Self-Esteem

with much thanks to Nathaniel Branden. His website is located at: http://nathanielbranden.com/ 


     When I got my traumatic brain injury, I was fortunate that my self-esteem was already in fairly decent shape. Some years prior to my accident, I had happened upon Nathaniel Branden's writing and read his books avidly. I used the complete the sentences program that I found in the back of most of his books, I did the work, I took action and -- tada !-- my self-esteem improved.

     Two acquaintances of mine are now facing health crises that may potentially leave them with some degree of disability. That sucks. [N.B. Being able to get competent medical care does not suck.] Not everything can realistically be greeted with cries of "Happy Happy Joy Joy" nor should it be. Knowing is preferable to not knowing. At the very least, one can make certain decisions about the future that way. 

     It is my sincerely held belief that those of us who have faced any sort of disability or change in our health status with adequate self-esteem are better equipped to deal with the unexpected than those of us who suffer from lack of good-enough self-esteem. Having a sense of efficacy that I will be able to face any situation that I have to helped me to quell the panic with a search for everything that I could find out about traumatic brain injury. Living consciously enabled me to recognize my need for assistance and to ask for it as needed. Self-acceptance supported me in coming to grips with my disabilities as well as with my abilities. 

     Because my self-esteem is based on the stuff inside me that enabled me to get the stuff I got [which includes relationships with others as well as other stuff] rather than the stuff itself, I was far better off than someone who bases their self-feeling on what they do or what they have. Because my self-esteem is not based on the esteem of others, when a few of my long-cherished friendships came to an end due to my brain damage I survived anyway. I was able to come to terms with what parts was mine [my responsibility] and what parts were not mine.

     If you are facing challenges due to a brain injury or other neurological condition or any other health crisis, I encourage you to read some Nathaniel Branden. Then, do the work that is necessary to raise your self-esteem. It helps. 

sapphoq healing t.b.i. notes that: There are some things that some folks disagree with Nathaniel Branden about. This is natural and not a good reason to avoid his writing. Nathaniel Branden is an objectivist who had an affair with his mentor Ayn Rand. He is also an atheist and a libertarian. None of those things are a problem for me but they may be for you, I do not know. The two things that I do not agree with him on are his idea that hetero-love is superior to nonhetero-love; and his ideas on recovery and on surviving childhood abuse. There are many other things that I do agree with Nathaniel Branden on and those things far outweigh our differences. I say, give yourself a break and investigate what he has to say before deciding that it is not useful to you.

On Fish Oil and Comas

     How unfortunate that some news reports are focusing on the idea that fish oil can "cure" severe brain injury, did in fact "cure" a teen's severe brain injury. I do indeed criticize the news media for the sensational titles given to many of the articles and reports about Grant Virgin and his awakening from a coma. 

In perusing the results, we learn [from the titles alone] that:
     Fish Oil Helps Son Recover from Brain Injury
     Fish Oil Heals Injured Brain of Teen
     Fish oil cures severe brain damage
     Teen recovers from coma thanks to fish oil
To report that fish oil helps, heals, cures is yellow journalism at the very least. To showcase the family's belief that the fish oil helped is sort of okay. To admit that we do not know is true journalism. 
[Sampling came from Google search:  https://news.google.com/news/story?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=brain+injury&ncl=dw6-BhSPB-z6aVMhTN0NNCRwrLjpM&cf=all&scoring=d]

     Sanjay Gupta is a well-qualified physician. He is in fact a neurosurgeon and is associated with Emory University. Here is the link to the video he did for C.N.N.:
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/health/2014/01/17/exp-sgmd-omega-3-grant-virgin.cnn.html
A second link [first video on the right side entitled fish oil saves boy's brain?] to the same video:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/18/health/fish-oil-recovery/index.html
In reviewing his video, I cannot fault his presentation as one other blogger did. [http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/01/is-fish-oil-a-miracle-brain-healer-cnn-does-irresponsible-story/]. The story of a teen who was severely injured and whose parents did not give up on him is a human interest story. Sanjay Gupta did an excellent job in that respect.

     The need for medical research is dire in order to be able to gauge best practices in the treatment of people who are comatose due to serious head trauma. The research of course must be published in respectable peer-review journals, evaluated, and replicated by other research teams in evaluate the anecdotal evidence for the promotion of fish oil or some component in fish oil as a worthy addition to the arsenal for treatment of brain injuries. The research is being done. Until a later time, the Grant Virgin story remains anecdotal only in nature. 

sapphoq reviews says: It is not my intention to cast aspersions on the loving family of Grant Virgin. Families naturally want to do something to help their severely injured family members. It is certainly not easy for a parent to be told that nothing can be done at the present time for their child until a coma runs its course. [N.B.: I also would have challenged the doctor from the emergency room.] I was glad to know that Grant Virgin received competent and specific therapies for his traumatic brain injury after his release from the hospital. I wish him and his parents the very best.

Even Better

     The bird was hanging upside down from the feeder. He was almost frozen. He was not a happy bird. He was having a bad day-- no, not a bad moment-- a bad day. The weather had been miserably cold for a week. I found him there, removed him, and took him inside to warm him up. I set him free outside and he sang hosannas of gratitude.

     No. That's not how it happened. I saw him there upside down, his feet frozen to a metal part of the underside of the bird feeder. I wasn't sure if he was dead or alive or in torpor or what. After some hesitation, I wrapped him in a yellow towel and took him inside. He made no noise whatsoever. His legs were messed up and at odd angles. If he was dead, it would have been a mercy.

     I warmed him up by the radiator on the off-chance that he could be saved. The kitten came up and inspected him.

     I put the bird still wrapped in the yellow towel in a basket in a tree in the sun. He was not there the next morning. I figured that either he had flown away or that a desperate hungry hawk or something ate him. He was back in the thick of nature however it went.

    The fiction that I had definitely saved the little bird is preferable to what actually happened. We don't like messy endings in general. We don't like to read about little birds that might be dead or might have been eaten by a bigger bird. We want everything as it was before or even better than before.

     But life is not like that. Mother Nature is a real Muther. Nature is cruel and stalking and predatory. Nature does not give one whit about any of our wishes, desires, or dreams. Life happens and death happens. Those who are born do not in any way make up for those who die. Oh perhaps in population statistics but not in any other way.

     Even if the bird flew out of the basket, his life was not the same or even better as it had been before. His legs were injured. Even if they healed up, they were not "good as new." Even if he lived, he certainly was hobbled by his experiences.


sapphoq healing tbi says: Some well-meaning people want us to be like we were before whatever happened to each one of us that left us with damaged brains. They gush at us "Oh isn't it wonderful that the brain rewires itself?" We are beyond their gushing. We know that we are beyond magical yoga retreats and fish oil and stupid talk of brains putting themselves back together again "even better" than before.
     Think before you open your mouth to impart some fake cure or false hope. Chances are, we don't want to hear those lies. Tell us to keep working at those things that we are re-learning. Tell us that each of us has to be in charge of our own rehab. Tell us that our lives are different. Tell us that life is neither fair nor unfair. Life is sacred and nothing is promised to us. 

     No, I am not "better off" than I was before the day that my life changed forever. No, brains do not rewire themselves to be exactly the way they used to be. Yes, I certainly do have a life today. This is not the life that I signed up for but it is mine. I keep striving to work around my deficits. I keep challenging my brain. I keep doing the things that I learned that I must do for myself in order to have some kind of a life. It is easy to sit around and mope because I have brain damage now. It is better to force myself to participate in my life. It is even better to work for what I consider to be worth working for. And having a life-- even if it is a different life now-- is certainly worth working for.