can remain able to deal with the BOTTOM LINE.  This is advantageous during a crisis, but removes a degree of conceptualizing from your repertoire psychologically.

The longest span of time when I thought I was in bed sleeping, but in actuality I was walking around and behaving bizarrely was almost three weeks.  In my mind I was simply writing a book.  I lived through the experiences quite vividly and I had no idea that I was not sleeping.  In this dreamlike state the realization of life is totally absent to me.  This is not to be confused with the odd sensation of not being in touch with your body, however.  I can usually deal with the misinformation of my ideology, but in conjunction with the absence of true bodily sensations it makes the sense of non-reality overpowering.  Trying to control the incorrect significance of events is the most difficult for me personally.  Since 1986, the beginning of my life after temporal lobe brain damage; I was also facing the unique concepts of having lesions throughout the entire brain mass including my brain stem.  When I felt the recovery of various brain functions and thought that my neurologist cared about what I was saying, I felt I could endure the strange aspects of physical reversal of the damage.  In light of my stay in Boston, now I see that he simply thought I was psychotic and ignored the concerns.  At this point the truth of my situation hits me harder than I would ever have believed.  I cannot get help from either neurologists or psychiatrists for what is occurring in my life.  As back in 1986, I must read all the information I can about the brain and perceive the truth of my life.

When doctors think I have a bi-polar disorder it strikes me as so odd because I have read that mania which is present during an episode is plausible though not actual.  In my case that is not what happens.  Simplicity reigns and I am confused about the simple need for clothing.  Details of normal life is beyond my comprehension.  My ideology seems bizarre to me.  Alec is so fabulous about everything too.  He protects me from myself.  He worries about leaving me alone though.  I knew prior to Dr. Thomson's death that he had someone to speak with about my condition.  Now he does not.  

Fortunately there is a definite link that a lack of sleeping prompts 'sleepwalking' and makes me ripe for these episodes to take control of my mind.  Normally, I can perceive the oddity that TLE represents a facade.  When my sleep pattern is affected I suddenly lose that ability.  I doubt anyone will ever do as well treating me, as Doctor Thomson and I fear I will never trust another Doctor, but the condition persists and I don't feel that I have a choice, except getting medical staff here in WV.  The more Neurontin I take the worse the condition, this I proved to myself this spring.

Recently, I had a bout with not sleeping and took a few doses of Neurontin, I went to the hospital because I told Alec that I required hospitalization, however I signed myself out in 4 days when I realized there was very little reason for me to be afraid of or for myself and they were not listening to anything I told them because to them I was psychotic.  I have trouble sleeping and some problems I did not settle through the years of my past and they were haunting me due to a lack of closure. I realize now that I usually never have any closure in my life and that is probably why I fear losing Alec so often; the old fear of my life waxing and waning so quickly scares me.  In truth I suspect that the cerebellum is becoming finely tuned once again and realizing that the sleepwalking phase is merely moments between sleep and wakefulness.  This  following passage is an excerpt from a letter I recently wrote to a friend about this last experience

...and I am at the point that I think I am finally understanding what is happening.  I read your cerebellum verifies the correctness of your brain function and I am convinced that this is one final step towards getting full recovery of function. My sense of smell keeps getting more keen and I can isolate that time between sleep and full wakefulness as the 'episodes' that disturb me and I am less worried about the psychiatric ramifications of TLE and now I am hoping to dedicate my time to getting my health back...

I am getting more organized in my thinking and that LOOP I was feeling since the death of Dr. Thomson has changed from a running commentary to two separate identities locked within the same mind.  It is becoming clearer to me that I was continuing to check the correctness of my mind, though I had no intention of  doing such a thing.  

While Dr. Thomson was still alive the sense of being I felt seemed to be over heard by a separate voice or awareness that reported every move or thought and gesture to the general sense of being; as though existing merely as a shadow figure reporting on daily events.  I felt as though I possessed my own personal narrative, constantly and it was quite annoying.  I did not actually hear voices, it was merely the feeling one gets when their boss is looking over their shoulder to check and see if you are following instructions, but none-the-less, it was aggravating.  In August 1999, I  felt as though my entire sense of self occurred outside my body or the alter ego watched my every move.  Along with the ethereal coaching of TLE, it was quite disconcerting.  I no longer had a sense of self and my entire existence was wrapped around my husband.  In my mind I lived only as his wife and before or after that state was abhorrent. My thoughts were not even safe from this invasion of privacy.  This feeling only began last August when the doses of medication far exceeded by ability to cope as one entity.  I felt a split similar to one in my youth when I was afraid for my life or my being.  I thought for many years that I was a text book case of response to abuse and I never thought beyond that, as there was simply never the time.  Now I realize the error of my ways and I see that it was not beneficial to adapt so quickly and easily.  The life I lived was light-years away from the world inside my head or the person I truly was, but the idea to trust NO ONE was eminent in my thinking.  Then I was brutally raped at 15 and I found it was less terrifying to me to simply pretend it did not happen.  In truth, it never went away and I sometimes doubt that it ever will, but the realization of bringing the event to a sense of closure in my own mind, makes me believe I will overcome its' grasping claws and truly allow myself to let go of the memory.  I wonder if the sadness will ever go away, though.  I am no longer angry and resentful that the child in me never had the time to live a regular life and grow-up unscathed, I am filled with the understanding that in fact, that is the pristine state I am in when I am half awake and half asleep.  That is my identity during an episode of somnambulism.  There is no good or bad in that world, merely right and terrible wrong.  There is living in the light of God's love and suffering eternal damnation.  That child never really understood that she was not responsible for the horror of her life and the sadness around her.  She felt guilt, shame and degradation. She is seldom allowed to see the light of day, except with Alec and in reality is the quintessential  person I would like to be, the person that I had long felt died in her youth.  The person that no man alive understood, yet each man I fell in love with, got to meet.  That child, that innocence, that portion of my being was fearful when she was allowed out of the closet as though there was some awful truth I might tell to the wrong person.  That is the fear, the constant repetition of three is the secret code I have repeated continuously since childhood and not realized or understood.  I kept everything as simple as ABC.  Always, then geometrically, finally in as much compartmentalizing as it took.  I had a series of code words that told the entire desperation I felt and recently I wrote down all the words as they occurred to me during a session where this pristine feeling occurred; the words shocked me, especially the final line- -"Don't let it go on- -Don't help it go on- -Don't leave me alone!"  It is so sad that I did not admit to myself for so many years what the truth was, how could anyone else realize, and if they did, how could they help? 

Memories for me are happy now with Alec and I felt that there was no reason to examine those from my past, but a social worker named Bill who reminded me so much of the Bill I once loved so many years ago, made me start to think about closure.  Yes closure, when did I ever have that in my life?  He answered questions for me that were difficult to ask and yet the answers seemed self evident.  A true V8 moment as I call it, like the commercial, palm to forehead thinking, "Wow, I could have had a V8!"

The fact that I continue to verify the correctness of my assessment of life reflects the person that I  am.  Life for me now is riddled with mistakes and saying or writing the exact reflection of what I am feeling is often convoluted.  The fact that appearances remain deceptive and that life itself lends credence to the philosophy that shades of gray do exist between the black and white which represents two opposite schools of thought; makes up the mystery of life.  When my mind can stop seeking to interpret and understand every aspect of life then I will resist the urge to explain every detail to myself, I can revert to the person who can make a decision without second guessing the outcome.  I will feel like an active participant of life rather than a witness mentally recording details for posterity.  Accountability, being responsible and stoic was the strength of my life prior to brain damage.  Doing the right thing is important to me and always will be.  When I am having an episode there is a wonderful feeling of freedom because there is a lack of realization that I am responsible for the outcome.  I suddenly find myself in a world where I am blameless, someone else is in control.  There is total acceptance.  I never understood what that feeling was like until I met and married Alec.  That sentiment often blurs the line between reality and fantasy. Always in my life I could revert back to the world of pretend where I could find love and understanding which was not part of my actual life.  I felt that if I were to let anyone know that I felt life was all about choices and acceptance that they would find me cold and calculating, perhaps even unfeeling.  So much of my life took place in my mind.  I lived vicariously through my own life.  I watched and recorded life as it happened to me, but feelings were always difficult.  Emotionally I was a child and felt things vividly.  The intensity of my reactions never found a home.  They remain misplaced.  That is the morbid little secret that my heart and my head never agree about.  TLE  limits my sense of self and with incongruity of raw emotion, the combination is volatile.  Add to that the fact that doctors throw too much medication at the problem and the complete loss of who I am becomes the result.  The aftermath leaves me trying to explain and justify myself.  The confusion I experience leaves me wondering about the interpretation of every aspect of life.  I find that I doubt the details of everything that exists.  I trust no one but Alec, I take comfort only when I do not openly show what I am thinking.  Somehow in the back of my mind I also believe that someone cares about the significance of what is happening to me.  I realize only when the episode is over that the only people who actually care, are Alec and I.  When I am physically feeling the changes in homeostasis and autonomic functions I look to doctors for help and there simply is no help.  The years since 1986 have brought many changes regarding my brain damage.  It would be extremely unrealistic of me not to expect that.  In 1999, I was worried and concerned at the degree of physical and mental variations I was experiencing and now when I notice these same alterations I find that I am hopeful that I will again feel as healthy as I did prior to Boston.  I was in less pain and felt more able to walk.  It was also easier for me to remember things.  I felt very good.

The main concern I feel at this point in time is that I do not sleep naturally.  Since 1986 I have had the problem that I seldom feel drowsy or sleepy when it is bedtime.  During the past few months however, once I get to sleep, I sleep several hours and wake, but return to the land of dreams and often feel sluggish and sleepy for quite some time.  The interval between wakeful and sleeping states resembles those episodes of sleepwalking I have experienced in the past.  What I see and hear during that time is filtered differently and I do not accept it as reality.  That sense of conspiracy and deception rings erroneous when fully awake.  When I am fully awake I question the veracity of what I had thought.  Somehow it is all about the 'spin' you put on something.  Generally speaking, how one interprets everything depending on the presentation.  It is amazing that identical situations can be understood differently by the same person in light of some awareness that had been lacking.  Rudeness or inattention can be accepted when the person is under extreme stress, rather than feeling hurt or angry.  Benefit of a doubt can alter the facts to fit the case scenario.  That is all that actually happens.  Perspective and presentation vary, then the interpretation alters.   Since TLE, for me that sense of interpretation gets altered and confuses my sense of reality.  What occurs in my thoughts or dreams does not alter life, but it does alter the way I look at a certain event.  Just before or after I am sleeping I have that same sense of non-reality. 

I have come to realize that during my episodes of confusion when I am not certain from whom I am hiding or exactly who I fear I might be in trouble with; that in fact the source of the consternation is myself.  That part of myself that is in control of verifying the correctness of my work, also verifies correctness PERIOD! The highest function of the mind somehow split off from me.  It became that mysterious someone I feared and tried to fool. I expected the best from myself and always strove to be right.  The controlling portion of my mind loss touch with my humanity.  I felt inadequate and inferior.  I never wanted the higher authority to know that I had feet of clay.  I somehow felt ashamed that I was only human.  I expected that to be a disappointment.  Now that I realize the disproportionate chasm that exists between the adult and child in my mind and heart so many truths become self-evident.  The spirit and flesh are actually one and there must be acceptance of myself to insure realizing who I am.  I am the adult that survived the life I led.  Of course the person I was and the one I became are light years apart.  I was not able to remain that child and I must accept who I am with all the complexity and disinformation that is now part of my life.  If I had not lived the life I had then I would not be the person I am now.  Be it good or bad, the past shapes our future. 

At this time I feel that I am reuniting the two fragments of my mind and starting to understand the total complexity of my brain.  Tendency toward being dissociative growing up, forcing myself to separate emotion from the core of my being was a huge mistake.  I did not understand the damage I was doing.  I did not see that the level of emotion would be exaggerated and in the future I would not be fully competent to control the intensity of what I felt.  If you integrate your emotions with your life they tend to be less furtive and less overwhelming.  One becomes complete and natural.  Such was not my case.

Recently I have been having the odd sense of looking without comprehending and yet the memories I have seem far more realistic.  Last week I went to write out a check and it felt confusing, yet during the same day I had memories of the past that felt so vivid that they had seemed more current than they actually were.  Perception feels less clouded and more precise.  My body temperature does seem inconsistent though.  I have bouts of chills.  In 1999 I felt similar fluctuations in temperature and breathing varied between having no problems and feeling attacks of asthma more severely than usual. It will be interesting to see if the body temperature variations I am feeling also lasts for two to three months this time.   Another similarity to 1999, is my gag reflex.  Some days are more pronounced than others but again, it has returned more graphically.

Pain seems less acute for the most part and somewhat under control again.  There are times when the arthritis does seem very severe but for the most part it is a huge improvement since leaving Boston last August.  The outstanding miracle is the one which occurred last week.  I put myself into the hospital because the pain in my head was severe and unfamiliar to the normal headaches I have gotten since 1986.  I feared paralysis might return and that seemed unfair to Alec so I went to Emergency at City Hospital.  The great difficulty which occurs when I have not been sleeping was also quite evident at the time which detracted from my actual reason for being there.  I have the oddest sense of secrecy during these spells and I have no idea exactly who it is I am trying to deceive by not conveying the exact nature of my illness.  The complexity confuses me but I trust no one, not even Alec.  He is one of those PERFECT people I have grown to fear.  They expect me to know what they want from me, but in truth I do not.  The confusion of to whom to convey what; becomes a huge guessing game.  Needless-to-say, I did not explain the true nature of my hospitalization, merely awaited a sign from God.  This I received tenfold!  While seated in the lounge I had the impression that someone had turned on the hall light.  The sudden impact prompted me to return to my room and commune with Our Lord.  Yes, for the first time since 1986 I was able to read with my left eye.  What an amazing miracle just prior to the yuletide.  Of course such a miracle clouds my vision when I have not slept and everything takes on a religious transformation, everything has an easy explanation.  The final outcome never yields, nor does it vary.  God IS alive, Magic IS afoot, just as Buffy Ste. Marie sang so many years ago when she recorded that song.  The circle of my thoughts cannot be approached and I burst into constant choruses of familiar songs in which I notice the connection or irony.  My thoughts are in music, poetry and art for the most part; but often geometry and a complex algebra I had quite forgotten normally.  This will never vary on the meds I receive now as those 'discordant' times merely increase and though at first I did manage steady sleep on a new medication, this past week it has been somewhat disappointing.  I find myself exhausted, confused and yet rather chatty waiting to hear a betrayal of my own bizarre thought.  Still I await my own true confessor; though I personally share most every thought I have with my sweet and marvelous husband.  Prior to my marriage my life was completely without purpose or merit.  Now I see through eyes that once were blind and with a happy heart.  Still, I caution Alec to trust NO ONE.  What it is I fear, perhaps my sister holds the key, or even my brother; yet, the truly sad part of it all is that they do not know ME, the person that I truly am, as completely as one would expect.  But, alas, that might be for the best, the burden of my illness is a very heavy one with no end in sight, except that I am starting to feel at peace with myself and able to divide my mind into the 'healthy' half and the "birdbrain with a screw lose"!  Alec is always so warm and supportive and together we will overcome whatever barrier awaits my final conflict.  Now I am tired and struggling to just swim and lose the weight I again gained from all this stupid medicine, but I will never again agree to stop taking Synthroid for my thyroid.  What ever else God has in mind for me and mine, remains a mystery, but one we share with the warmest love and affection ever known to me.