tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33831345060198813942024-03-13T00:43:24.462-04:00Survivor JewelrySurvivor Jewelry is about embracing the struggles, the scars, and the love. Living in the light you fought for. No more shadows. Share your story. Show your scars. Tell someone they are loved (even if that someone is you). Survive. Share. Show. Tell. Breathe Brave. We all endure.
Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-39914729167626545312018-02-24T11:54:00.000-05:002018-02-24T11:55:28.597-05:00VI<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Eu13v4DYaY0/WpGS_fK4FKI/AAAAAAAABdY/qgKBb1X84mMHRTq8qIFosq33jgVOAMkqQCKgBGAs/s1600/Yearblur.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Eu13v4DYaY0/WpGS_fK4FKI/AAAAAAAABdY/qgKBb1X84mMHRTq8qIFosq33jgVOAMkqQCKgBGAs/s320/Yearblur.jpg.jpg" width="186" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Six years ago today, I had two brain surgeries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Six years of surviving ever since.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Surviving is beyond hard. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It can be loud and chaotic, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a deafening swirl sucking you in </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">like Dorothy traveling via tornado.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It can be silent and crippling</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a choke drowning sensation </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">like a scream muffled with violent intent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ironically, surviving often prevents</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">any real chance to move forward,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">because you find yourself</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">so tangled and trapped in the past.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You find you relive it,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">over and over,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">being crushed by the weight of the memory,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">second guessing the choices</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">you had to make merely to survive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Doubting yourself from deep within.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Surviving is forever ongoing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and is rarely pretty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It has an honest weight </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">which you alone have to carry,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and the task of dragging a mountain that large</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">takes its toll,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">inch by inch and day by day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One labored breath at a time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Six years has been harder to survive,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">then the brain surgeries themselves were.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some days the silence wins.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some days the loud overwhelms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some days you softly remember who you were,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and clumsily find who you are now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Try to remind yourself</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bravery is not always made true </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in the grand gestures</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">but often lives quietly in</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the smallest of inhales.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am trying to remember that today,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">one single breath at a time.</span><br />
<br />Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-71219431420596606962017-02-24T18:43:00.000-05:002017-02-24T18:47:13.298-05:00Five for Fighting<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Five years ago today I had brain surgery to save my life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It has been the worst five years of my entire life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have often been called brave, blessed and lucky.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But in all of my life before that day combined, I have never known such fear, pain, and horrible consequence as I have every single day of the last five years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have been told how loved, beautiful and valued I am.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But have never felt as lonely, ugly, or as worthless as I have through every single heartbeat of the last one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have heard overwhelming words of hope, support and promises.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But, I have felt the loss of every dream I dared to dream compounded by soul-shattering abandonment while being decimated by the suffocating weight and retribution of brutalizing poverty.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A decision I made five years ago, which I can't take back, which I can't erase the history of me it set in motion, and which, with ever-weakening resolve, I struggle to survive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I cling to every whisper of hope offered or merely implied, even as I drown more each day beneath the waves of waiting for help which never comes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I endure every treatment recommended, even when they are more debilitating. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I swallow every ounce of my dignity and my pride, even as the shame and humiliation choke me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I beg and borrow to move on to the next little pebble, even as the rock and the hard place crush me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I push through relentless pain daily, even though the pushes cause additional unrelenting, toll-provoked agony. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I get up every day, even when every fiber of my being literally begs me to stay down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Every day... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">for five years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Every day...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>plus, tomorrow.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Breathe Brave.</span><br />
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<br />Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-68595371949637936982017-01-05T17:49:00.001-05:002017-01-05T17:50:09.432-05:00Broken Hearted<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Everyone's heart breaks sometimes, at some point, in some way. It is part of life for everyone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Survivors of crisis, trauma and illness feel this more acutely than others but not because our hurt is more valid or hurts more than someone else's. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Instead, it's more intensely damaging, because we are already too damaged. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yMDRnuUXRsM/WG7MowqZ9fI/AAAAAAAABNI/AwtGR25bz3MYvBpGoh6L15vhB3FNkaUcACLcB/s1600/broken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yMDRnuUXRsM/WG7MowqZ9fI/AAAAAAAABNI/AwtGR25bz3MYvBpGoh6L15vhB3FNkaUcACLcB/s320/broken.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We are literally on our knees crawling, trying to pick up all the shattered and scattered pieces of ourselves. So, it's impossible not to be cut far worse by the sharp edges of a broken heart. Brutally ripping into a preexisting wound.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Struggling to survive takes away the resiliency to bounce back intact, when trying to process new pain. Suffering makes any new wound instantly deeper and heavily salted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A new bruise compounding on top of an old bruise, turning to dust already broken shards.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On top of this unbearable pain, we can feel guilt, shame, sadness, grief and loss, solely because we do not have the ability to be okay anymore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We can not explain it to others, because it is not their reality. It can sound selfish or petty, because it is not their reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Most people's view is from a place where the breaking happens from an intact whole. A whole self that suffers from the breaking, but still has room to recover and heal. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">However, survivors are already fighting to hold on to the remaining pieces of the whole. When another break comes, we find ourselves without the room to recover or heal. The room is already packed full of broken pieces, the wounds are already torn open, and the heart is already failing to beat strong enough.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Already broken hearts can continue to break, but the tragic truth for survivors is that with each break it becomes harder to fit the pieces back together. Some pieces become so destroyed there is no way to make them ever fit again, and some hearts become so frail they haven't the strength to even try again to rebuild. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some broken hearts can not recover.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sometimes there are not enough band-aids. Sometimes all we can hope for is to someday find enough pieces to attempt to build something else from scratch.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-85341774062053590632016-12-10T03:02:00.000-05:002016-12-10T03:11:09.796-05:00Always Something<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Life has a way of hitting you with things. Small or large, these hits catch you off guard, throw you off balance, and tip the scales against you. It's a normal part of life. Eventually to be shaken off, rebounded over, recovered from, and your footing regained.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">However, for people struggling through crisis, trauma, or illness, these normal sized hits can be very far from normal. When your life is already out of balance, and you're struggling to deal with everything off kilter, even the most minor of hits can be catastrophic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Think of how in normal circumstances, a cold or flu can affect your work week, routine, or scheduled plans. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now imagine your health already being bad, existing daily with a pain level that's barely bearable, and physical or emotional fatigue that's truly a minute to minute battle. In those circumstances, a minor cold or injury can literally break your already fragile condition. Something so small compounding into something so large it feels, or can actually be, unrecoverable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Think of how an unforeseen expense can throw off your budget or change your plans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now imagine finances so stretched by medical bills or a literal inability to earn more during to your crisis. Living moment to moment, paycheck to paycheck where even the smallest unforeseen expense can leave you unable to pay for necessities like medicine, food, or electricity. Suddenly what would seem like a minor hit to most, sets you back and buries you so deep you can't even contemplate how to get out of the hole you find yourself in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is hard for most people to comprehend how truly debilitating and life-altering these unbalancing hits can be. Most people just know the stagger from a hit as a normal part of life. But, the people struggling for their survival know how hard and far these hits can you knock down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When you're fighting for your life, your sanity, your health, your heart, and your peace of mind, just one more blow often has the ability to just kill the fight left in you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And, when your struggle to survive is long term, you have no reserves left to deflect and bounce back from the blows. You are literally, figuratively, emotionally, and physically tapped out.<br /><br />It is exhausting, stressful, frightening, and spiritually paralyzing. It also can actually be dangerous and life-threatening.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is no painless, quick or easy way through it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We just have to try to breathe brave, cling desperately to what little hope in us is left, and try the best we can to absorb the weight of our additional bruises. Try to hang on, even when you feel your grip weakening. </span><br />
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Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-69495004939871801752016-09-14T15:52:00.003-04:002016-09-14T15:52:49.164-04:00Million Dollars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.crowdrise.com/thebrainaneurysmfoundation-revlon2016/fundraiser/survivorjewelry" target="_blank">Please give.</a> Support matters and research saves lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">#BrainAneurysm #RevlonMillion #BreatheBrave</span></div>
<br />Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-92112300609676785462016-08-31T21:11:00.001-04:002016-08-31T21:15:47.825-04:00The Relativity of Crazy<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During extended recoveries from trauma, crisis and illness, survivors are often faced with the difficult, casual accusations of complaining, whining, exaggerating</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, and flat out lying about pain and symptoms. These accusations can affect the courses of treatments, altering them to only partially address the complaints while overlooking other aspects.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During the stress of this emotional and physical turmoil, it can be additionally debilitating to suppress the pain and contemplate the symptoms based on these accusations. Survivors can feel like they are going crazy, doubt their own feelings, and lose hope they will ever regain any semblance of their life before.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We look at the walls of the asylum pressing in and begin to believe we, not only belong there, but deserve it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today, during a routine appointment, while charting the need for an upcoming test, a doctor, new to me, took the time to really listen to the way I was describing my pain, look at the locations of my symptoms, and review my medical records including old x-rays. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After five years of pain and numbness in my hand and neck, this new doctor, in less than five minutes, had an eureka moment making a new diagnosis which not only made sense, but included all of my symptoms. This not only explained why I had pain, but detailed where I had pain. It revealed why earlier treatments hadn't worked or had only been partially helpful, and set a course for how new treatments will help me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just by listening and connecting the dots, in a way no single doctor had done in the last five years, he gave a solid diagnosis which offered the chance for my future to go from one of life-long pain, potentially to a life without the same level of suffering.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He didn't have new information. He hadn't run new tests. He wasn't looking at current scans or x-rays. He merely listened to me and really looked at my medical history.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the long run, I don't know if today will have been the turning point in my recovery. I only know I have a name for some of my pain today which I didn't have yesterday. I only know now that, on top of everything else, I have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, due to being born with elongated transverse processes which were in turn effected by muscular scar tissue from whiplash and exasperated nerve damage from brain surgery. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But, knowing has made a difference in my emotional well being. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am not going crazy. I have real pain. It is not made up or exaggerated. It is not me seeking attention. I am not whining. I am not a liar. It has a name and it has a course of treatment. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As survivors, we are the only ones who truly know what we are feeling. We are the only ones who know our pain. We are the only ones living with it and enduring. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>We have to believe in ourselves and listen to our bodies, even when others don't. </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have to keep trying to find the right help. We have to keep trying to make people listen and understand. We have to reach for new treatments, new medical professionals, new shoulders to lean on, and new hands to help us up when we are down.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are not crazy. We are surviving.</span></span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-7371813351261271462016-08-03T19:55:00.001-04:002016-08-03T19:55:05.681-04:00Surviving Freedom, Hatred & Donald Trump<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freedom of speech is an amazing thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Survivors, who have to come to terms with their illnesses, crisis and traumas, struggle everyday to have a voice. A voice that rises above the pain, the sadness, the fear, the guilt, and the shame. A voice that speaks for their value and lights the way of their healing. A voice that some days may merely manage the barest of whispers, while struggling not to drown in the depth of their own screams.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyone who has ever had to fight to be heard knows that Freedom of Speech is not free. It comes at a great cost. Many have died for it, both figuratively and literally. But, it is a cost worth paying, protecting and fighting for, even when it isn't pretty or kind or easy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sometimes the ugliest speech has paved the way for this freedom, solely because it has raged the loudest and offended the most. Larry Flynt fought for it, so did the Klu Klux Klan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Other times the silenced voices have spoken volumes shining a light on the cost of human rights and personal freedoms. Nelson Mandela did this from a prison cell, while Anne Frank did this from an attic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In this country, we have the hard-earned right to free speech and you don't have to be a billionaire to have a voice or speak your mind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">However, currently, here in the United States, there is a self-proclaimed billionaire speaking his mind:</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2amlSmOgqyU/V6FzqtEL__I/AAAAAAAABG0/w1ykdluznTEl7twQ7la-dS_dsHbNhvvLACLcB/s1600/Donald%2BTrump%2Bby%2BGage%2BSkidmore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America - Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46704909" border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2amlSmOgqyU/V6FzqtEL__I/AAAAAAAABG0/w1ykdluznTEl7twQ7la-dS_dsHbNhvvLACLcB/s320/Donald%2BTrump%2Bby%2BGage%2BSkidmore.jpg" title="Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"They're killers and rapists."</i> - regarding Mexicans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"Laziness is a trait in blacks."</i> - regarding African Americans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"I hate it, I'm a traditionalist."</i> - regarding homosexual relationships.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"Disgusting."</i> - regarding the opposing counsel in one of his trials who needed to take a break to breast-feed her 3-month old baby.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"You have to treat 'em like shit."</i> - regarding how to handle women.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Donald Trump said these things and so much more. You can quote him all day. You can quote him in context or out of it. And, it just takes a few minutes on the internet, on the news, or on a twitter feed to find some other quote to provoke. Words, not just from the current Presidential election race, but spanning back decades.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One quote is a mistake, two quotes is a judgement call, but three quotes, or in this particular case three-hundred quotes, is a pattern.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sadly, on June 12, 2016 an American walked into a night club in Orlando, Florida and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle. In a brutal act of hate and terrorism, he murdered 49 human beings and wounded another 53, many of whom have years of recovery ahead of them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Afterwards, Donald Trump did not call for gun-control or increasing access to mental health treatments or promoting tolerance through education, but instead, again called for a ban on Muslim immigrants, despite the fact that the killer was an American, born in the United States to parents who had legally immigrated here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Trump has a lot to say on immigrants, but has selective memory on his own linage. Donald Trump's grandfather, as a teenager, was an immigrant from Germany, who as an adult, actually tried to return to his homeland. But, Germany deported him back to the United States as a draft dodger, since he managed to avoid his mandatory military service in Germany during his years in the United States.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">No matter our politics or beliefs, it is time to stop the hypocrisy. Freedom of speech<i> is not</i> the right to loathe or voice outrage at acts of violence, whether organized or random, while routinely supporting hate or bigotry in lesser forms. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freedom of Speech<i> is not an act of hatred</i> to murder people because they are different from you or their belief system is different than yours. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freedom of Speech <i>is not</i> <i>an act of hatred</i> to kill because you believe your God is more important than someone else's God.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freedom of speech <i>is not an act of hatred</i> to belittle others because you believe you are of more worth then someone else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freedom of Speech <i>is not an act of hatred</i> to destroy other cultures because you value your culture more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freedom of Speech<i> is not</i> <i>an act of hatred </i>to spread bigotry and fear in an attempt to justify your cause.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freedom of Speech <i>is not an act of hatred</i> to victimize others in an attempt to empower yourself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Freedom of Speech <i>is not</i> <i>an act of hatred</i> to demoralize humanity in an attempt to ram your morals down someone else's throat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Sadly, Freedom of Speech does not protect any of us from hatred.</b></i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><i>But, it does allow us the right to speak out against it. Loudly and often.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On November 8, 2016, many Americans will walk into voting booths. There is a good chance, in a brutal act of democracy, some of them will vote for hate by casting their ballot for Donald Trump.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But, one of the most amazing things about Freedom of Speech is that we have the right not only to speak with our voices from our hearts, but also the freedom and the right to speak with our votes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>We are the roads to our own enlightenment.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a survivor, I truly know it's an act of freedom to speak up for our own survival and the survival of others. It isn't always easy. It comes at a great cost. But, we must speak up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am <i>not</i> telling you <i>who</i> to vote for, <i>what</i> to vote for, or <i>how</i> to vote for it, I am merely speaking up, like I have the freedom to do.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-87285944970192186362016-07-29T10:30:00.002-04:002016-07-29T10:36:36.000-04:00Wish I was there.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following brain surgery, months of recovery, and the death of my grandmother. my sisters and their families when on a vacation to Costa Rica. During a conversation, before they left, one of them casually mentioned that after the year we had all had they just needed a break. It had not been a long planned or thought out trip, it just kind of fell into place. They sent wonderful pictures during their getaway of laughter and fun. Lush jungles, gorgeous ruins, cool dips in the pool, and quiet moments reading books in an exotic locale. It was truly beautiful, and I wasn't invited.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong, after everything that had happened: the loss of all savings, the weight of the financial burden of medical care and living expenses during the recovery time off, the lack of any additional vacation time to take off from work, ongoing recovery, and the fact that a lingering side effect to my brain surgery was an aversion to heat where changes in temperature could literally make me physically ill, I truly was in no position to go with them on this much needed vacation... but I wasn't invited (even though no one needed a break more than I did).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately, survivors of illness, crisis and trauma, often don't have a lot of options for escape. Beyond the monetary, current health, and time off logistics, there is literally no way to take a vacation from our own bodies and emotional stress. We can't take a break from the inner turmoil. We can't walk away from our own pain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is difficult to watch others go on with their lives, have the luxery of such simple pleasures as "down time" and the ability to do something as simple as just take a vacation, when we are trapped in the struggle of our own lives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It can create feelings of isolation, longing, anger, jealousy, sadness, regret and even shame. There is self-loathing and hatred to feeling this stuck in our own particular crisis. It is impossible to explain or adequately express to others. It can feel utterly hopeless. And, these feeling have a way of compounding onto and compressing down on each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Work days can be literally oppressive. But, even our days off can be relentless. They involve collapsing into our own bubbles because we are beyond exhausted, or additional grueling, often painful doctors visits, or struggling to live up to the routine responsibilities of existing, when we are having enough trouble just surviving. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We don't get any real escapes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are no true vacations during recovery. And, recovery doesn't happen overnight. It can take weeks, months, even years and sometimes a lifetime, long after everyone else has moved on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And, a sad truth is that sometimes the longer a recovery takes the harder it can become to recover. The longer someone is down the harder it becomes to get up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In our own survival, we are not invited or blessed with the gift of escapes. We miss vacations, parties, get-togethers, date nights, and utter relaxation, in general. Literally and figuratively we miss out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But, we can't blame others for their specific blessings and we can't give up the search for our own healing. We need to be happy for each other, and fight for our own moments of happiness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Make room to inhale when you feel like screaming. Find beauty in darkness. Steal moments of light. Laugh when you need to cry. Cry when you need to exhale. Take a breather, it may be the only vacation you get. But, a second of grace is better than none at all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Don't waste time wishing you were there, embrace being thankful you are here.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-13253950000360754292016-07-16T11:35:00.003-04:002016-07-16T12:07:12.898-04:00Our Imitation Game<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Recently, I rewatched The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch, about scientist Alan Turing and his work during World War II to break the coding of the Nazis' Enigma machine. Although having read numerous books on the subject, watched a variety of films and television shows depicting the story, as well as a handful of documentaries on this topic, over the years, I realized I had never actually read Alan Turing's paper, <i>"Computing Machinery and Intelligence"</i>, in which his Imitation Game is presented amid the topic and debate of eventual digital computer technology and the advancement towards artificial intelligence. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It surprised me to realize this, as I tend to be someone who initially seeks out the source material well before adsorbing the material which it inspires. But, I rationalized that I had merely circumnavigated my way around this particular source information due to a personal aversion to math. However, I decided it was high time I at least attempted to read this Turing Test paper.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can honestly say only a handful of things I have ever read shocked, delighted, and inspired me to thought as much as <i>"Computing Machinery and Intelligence"</i> did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Years after helping break the Enigma codes, Alan Turing wrote this paper, at the height of his career, when he was thirty-eight years old.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And, far from being an inconceivable, convoluted scientific text, only someone with an advanced doctorate could comprehend, it is a concise, provoking, witty, open-minded, often humorous, philosophical and clinical debate, mixed with personal ideology, on what constitutes thought, humanity, intellect, consciousness, extrasensory perception, Man, God, and machines. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scientifically, the paper's ideas are still debated today, proving to have been both highly influential and widely-criticized. But, for me, beyond the science, there is a genuine and powerful humanity to Turing's thought process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Uncomplicated and simple in its presentation, the paper is frighteningly insightful in its forethought and computer advancement predictions, with an underlying depth in applying what are basic human beliefs and assumptions to the complexity of the idea of computers and the eventuality of artificial intelligence. It's revolutionary in its basic philosophy and rather mind-blowing to discover its relevance almost seventy-years later.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All one would have to do is pick up a paper or turn on a news channel these days to be struck by the increasing levels of violence, terrorism, intolerance, and hatred becoming commonplace in our world. Within that truth and current mindset, my thoughts have been drawn again and again to a particular passage in Turing's paper:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>" 'The consequences of machines thinking would be too dreadful. Let us hope and believe that they cannot do so.'</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b> </b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>This argument is seldom expressed quite so openly as in the form above. But it affects most of us who think about it at all. We like to believe that Man is in some subtle way superior to the rest of creation. It is best if he can be shown to be necessarily superior, for then there is no danger of him losing his commanding position. The popularity of the theological argument is clearly connected with this feeling. It is likely to be quite strong in intellectual people, since they value the power of thinking more highly than others, and are more inclined to base their belief in the superiority of Man on this power. </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>I do not think that this argument is sufficiently substantial to require refutation. Consolation would be more appropriate: perhaps this should be sought in the transmigration of souls." </b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Turing was plainly dismissing Man's idea of supremacy in the context of facing artificial intelligence, through his <i>"Head in the Sand"</i> argument. He also speaks in his paper about solipsism, the view that the self is all that can be known to exist. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But, the same theory applied to our current humanity's behavior is equally relevant. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>We are killing other people because we believe our rights to be more important than someone else's rights. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>We are bombing other people because we believe our God to be more valid than someone else's God. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>We are shooting other people because we believe our sexual orientation to be more normal than someone else's sexual orientation. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>We are electing and empowering fear-mongering people because we believe our fear to be more righteous then someone else's fear. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>We are raining war down on other people with our hate because we believe ourselves to be more important than someone else.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The basic premise of Turning's paper is the contemplation of the question, <i>"Can machines think?"</i> and justifying his arguments about how to better answer and test the underlying theory of that question. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But, maybe for us, in our current climate, the larger contemplation should extend to <i>"Has Man forgotten how to think?"</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Alan Turing wrote a paper about a digital world of intelligence that was only beginning to be imagined. He would die four years after its completion, before seeing the actual scope, of that computer intelligence, grow in leaps and bounds. But, he had the foresight to know this and concluded his theory with this simple statement:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><i>"We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done."</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Those words are profound in their simplicity and relevant beyond his theory's intent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As the survivors we all are and are attempting to continue to be, we need to stop fearing the danger of losing our commanding positions, overwhelmingly accept the rights of other people's positions, and individually learn to embrace that there is room for all of us. Room on this Earth for all of us to struggle, to share, to love, to contemplate, to theorize, and to believe without seeking to destroy another's belief.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We have take the time to stop and look. If we do make the conscience choice to see with better eyes, we all have the potential to see clearly that <i>there is plenty there</i> that needs to be done.</span><br />
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<br />Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-91268259903692616712016-03-09T21:02:00.002-05:002016-03-09T21:11:08.882-05:00Now Showing<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a Disney movie, if the main character is not already an orphan, there is a good chance they are going to lose a parent in the first few minutes of the film. A more dramatic movie will rely on a parent successfully fighting to save their child from impending danger. If the film is about a psycho killer and the main character has a dog, there is a good chance the pooch doesn't make it to the end credits. In action pictures, the supporting character black guy usually dies, and in horror movies, they tend to kill off the secondary slutty, white girls. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is a predictability to these formulas. Despite people's protests about the lack of originality and bias in their creation, every year a great many movies following these formats experience overwhelming success. Cliches are cliches for a reason.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Trauma, illness, and crisis follow no such formulas. The innocent get hurt, the healthy gets sick, and very bad things happen to very good people. Life is extremely different from films. The good guys do not always win and a fight well fought does not always turn out victorious.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Predictability goes right out the window. During these times, twists and turns, altered routes and unexpected outcomes become our new normal. There is no decent way to prepare and no way to know how or if it will end. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">However, these life-changing events have something in common with movies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They often leave us in the dark on the edge of our seat. The price of admission is much higher than we want to pay. And, we all desperately long for a happy ending. We are along for the emotional ride.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the end, we may not have chosen the journey and we may not control the outcome. But, we have the ability to give voice to our own scripts, pick our own soundtrack, interact with the characters who matter the most, and share our unique stories. We don't have to sit alone in the dark. We can turn the lights on.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-78258645537164978132016-02-24T10:47:00.002-05:002016-02-24T10:51:27.208-05:00Four<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Four years ago today, I had brain surgery for twin aneurysms intertwined around each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In these years since, I have born witness and fallen victim to the Four Horseman of My Personal Apocalypse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The White Horse, <i>the Horse of Conquest and Pestilence -</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Four years of illness which has spread out to affect every part of my life, from body to bank to soul. Spreading like a plague into every hidden and exposed niche of a life. Battering all parts od me simultaneously and compounding on itself leading to a overwhelming weight of issues at once.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Red Horse, <i>the Horse of War -</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fours years of wretching internal and external conflict. Of devastating emotional revolution. Violent division in circumstance and future. War of the flesh, war of the mind, and war against each setback and every obstacle. War against myself and those around me. Wounds without end amid unrelenting, endless waves of onslaught. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Black Horse, <i>the Horse of Famine -</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fours years of loss of health, loss of finances, loss of support systems, loss of control, and loss of hope. Losing the ability to love and accept love. Loss of being able to recognize love in the minutia of the greater whole. Losing sight of myself and losing dreams of what could be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>And the last Horse, The Pale Horse, <i>the final Horse of Death -</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fours years of hope, love, visions of the future, health, and healing slowly dying. The horse of loss, loneliness, and despair. The horse which takes tomorrows and the dreams that reside in them. The horse hardest to bounce back from. The horse hardest to share and hardest to survive alone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>It is hard to celebrate survival when brutally being stomped on by such a relentless herd. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is hard to share the losses with others, when the burden has been so great for so long. It is hard to put into words the depth of ongoing struggle in this journey. It is hard for there to be true understanding and to find the support I need. It is hard to need and keep asking.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is beyond difficult to stop crying and harder to realize the tears are so far from done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Four years ago I hoped for but couldn't truly imagine reaching this day. Today, I can not believe I dreamed of <i>this</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So much more I wanted to have done, so much more healed I wanted to be, so much more shared than I have gotten to share, and so much more whole than the pieces that are left of me. I wanted to be so much less alone instead of being more alone than ever. I wanted to give love and get love, not fight being so utterly hurt by and numb to it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I believed in a someday that is today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>But, what happens when that day arrives and nothing you believed in, waited for, and held close is there?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Four years ago, against all odds, I survived. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A year ago today, I started Survivor Jewelry to help myself and others surviving trauma, crisis, and illness. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And today, I find the only thing I can cling to is that somehow I manage still to breathe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Maybe that in itself is brave enough. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Maybe tomorrow, braver is only a few breaths away.</span><br />
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Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-8278466443283567772016-02-23T12:59:00.001-05:002016-02-23T12:59:02.725-05:00Help, Fire!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Police and crisis advisers often tell woman not to holler <i>"Help!"</i> when being attacked, since it doesn't always elicit the desired response. They coach instead to yell <i>"Fire!"</i>, since that brings people running to help.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Survivors in crisis often reach the point where they have screamed both <i>"Help!"</i> and <i>"Fire!"</i> so many times that not only does no one respond, many times the screams aren't even acknowledged at all or recognized as screams any longer. So many times that the Survivor may not even have the strength, will, or voice left to scream anymore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This occurs because trauma, pain, crisis, and healing often takes far longer than support can last. It can linger well after the emergency response teams have finished their jobs, packed up, and left the scene.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But even when whispered softly from darker corners, if we pay attention, we can see the signs of the enduring distress if we take the time to try. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It may live in a downcast look or a hesitant touch. It could hide in a subject deflection or an avoided conversation. It might harbor in a slowness to laugh or an insincere smile. It could appear in a change of appearance or lack of participation. It might lash in a quick emotion or inappropriate response. It could cascade in a single tear or quiet sigh. it might just come with the realization that the person you once knew is not who you see when you look at them anymore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes people have survived too much for too long that the ability to ask for help or seek understanding is no longer left in them, much less actually managing to find the breath enough to scream for it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you really love someone, if your desire to support is sincere, don't offer help or understanding, actually give it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Really think on that statement for a moment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It may seem very simple, but offers of help and understanding are easily given, however actually following through on them is infinitely harder on the offerer and much more important to the survivor then we could ever realize.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-35013343462640406862016-02-20T08:33:00.001-05:002016-02-20T09:03:12.854-05:00Ten Things You Never Knew About Brain Surgery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Brain Surgery is not a luxury item. You don't window shop for it or decide to purchase it as an impulse buy. (And, even if you want to later, the purchase can not be returned.)</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Brain Surgery is priced like a luxury item. The average cost is $157,000.00, but that is just for the surgery, surgery treatment, & initial hospital stay. </span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It does not include pre-op or post-op treatments, or medications, or any kind of ongoing or complication costs, or the every 18-month followup angiograms, or any rehabilitation or therapy costs, nor does it include the living expenses for the average 3 - 13 month recovery time. </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you include all that, the total costs can average well over a quarter million dollars.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That is almost $50,000 <u>more</u> than the price of this two bedroom luxury <a href="http://sunrisebaliproperty.com/property/villa-amazing-view-in-beraban-2/" target="_blank">dreamhome in Bali</a> with beach and mountain views. <i>(But a lot less fun or relaxing.)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>3. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just merely saying the words <i>"I had brain surgery,"</i> makes friends, family and complete strangers flinch like you bitch-slapped them, and instantly view you differently, even though they never underwent any type of brain surgery themselves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>4.</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Craniotomies often involve something doctors lovingly refer to as a <i>"Cookie" </i>being cut in your skull (due to the cookie size and shape of the hole). But cutting into the flesh to make the skull hole will initially leave a trench deep enough to fully place two fingers in once "the cookie is replaced". <i>Certainly something Cookie Monster never talked about on Sesame Street.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>5.</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Brain surgeries often involve skin flaps, which is a medical way of saying if they need to get at your brain in the front, they will peel the skin of your face down to gain access, but Neurosurgeons frown when you call them Leatherface or Hannibal Lecter, and everyone else looks nauseous when you tell them they peeled off your face. <i>Go figure.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>6. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After brain surgery, you can feel the screws and bolts under your skin with your fingertips for the rest of your life, which makes you interesting to pet at parties, like the Terminator in a toupee.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>7. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Brain surgery patients often hear a soft, continuous, audible clicking inside their heads during the first year of recovery. Although technically not an actual noise, the brain doesn't exactly know how to process the skull bone healing after suffering trauma so it processes it as a sound. The clicking stops when the bone completely heals, which is down right freaky after a year of annoying sound effects,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>8. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Despite the dramatic depictions in movies, after brain surgery doctors rarely bandage your head or wound. It must be allowed it to breathe to prevent dangerous infections. In fact, they request you severely limit any time in a hat or a hoodie, down to only a few minutes at a time. <i>Which makes it rather hard for people to look at you when your head is gashed and stapled like a fairly melodramatic horror movie.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>9. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Brain surgery can seriously affect your ability to sleep, so sometimes during your recovery you have to trick your brain into resting by zoning out while awake. It is often recommended to watch something on television you are utterly uninterested in to allow your brain to drift away during it, so it has a similar affect as a REM sleep cycle, <i>which is very strange when the credits roll hours later and you can't recall a single thing you just watched.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>10. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You get sent home with stronger pain medicine with almost any other surgery or injury. Brains don't feel pain, so most people go home with the same types of meds as someone who sustained a hairline fracture and got a couple of stitches. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Let that sink in... <b>I know, right?!?!</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Certainly not the kind of Top Ten you want to have to participate in. And, only the beginning of things you will get to know if you have to have brain surgery. First and foremost though, brain surgery sucks, but so does the alternative.</span><br />
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Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-33151343370620459292016-02-19T19:58:00.002-05:002016-02-19T19:58:10.093-05:00The Sorry Excuse<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trauma, crisis, and illness, compounded by the pain, fear, and grief they bring, can lead to a lot of apologies. These apologies can come from all sides for a variety of both valid and less than surefooted reasons. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Survivors, and the people who love and survive with them, apologize. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Back and forth, we apologize:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>for being a burden. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>for not being able to do more or be more. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>for the hurt we are causing</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>for the hurt we are witnessing. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>because we don't know what else to say.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>because there are no right words to say. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>because we can't be fixed.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>because we aren't able to fix someone else.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>to avoid truths.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>to end debate.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>to console each other.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>to ease guilt.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>as a way to connect.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>as a way to escape.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>as a way to believe again.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>as a way to remove doubt.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is part of both the genuine and the polite interactions of humanity. It is integral to how we communicate with sincerity or regret. It is vital to our sanity and respect. It is part of how we heal and grow together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone makes mistakes and during heightened emotional times of crisis even little errors can feel like life-altering events when so much is exposed and at stake. Apologies help. They allow safety and comfort.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We also forgive. It comes with the territory. All sides forgive. We forgive A LOT. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the things we forgive are easy while some are exceedingly not. It is part of loving someone. It is part of surviving together. It's a beautiful and complex thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, in crisis, often our choices are made for us and our hands are forced. Other times, we make our own choices and those choices have an genuine impact. Trauma is traumatic and when grappling with finding or providing hope, fighting through grief or guilt, and providing or seeking sanctuary from the fear, we can find ourselves promising more than we are actually willing to give. We can overreach in trying to lessen our own or another's pain. It can come from a deeply sincere place or a more shallow and casual one. It can be accidental or precisely planned. It can be meant to protect from or prevent more trauma.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We all make choices, but when life closes in too tightly and the dark makes hope fade, sometimes we apologize too much. When overwhelmed and desperate, we can sometimes forgive more as a desperate measure to stay connected then from a contented place of peace and understanding.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over time, trauma can lessen the power of an apology and taint the ability to forgive. There can be too many apologies which can lead to too little forgiveness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hope is beyond fragile during crisis while fear is often truly overbearing in its debilitation. So, we have to be careful with our promises to each other. We have to be sure of our choices before voicing them or acting on them. We have to understand the depth of each other's situations before offering to act on each other's behalf. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need to respect hope and be aware of hope's boundaries. We need to recognize when it is being struggled with or genuinely fading. We need to offer only the support we are capable of giving and being honest about our own limitations, even as we continue to grapple with them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trauma creates an environment for too many choices and too much sorry. Crisis is unforgiving in its very nature. But, it is no excuse for the opportunity of love or compassion missed. Our choices truly matter to each other and we need to be honest enough when we are making them so we do not add to the hurt. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is more than enough fear and hurt, that we truly need to be tender in our actions as to not inflict more pain in hearts already overwrought with far too much.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-76352551228094043742016-01-16T12:20:00.000-05:002016-01-16T12:20:01.755-05:00Dancing with Dominoes<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Life often is about cumulative events and chain reactions. The cause and effect that is the ebb and flow of all existence. It is natural and part of life for all living things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, for survivors, there is a unique Domino Effect in which it is all too easy for the pieces to fall with a devastating chain reaction which can wreck havoc like an emotional avalanche with debilitating physical effect. For when we are at our weakest and most vulnerable, we exist very tentatively, holding on by the merest of threads. This leaves us with a loss of ability to cope appropriately when the thread even threatens to unravel.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NcO-FIYKbnI/Vpp7sgN3iiI/AAAAAAAAA7k/jbPwfTiweTs/s1600/Domino%2BEffect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NcO-FIYKbnI/Vpp7sgN3iiI/AAAAAAAAA7k/jbPwfTiweTs/s320/Domino%2BEffect.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When we survive with pain, even a subtle change in our pain level can knock us down without the reserve strength to get up again. When we struggle with sobriety, even one additional trigger can blindside hurling us completely off the wagon. When we struggle to handle crisis, even a single added stress can strip us of the power to hold on. When we face illness, even the smallest setback can throw us utterly offtrack.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One domino slams into the next compiling on top of each other. The momentum can be relentless and beyond our control. The dominoes falling too quickly to rebound from burying us beneath an ever increasing weight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is hard to focus on one domino when all of them start to fall. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, it is important to remember the core physics of a chain reaction, for it only takes a single domino, being even slightly out of line, to stop the domino effect in its entirety. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do not stare into the vortex of your swirling avalanche paralyzed by the weight of the effect. Do not fight the cumulative reaction in its full strength.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Inhale. Focus on just one or even the tiniest corner of one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need to attempt to alter, cease, or change, if only the path of a single domino, to the smallest degree to stop the reaction of falling.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We may not always believe it, but we are the change which alters the outcome. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let go of the idea of perfection or total control, they are unrealistic and un-achievable. Remove the ideal of a future optimal result when the focus needs to embrace the chance of changing the overwhelming present.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take it one domino at a time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can clean up the mess later. We can sort through them and try to stand them up again, one at a time, when we have refortified. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have the power to affect the effect today and can face rebuilding anew tomorrow.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-19382030256380680632015-12-03T11:14:00.002-05:002015-12-03T11:14:16.289-05:00Vanity Mirrors<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We live in a world where people shoot Botox into their faces to paralyze wrinkles, smear cream concoctions onto their skin to look youthful, shoot collagen into their lips to look sexier, pop pills for longer sustained erections, and IV drip vitamins into their veins to feel peppy, less hung-over, or more energized. Costing hundreds and thousands of dollars. All part of doing business in a shallow surface world of aspiring beauty.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HImgsJFOq88/VmBozucfQSI/AAAAAAAAA7Q/SbREiL_LafM/s1600/Vanity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HImgsJFOq88/VmBozucfQSI/AAAAAAAAA7Q/SbREiL_LafM/s320/Vanity.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I live in a world, along with a lot of other survivors, where pills are taken to just barely survive a regular day, Botox is shot into muscles in an attempt to combat pain, creams are rubbed along sore muscles when shots aren't enough, vitamins are injected monthly due to deficiencies, and iron is intravenously infused as needed to prevent crippling spasms, fatigue, and the actual threat of death. A world leaving us emotionally and physically exhausted, battered, and bruised.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a world where people push through jobs which deteriorate them physically just to keep health insurance only to have to fight with insurance companies to get each treatment which can cost more than they make in a whole month. Only to have to do it again thirty, or sixty, or ninety days later. A world where every co-pay takes away money needed for other important things like food and electricity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A world where luxury is an option only for a privileged few and outer beauty doesn't even get to be an afterthought much less an option.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a world where people are judged for how they look and what they have, it's hard not to be judgmental, jealous, hurt, angry, or sickened for having so little and actually needing so much on a basic survival level when witnessing others casually living on a more superficial level. It is very hard when deep down in the suffocating muck not to look towards the heavens with envy and desperation at just the chance to breathe in fresh air.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Truth is, people have a right to want to look better, feel better, dress better, travel better, and just plain live better. People have a right to spend their money any way they choose on anything that they want, including the pursuit of beauty and happiness. Just as with that same sentiment, people should have the right not to suffer, not to fight for treatments, and not to endure pain just to breathe or pay for their next breath. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The world is a deep place while the souls who reside on it are thoughtful and complex. We all must live in it and respect that even in the shallowest pools there are reflections of meaningful depth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't lose ourselves in reflecting on the reflections in other people's mirrors or judge how they see themselves based on the limited view of what we see reflected of them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We must inhale and contemplate our own reflections. We must strive to make the world in our mirrors a better place where we can survive so that the reality within our mirrors can expand out into the rest of our world.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-66259489937699574722015-11-01T22:47:00.001-05:002015-11-01T22:47:37.606-05:00Toxic<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Botulinum toxin is a neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can cause death by paralysis in both humans and animals.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, the first person to have Botox administered therapeutically was probably pretty close in the dire level of desperate as the first person who ate raw oysters because they were hungry. Proving, yet again, people will do whatever they can to survive intact.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It took four years of constant pain following an automobile accident and brain surgery, as well as trying literally everything else, from exercise to acupuncture, to reach the point of not merely approving, but literally begging for, Botox injections. Four years to get the medical recommendations to line up with the insurance approval for this desperate attempt at reducing pain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Multiple cc's and 31 varying injection sites, including my face, head, neck, back, and shoulder-blades, was difficult. (The injections directly into the scar tissue of my brain surgery incision site were rather beyond description.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Willingly enduring momentary pain in the hopes of achieving some semblance of longer term pain relief is something survivors face far too often.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cpucGUqiRB0/VjbbGNXuKUI/AAAAAAAAA60/OtkXkCh1qyM/s1600/botox%2Bneedles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cpucGUqiRB0/VjbbGNXuKUI/AAAAAAAAA60/OtkXkCh1qyM/s320/botox%2Bneedles.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Botox injections did not stop the pain, but they did change the pain. Botox moved it. Botox altered it. Occasionally lessening the sharp stabbing, but spreading a deep, exhausting, continuous, painful ache. (Possibly pain that was there from the time of the original damage, but overshadowed for the past few years by the more severe piercing pains.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my case, secondary injections three months later, hold the rather elusive hope of medically expanding the pain relief by allowing the damaged muscles and nerves the chance to heal through paralysis, due to being unable to tense up in response to the constant pain which further damages them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pain is different for everyone and constant pain changes people. It massively alters how we interact with others, how we approach life, how we view ourselves, and how we imagine the future. It changes, and often destroys, our dreams. Pain can affect literally every choice we make in our lives. It drains the quality of our lives and is a crisis in itself. Pain causes a surreal level of desperation, which is lonely and isolating. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pain touches every part of who we are, how we are, why we are, and what we want. Suffering sucks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have to try. We need to do whatever we can to survive and heal. We have to fight for every avenue that might help. We must endure pain sometimes to feel less pain later. Even if that pain is multiple needles to the face.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FDArtaTx5Dw/VjbbQaPbP1I/AAAAAAAAA68/Cn5iYRYWwak/s1600/botox%2Bforehead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="219" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FDArtaTx5Dw/VjbbQaPbP1I/AAAAAAAAA68/Cn5iYRYWwak/s320/botox%2Bforehead.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hang on tight. It is not an easy ride. It is traumatic. But, any dark route which has the chance, no matter how slight, to lead us into the light is worth the journey. We have to believe that.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-14855525140042777462015-10-22T00:57:00.002-04:002015-10-22T00:57:35.327-04:00Faking It<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actors fake it for a living. Momentarily living lives that aren't lived, they pretend to be people they are not. It is an art-form and a complex creative process. When done well, it can be an inspiring and transcendent experience to behold.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, people in general, including those who will never be on a stage or appear on a screen, pretend all the time. They do it as a way to be polite or kind. Or, they act one way to hide the way they actually feel. Or, they affect feelings or thoughts to protect another or themselves from different feelings or thoughts. People fake all kinds of things to avoid revealing the truth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Survivors become shocking good at this. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">True trauma, illness, and crisis are complex emotional and physical realities. Navigating through the intricacies of those realities is like dancing barefoot on a double-edged sword.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We pretend we are doing better then we are, because we don't want to worry others; or, worse, because we feel our realities have been a burden too long. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We smile, because we don't want anyone to see the depth of our suffering. We make light of things, because the darkness is just too heavy. We feign being okay, because the stress and anxiety are too overwhelming to explain. We disguise pain with a laugh, because we don't want our pain to affect or lessen the joy of others. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We act unbroken, because admitting we are broken reveals too much of our damaged selves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our realities become far too hidden and private, because they are too much to easily share. It is traumatic to continue to give voice to our trauma, especially when it goes on longer for us then for those we have leaned on for support and understanding. The bigger and harsher the reality the more we tend to fake it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pretending can become very isolating. </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WkhM32opu_o/VihsobuPw3I/AAAAAAAAA6g/mvQo0numG2Q/s1600/barefoot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WkhM32opu_o/VihsobuPw3I/AAAAAAAAA6g/mvQo0numG2Q/s320/barefoot.jpg" width="210" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The more we try to convince people we are okay, the less support we have when we need it. The less supported we feel, the harder it becomes to reach out for help. Convincing others we are well on the road to recovery and pretending to be better then we are leads to priority shifts and creates changes in circumstances which can leave us exposed and alone when we still have a real need for continued support. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can become paralyzed with hesitation and wrought with trust issues allowing us to slip farther away from those who might be willing to help. Help may not come fast enough, because when it is alluded to or delayed, we are too traumatized to remind those offering help we are still desperately waiting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pretending can make our struggles invisible and erode our ability to heal. It is a momentary band-aid on a festering wound.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pretend is fine for fairy tales and matinees, but honesty is genuinely needed for real healing and understanding, even if that honesty. by default, is brutal and ugly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have to move beyond the fear and the polite. We have to find a way to be who we are, while we are. We can't allow ourselves to drift away unseen and unnoticed. </span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-7383653282250056832015-09-20T23:50:00.001-04:002015-09-20T23:50:37.163-04:00Support Brains, People<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Brains matter and everybody has one</b><i> (even if sometimes that seems doubtful).</i><br /><br />Put yours to good use. Do something today!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Review your family medical history. Get scanned.<br /><br />Rally Congress to Support S. Res. 176 and H. Res. 259</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://bafound.rallycongress.com/4999/tell-congress-put-brain-aneurysm-awareness-on-map/" target="_blank">Sign the Petition </a> to officially make September Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please give to</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.bafound.org/" target="_blank">The Brain Aneursym Foundation</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.bcftbi.org/" target="_blank">The Betty Clooney Center for Persons with Traumatic Brain Injury</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.taafonline.org/" target="_blank">The Aneurysm and AVM Foundation</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wear a Bravelet<br />(and a $10 donation goes directly to </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.bravelets.com/bravepage/survivor-jewelry" target="_blank">Survivor Jewelry</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or <a href="https://www.bravelets.com/bravepage/breathe-brave" target="_blank">The Brain Aneurysm Foundation</a>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lend an ear or a shoulder to lean on. Reach out. Help yourself and others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our brains need love and support! Your support could help someone survive!</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ApXMQMozdRQ/Vf9-fIbHofI/AAAAAAAAA6E/xxY-CJeVSpY/s1600/Xray%2BSurvivor%2BJewelry.org.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ApXMQMozdRQ/Vf9-fIbHofI/AAAAAAAAA6E/xxY-CJeVSpY/s320/Xray%2BSurvivor%2BJewelry.org.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-8549620476282377162015-09-20T10:34:00.002-04:002015-09-20T10:35:22.684-04:00Support by Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wear a Bravelet in Support!</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0_KbIu2R5M0/Vf7C7RopQ2I/AAAAAAAAA5w/5cahNJK83Os/s1600/Bravelet.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0_KbIu2R5M0/Vf7C7RopQ2I/AAAAAAAAA5w/5cahNJK83Os/s320/Bravelet.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">each bracelet purchased gives a $10 donation </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to </span><a href="https://www.bravelets.com/bravepage/survivor-jewelry" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Survivor Jewelry</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or </span><a href="https://www.bravelets.com/bravepage/breathe-brave" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">The Brain Aneurysm Foundation</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or y</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ou can pick other Bravelet jewelry that shows support of a different cause. (There are a variety of styles, colors, and worthy causes)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Support truly matters! Breathe Brave and wear your heart on your sleeve.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-43565880312083031032015-09-19T22:36:00.001-04:002015-09-19T22:37:21.076-04:00#LoveMyBrain<i><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Love me for my brains!</span></b></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">September is Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What do</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Quincy Jones (entertainer/producer), Sharon Stone (actress), Neil Young (singer / songwriter), Bill Berry (drummer, R.E.M.), Bret Michaels (singer, Poison), Tamala Jones (actress), Joni Mitchell (singer/songwriter), Scott Hamilton (Olympic figure skater), Della Reese (actress)... and me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">have in common?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<i><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are all Survivors of Brain Aneurysms.</span></b></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What do </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Guy Williams (actor, Zorro), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (Congresswoman), Jeanne-Claude (artist), Anne Baxter (actress), Todd Barnes (drummer, T.S.O.L), Jerry York (IBM), David Mills (Screenwriter), Laura Branigan (singer), Rex Robbins (actor), and Betty Clooney (entertainer)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">have in common?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<i><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They are all people we lost too soon to Brain Aneurysms. </span></b></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sadly, half a million more people worldwide will die from ruptured brain anuerysms this year alone and half of those deaths will be people under the age of 50.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We all need to be more aware.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brain aneurysm will affect 1 in 15 Americans. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One will rupture every 15 minutes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">40% of those ruptures will be fatal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Love Your Brain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Be aware of your family history. Be proactive. Have open and honest conversations. Get scanned.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For survivors and those fighting to survive, as well as for the people who love them and those who remember with love those we have lost, support is vital.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Show your support today!</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">#LoveMyBrain</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Add-on to your own photos and show your support.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iVe0sMKUIKg/Vf4bcKzn_-I/AAAAAAAAA5c/jJRhag4ewKM/s1600/Love%2BMy%2BBrain%2BAdd-ons.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="316" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iVe0sMKUIKg/Vf4bcKzn_-I/AAAAAAAAA5c/jJRhag4ewKM/s320/Love%2BMy%2BBrain%2BAdd-ons.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Give brains some love.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our support and our voices matter... so do our Brains!</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-18230903261770193592015-09-17T02:59:00.001-04:002015-09-17T02:59:06.999-04:00Hope Horizon<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During times of illness, trauma, & crisis, hope is an oasis, but often times it can feel like a mirage on the edge of the horizon.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HWyun8gqV4A/VfpkqDbChoI/AAAAAAAAA5E/3JnEsBLmgrI/s1600/Oasis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HWyun8gqV4A/VfpkqDbChoI/AAAAAAAAA5E/3JnEsBLmgrI/s320/Oasis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes we have to wait for it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hope can shimmer in many forms: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the elusive cure to come, the relentless pain to ebb, the overwhelming fear to ease, the sapped strength to return, and the paralyzing panic to cease. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or simply a promised visitor to arrive, a sturdy shoulder to cry on, a helping hand to reach, an understanding ear to listen, and a promise of help to become realized.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hope is a belief in relief and survival.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, like crisis, waiting isn't easy and can carry real weight. A weight that may not be adequately understood by those not carrying it and living with it daily.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is not easy to quantify or explain. It can overwhelm and steal the voice we need to be heard. How do you tell someone what it is to be you? How can someone know what a gift hope is, when they are not trapped in needing it so urgently?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Time is different for those trying to survive and cling to hope. The waiting can make minutes feel like days and days feel like an infinity. Waiting can corrode our glimmers of hope, deepen our depression, and add to our stress. Waiting can take the fight out of us and leave us lost near collapse in the desert.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Withering in the heat with the relief of the oasis just out of our grasp. It's harder to maintain hope when you are watching the promise of it along what begins to seem like a ever distancing horizon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Faith is not easy when parched. Hope can slip from our grasp while we wait.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Try to hang on. Seek for and cling to the hope you once had and believe in something... someone, anything, and anyone to make it through. It is coming. While the horizon may seem fixed in the distance, journeying towards it is the only way to reach an oasis of hope. We all need to believe that.</span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-64536125414225074922015-09-05T00:26:00.000-04:002015-09-05T00:26:21.854-04:00Prometheus Bride<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1818, the novel <i>Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus </i>by Mary Shelley, was published. (However, during its original release, the author was listed as anonymous.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite many people's assumptions, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor while his creation actually remained nameless throughout the story (although the Creature himself on a handful of occasions likens himself to Adam, the Bible's first human). And, Prometheus was a mythological Greek Titan who created mankind for the gods, then taught man to hunt, read, and heal, but who was then chained and tortured by Zeus for stealing fire from the gods and sharing it with humans.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bent on vengeance against the monster, Dr. Frankenstein struggles against his conscience and the weight of what he gave life to for the bulk of the book, seeking to destroy his creation. Meanwhile, the Creature grapples with his existence and isolation, reflecting with growing intellect and longing, but lashing out with violence. (Even more so, when the Creature loses his sole chance at companionship when Frankenstein chooses to destroy the monster bride he was creating to prevent unleashing another abomination.)</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fwK1h_eXJ80/VeptgF6J7MI/AAAAAAAAA4s/ORyY5a8kYa8/s1600/Bride%2Bof%2BFrankenstein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fwK1h_eXJ80/VeptgF6J7MI/AAAAAAAAA4s/ORyY5a8kYa8/s320/Bride%2Bof%2BFrankenstein.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the end, after the death of his creator, the nameless Creature, outcast from society and removed from humanity, sheds tears for the loss of his perceived father. He tells his side of the story to a single witness and walks off onto the desolate ice of the Arctic never to be seen or heard from again. Utterly alone. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Survivors often find they relate more to the monster. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feelings of isolation and longing, issues of self-esteem and distance, internal rage and pain are often parts of the process of surviving. It is heartbreaking and disorienting to suddenly perceive ourselves as different and apart. Removed from who we once were and all we once trusted, we create a lonely landscape within ourselves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The inspirational source of the book is often debated in literary circles. What began as a summer challenge to tell a story in a group of creative friends, has been labelled a subversive political tale of the Revolution, a suspicious reprimand at the advance of science and technology, and a Gothic romance born of the loss of her first child. (Mary Shelley was twenty years old when the book was published and she would eventually have three more children, but only one would survive childhood.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like the Creature and the book itself, we are all created from, inspired by, and evolve out from a complex source. We have to find our own way to and from the isolated landscape of our inner Artic. We have to learn and relearn who and what we are. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will rage and contemplate, rationalize and react, while moving through and away from the monstrosities of our trauma, crisis, and illness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need to cling to what matters and hold on to our own worth, even if we have to find beauty in the loneliness of the ice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>(Note: Over three decades after the publication of the book, on the first anniversary of Mary Shelley's death, her family opened up her writing desk. In it, they found locks of hair belonging to all of her children and the heart of her husband Percy Shelley wrapped in silk.)</i></span>Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-49578350915253998892015-08-25T00:44:00.003-04:002015-08-25T00:44:39.337-04:00The Vu's<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Presque vu</i>, French for <i>"almost seen"</i>, is also known as the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. The failure to retrieve a word from memory combined with a partial recall and a nagging feeling that the retrieval of the word is imminent. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Jamais vu</i>, <i>"never seen"</i>, is the phenomenon of experiencing something that you recognize in some way, but nonetheless seems utterly unfamiliar. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both are often associated with the more well-known <i>déjà vu</i>,<i> "already seen"</i>, the sensation that something currently being experienced has already happened, whether it actually has or not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of these can occur to some degree and regularity in a healthy brain. But, more severe or prolonged forms of them are often associated with brain damage or illness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Survivors often experience life during and after trauma tangled up in an emotional braid similar to the phenomenons of the three Vu's.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zrw-S_CvFsg/VdvyHOeh4yI/AAAAAAAAA4M/jbLHtF7ytf4/s1600/Lithuanian_National_Drama_Theatre_statues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zrw-S_CvFsg/VdvyHOeh4yI/AAAAAAAAA4M/jbLHtF7ytf4/s320/Lithuanian_National_Drama_Theatre_statues.jpg" title=" By Bernt Rostad (http://www.flickr.com/photos/brostad/9651320619/) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons" width="281" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a lot of overthinking and active imagining which happens when facing trauma, as both a part of stress and hopefulness. We dream and rationalize. We study worst case scenarios and best possible outcomes. We adjust to current situations as we struggle to heal. We think happy thoughts and give in to the misery of worry. We are altered by the idea of pain and loss.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We imagine so much so often in thinking about the idea of our crisis, that when faced with the actuality of it, we can feel overwhelming emotional sensations which resemble the Vu's.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feelings like we have done this or been here before, or that what we almost know is about to be fully understood or explained, or that even though it should be familar because we prepared for it, it is beyond our expectations or understanding.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fear and pain can set our emotions on an almost conductive edge, where any stimuli can over stimulate and expand out quickly without warning. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our thoughts can play havoc on our expectations and actually alter how we cope with our realities. Our truths can be so big that to fully face them we need to take them apart and give the pieces a surreal dream quality. It is a normal reaction to damage and part of coping during healing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Accept the different Vu's of surviving your trauma, crisis, or illnesses. Embrace these tumultuous triplets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Recognize there are things we are meant to see, things we will know again, and things we will never quite figure out.</i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Allow your emotions to help you adapt to your reality and aid in your healing.</span><br />
<br />Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383134506019881394.post-49440080640828392532015-08-09T00:55:00.002-04:002015-08-25T01:50:37.795-04:00Sticky Note Tug of War<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People leave Post-It-Notes to remind themselves of all manner of things. Sticky notes are a billion dollar industry because memory is a tricky thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, memories at their core, are sticky yet fluid conundrums, especially during times of loss or grief. They adapt and change depending on how, when, and why we look back at them. They become what we need them to be or become the validation we seek.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dp6pdzaLr6M/Vcbb37BEngI/AAAAAAAAA3w/OcXf3w7K654/s1600/Post-it%2Bemoticonarmy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="" border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dp6pdzaLr6M/Vcbb37BEngI/AAAAAAAAA3w/OcXf3w7K654/s320/Post-it%2Bemoticonarmy.jpg" title="By gacabo from Spain (emoticon army) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They are the emotional outlet to ourselves, the pieces which make up our whole, including the good and the bad, the beautiful and the hideous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we need the comfort of nostalgia, we alter our memory to reach for the best of what has been, sourcing out a safe place from our past.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we need to validate a hurt or lay a blame, we hone in on the mistakes and failures in the past to give our current pain merit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we want to reconnect with something or someone we've lost that we wish we hadn't, we'll instill the memories with a dreamlike quality, removing all imperfections for a flawless reminder of what once was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We play with our memories as often as they play with us. A tug of war of emotions, safe places, and reminders.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The truth of a memory lies somewhere in between, with all the positives, negatives and beautiful flaws of life, shared with people and places in all their imperfections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Survivors spend a lot of time in the past, because it is so much a part of how they got to where they are, so much of what they lost, so much of what they're trying to hold on to, and so much of what they are fighting to get back to. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, most tellingly, because during times of pain and crisis, the future becomes harder to envision. It can be so difficult to imagine a tomorrow that we cling to the past for our hope. We turn to what was or might have been to find our way to what might yet be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our memories hurt and comfort, support and destroy. They are our foundation and the bricks we use to rebuild or reshape ourselves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is alright to remember yesterday, if in doing so it gives us the strength for tomorrow. <i>Because, w</i></span><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ith our memories, we never have to be alone, even during our loneliest</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> moments.</span></i></div>
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Drakeisawakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395270280652389068noreply@blogger.com0