#repeat ad infinitum this shit has been going on since i was 12

[starnova-between-two-worlds]

Brain things

Ironically, I didn’t even realize that my previous reblog was about how brains that have experienced trauma have physical differences to regular brains. But that’s what this post is gonna be about. Brains and the emotional things that end up fucking them up physically. 

Because I found out the nature and cause of my brain damage and it isn’t pretty. I also had no idea this shit could happen to a brain. 

So, it turns out that yes, my brain has indeed been damaged and that yes, this did happen during the years in which it was trying to develop. I spent years muddling over how the fuck I could have ended up with brain damage when, as far as I know, I never had any severe head injuries, no blunt trauma to the head (well minus the time I cut it open and had to get stitches when I was like 3), never been exposed to chemical/toxic fumes or anything like that, no fetal brain damage. Yet my symptoms were presenting as brain damage. Where the fuck did that come from?

Well, I found out where the fuck it came from. And it turns out, I even knew what was happening while it was happening. But all my pleas to fucking help me were ignored and my symptoms brushed aside as “You’re just trying to get out of something/you’re just trying to get something you want. It’s not gonna work.” I have a nasty feeling that even at the end of this post they’re still gonna be brushed off as such. 

There’s something called a psuedoseizure or a “psychogenic nonepileptic seizure,” which is seizure activity that occurs with no seizure disorder present. It’s not a true seizure (due to the lack of seizure disorder), but mimics the symptoms of one, including convulsions, “absence” and loss of attention, stiffening/seizing up of the body (your legs may forget how to be legs, you might pitch forward/fall backward, etc), etc. Since there’s no physical component to this type of “seizure,” it’s not going to show up on brain scans unless one is occurring right at the moment of the scan. Which explains why this shit did not show up on the EEG or MRI of the head that I had when I was a teenager. 

So what’s the cause of psuedoseizures? Psychological trauma. Basically, when exposed to ongoing trauma that just. Won’t. Stop. The brain ends up firing all these neurons all over the place, and becomes overloaded as it frantically tries to protect itself from all of the distress that it’s getting all at once. With no other option, it legit just “turns itself off and back on again” because at that point it just doesn’t know what the fuck to do anymore. And then the psuedoseizure happens.

I’d run out of fingers and toes if I tried to count exactly how many times throughout my childhood my body just froze up and I was caught just...zoning off into space. My dad would call it “mooning,” and say “Oh, she’s mooning again.” And during these moments, coherent thought is replaced with bullshit like a single line from a song repeated over and over again like a skipped record, or one single word on repeat (e.g. for an example, my brain would get “stuck” on, let’s say the chorus line of Default’s “Wasting My Time” and just go “not wasting my time...not wasting my time...not wasting my time...not wasting my time...” ad infinitum until it’s ready to be a brain again). There were times when I’d be just sitting in my room, or in school, or...wherever, and suddenly everything locked up, my eyes would fixate on...well, nothing, and I’d go catatonic. There were times when my whole body would sort of “lock” or “twitch.” 

Later on, when I got my guardians, they were there when it happened. They saw how after a particularly fucked-up situation I would drop everything I was holding in my hands, and they’d have to help me hold things again for the next few minutes. They’ve seen me pitch forward and have had to hold me on both sides when it happened. They’ve been caught in the fucking center of traumatic situations with me as they desperately tried to protect me or remove me and saw how I’d fall to the ground--I’d be sitting in a chair and then end up on the ground, with my guardians circled around me and holding me and me just...breaking down because I was scared and didn’t know what was happening to me. They’ve seen me start shaking and my entire body cease to work, how I’d be hyperventilating and they’d have to fly me over to the nearest chair or bed or, barring that, the fucking floor. They’ve had to help me walk because my legs would fly out from under me and lock up. They’ve held me while I convulsed in their arms...and cried, because they just didn’t know what to do but they knew something was horribly horribly wrong and they just wanted it to stop...but it wouldn’t. Nobody who could make it stop would. 

I knew something was horribly horribly wrong. I was terrified. I knew brains weren’t supposed to get stuck and I knew bodies weren’t supposed to lock up and forget how to do body things. I didn’t know what it WAS, or what was CAUSING it. I just knew that it was happening and it wasn’t supposed to be and somebody please just make it stop. I remember it happening and then, when I “turned on” again, frantically tugging at Yuna or Rikku or Cloud or whoever and going “Help me, help me...” and them just holding me by the shoulders, rocking me gently, telling me, “You’re okay, sweetie. It’s going to be okay.” Then carrying me over to the bed--and being at a total loss for what to do, every single time it happened again and again and again. 

I’d gone to the school about it because it happened a LOT when I was in school--in high school it got to the point where it’d happen constantly, because high school was an extremely hellish and traumatic place for me to be in general. I went to the school nurse ALL the time, the counselors, the teachers...pretty much everybody in the school who I could talk to. I’d tell them that it was so bad in there that it was making my body freeze up and I was experiencing actual physical pain, that my vision blurred and that my brain stopped being able to think thoughts, that I couldn’t hold things anymore...what could they do? They had no idea why the fuck those things were happening either and my parents were called countless times...and then they were told “She’s doing this because she doesn’t want to be in school. Just don’t worry about it.” 

I went to doctors about it. My dad’s wife overrode the doctors and told them it was just “something I did when I didn’t like something” or “she’s just trying to get her way. She starts up on this stuff when things don’t go the way she wants them to.” In actuality, they happened when she was going at me, when I was being abused, when I was being bullied or exposed to overstimulation at school (you think middle/high schoolers give a crap? Hell, they found it funny and would keep on prodding me just to see that shit happen again). I had the one brain scan when I was 12 (EEG) and one when I was 15 (MRI) and when nothing showed up on either one of those, it was as if my dad’s wife had her “suspicions” confirmed about how I was making the whole thing up “to get something out of people.” When I was little I went to my dad’s wife about it because she was the only one I had to go to about it--no guardians back then. She told me “That doesn’t happen to you.” I told her it does, it really does. “No it doesn’t, stop it. There’s nothing wrong with you.” I told her it does happen and it hurts when it does. “Then it’s something YOU’RE doing to make it happen. YOU tell yourself to make it stop happening when it does. It’s all YOU.” 

(For the record, what the fuck benefit would a 9-to-16-year-old girl get from faking seizure activity???) 

It happened a lot when she was going at me or after she had gone at me. It happened a lot when I was in school (like I said, there became a point in high school where it happened ALL THE TIME). It happened a lot when I was being bullied or abused. Now I know why. But back then how the fuck was I supposed to know, especially when something was clearly happening to me and my soulbonds saw it happen, and yet I continued to be told I was either making it up or causing it to happen. 

And that was my developmental years, ladies and gentlemen. That shit was going on in my brain throughout every single of the years my brain was just trying to grow and form into a brain. 

So my brain wasn’t able to fully grow and form into a brain.

Every single one of those fucking psuedoseizures was causing actual, real damage. Because a brain isn’t supposed to just “turn itself off and then on again” and a brain also isn’t supposed to be constantly exposed to the type of stimulus that CAUSES it to have to turn itself off and then on again. I knew that. A kid knows when something horribly wrong is happening to their body. They know that they’re not supposed to be locking up and seizing every day, ESPECIALLY knowing that they don’t have epilepsy or some other seizure disorder that would explain that away. 

But no. “You’re just trying to get something out of us.” “It’s all YOU. If you don’t want it to happen anymore, YOU make it not happen.” 

So my brain destroyed itself because that bitch refused to take fucking responsibility for the fact that her own actions and the trauma that she was inflicting on me (either directly or by-proxy, by just letting school bullies and overstimulating maladaptive environments let loose on me with reckless abandon and then overriding any and all attempts to mitigate it) were actually causing it to destroy itself.

Of course, if she let the school intervene and I was taken to the doctors for more than just a 30-minute brain scan (I wonder what a brain scan would show NOW that the damage has been done?) then I would’ve found all this out way back then. 

But that doesn’t do anything now does it? Now when I use “My brain got stuck” as an explanation for why I’m, well...the way I am, I can say it knowing that I know exactly how, why, and when it “got stuck.” 

I wonder what a brain scan would show now that my brain is done trying to grow. I’m going to see if I can get to a neurologist. 

...And now when I think about SO MANY of the things that I did, or the things that happened, I can at least forgive myself because now I know that I literally was not, and am not, playing with a full deck. Of course my brain doesn’t do shit that normal brains do, or even that other autistic brains do. Because normal, autistic, or otherwise brains did not spend their entire developmental years fucking seizing because they were being abused so damned badly that they had no choice but to shut off.

Great.

Like I said, I’m going to see if I can get to a neurologist now that I know this shit was going on. 

[tornadorojo5]

What Happens When you Die?

What happens when you finally die, or in other words, what happens when you finally kick the bucket? so to speak. Despite our mostly science-grounded views on death theses days, it seems that many of us still believe in life after death. In 2014, UK citizens were polled by the Telegraph, and just under 60% of the respondents said that some part of us lives on. Now, in the USA, which still a very christian nation, Pew research in 2015 asked people what happened after you die. The survey found that 72% of Americans believe that you go to heaven, which was described as "where people who had lived good lives are eternally rewarded." 58% of the American adults replied that they believed in hell, which in turn was described as a place "where people who had lived bad lives and have died without being sorry are eternally punished."

It seems that alot of people do believe that after death, we might be ensconced in some cloud-strewn paradise, or conversely, if we failed to adhered to the ethics prescribed to us by our chosen religion, we might face eternal hellfire and the prospect of groveling to a bearded-red man who hardly ever puts down his pitchfork. But let's start with some empirical realism and what actually happens to the body when we die.

Physicians know that you are dead because your heart stops beating and there is no longer any signs of electrical activity in your brain. Brain death equals dead, although machines can keep you going a little bit longer. You might also get what is called a "cardiac death" which means that your heart stops beating and therefore, blood does not flow through your budy anymore. The strange and even wonderful thing is, people who had suffer cardiac death but had been brought back to life said that they were aware of what was going on around them. Others have talked about walking towards a light in such a near death experience. 

So you can be brought back to life from what we call "clinical death", but you only have a grace period of about 4 to 6 minutes. But let's assume that you get to the light and pass through; that is what we call "biological death" this means...game over, the final whistle, dead as a dodo. And this is where it get kind of undignified, but what is it to you, you're dead now, remember?, so when you are no longer with us, your muscles relax, that means your sphincter too, meaning that big ass burito you had for lunch will splill out of you, the gas you have inside of you may also leak out and cause a stink. The same goes for the pee you've got in your bladder, so dying not surprisingly is a very messy affair.

You want to know some crazy shit?, men may even ejaculate, and women may give birth after you have died in you were pregnant, which is something called "coffin birth". It doesn't happen oftend though, since instead of pushing, it's the gases in the abdomen that squeeze the newborn into the world.

As the body gets rid of what is trapped inside, noises might be emitted from your mouth as air escapes. Nurses and people working close to dead bodies have regularly reported hearing very alive-sounding moans and groans coming from the dead bodies. You might twitch, but it doesn't mean there is life in you, these are just muscle contractions.

You could also soon get an erection if you die lying on your stomach and the blood flowed down to your pecker. All your blood will pool to a certain area of your body. This is called "Livor Mortis" and it is the reason parts of your body will have that dark purple color you have seen on TV. So this are the lovely things that can happen quite shortly after you go.

With no blood flowing through your body, it will begin to cool down, this is called "Algor Mortis", or simply "death chill". It will keep cooling until it is the same temperature as your surroundings and you will become stiff within about 2 to 6 hours, and this we call "Rigor Mortis". This is because calcium is getting into your muscle cells, cell break down because there is no blood flow and this leads to bacteria growth, and that is why you start to decomopose.

You might look like your nails or hair have grown, but that isn't so, what is happening is that your skin is receding, giving the wrong impression of growth. The skin will loosen too, and blisters will appear on the body.

The following stage is putrefacation, when the bacteria and microorganisms start feasting on you. You will soon start to stink as bad as anything you could have imagined while you were alive...really it is unholy.

Soon, everything that was soft becomes liquefied, with things like bones, cartilages and hair remain strong, you are already on your way to decomposing by the time you are being put into the ground, but if embalmed and buried, decomposition could be a slow process. If you are left above ground, you'd be a liquefied mess within about a month, feasted on by insects, maggots, plants and animals. Underground, some experts say that it could take 8 to 12 years before you are reduce to your skeleton, and after 50 years, you will come back to the periodic table.

While some people report that their near-death experience was a scene to be hold, that's not always the case. One person writting on reddit said tha his experience was as follows:

I attempted suicide a few years ago by hanging myself with an extension cord. I had no pulse when the police arrived but nobody is really sure how long I was up there. I was resuscitated in the ambulance but was in a coma for a little under 2 weeks. Anyway, all I remember is a feeling similar to general anesthesia once I jumped off the table, but for the 5 seconds before it went black, I was in total panic and had a total change of heart from the confidence in my decision to end it seconds before. And then it was just... nothing. Like a deep sleep. And when I finally awoke from the coma, it was like finally reaching the surface of pool after diving too deep. I was in the same panic that I was immediately after I jumped from my table. Like I just blinked instead of being knocked out for 2 weeks. So to answer your question, I don't remember anything at all. It was like being in a deep, dreamless sleep. Perhaps if I regained consciousness immediately after being resuscitated, I'd remember something more interesting, but yea "nothing" is about all I can offer.

Edit: My personal theory is that I didn't have a near death experience like others because I had cut off oxygen to my brain. When I die down the road, I hope I still have some brain activity right before I go. I think Those near death expirences are the brains way of helping someone relax and allow their bodies shut down peacefully, without a fight.

Irish empiricist philosopher George Berkely was so hellbent on knowing what happens after, or those moments fter clinical death, that he actually hanged himself  to the point of death, with a friend nearby ready to cut him down before he died. He believed that there was something between Heaven and Earth, perhaps what philosophers have called the ether. The story has become lore in the philisophical circles, but it's thought all Berkeley really discovered was that hanging hurts your neck.

Frederich Nietzsche talked about the concept of eternal recurrence, or eternal return, meaning all existances or energy in the universe has forever an will forever keep repeating itself  "ad infinitum." So you get to live the same life over and over again, forever. Another reason for you to want to live well.

Here we can make similarities to the buddhist belief of the "Wheel of Samsara," wherein all souls, lives, will begin in a cycle again after death, except not exact the same life. This is what we called reincarnation, which some people say is connected to what we sometimes called "deja vu." Buddhist believe that we can put an end to this vicious cycle if we can become truly enlightened, therefore achieving "Nirvana."

Or maybe we make our way to heaven after our body stops working, tipping our cap to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, hoping that he will not deny us entrace for stealing that candy bar when we went on a school trip to Niagara Falls. We will be taken into paradise, a place replete with excellent foods and gorgeous maidens that make your dead knees go weak? or will we simply seed the Earth, our souls nothing more than a worldly fancy that took our minds off our cosmic insignificance and the feeling of futility that we sometimes experience here on "terra-firma"

It doesn't matter what religion or creed best describes you or follow, all of us are slowly or fastly walking to the bitter end, its time to make a change, not only because you think that will buy you a ticket to "Nirvana" or "Heaven", but because in this limited time you wish to make a change, live better and happier, for you and for the ones you love.

Until next time my friend, 

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