Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. Today I want begin to share something with you that forever changed my life. For many years I had no idea that there were other factors that contributed to my confusion as I sought to interact with my world. Consequently, as a traumatic brain injury survivor living with an invisible disability I bought into the notion that there was some thing wrong with me. As a result I found myself being sorry for every thing under the sun. Consequently, I found myself merely seeking to survive life instead of learning to thrive in life.
Because I was completely unaware of how my brain injury impacted my world and my relationships, I spent much of my life internalizing my limitations and deficits. As a result of my fear of being misunderstood — which was one of my greatest fears growing up — I found myself attempting to answer, defend and explain myself. In addition to my fear of being misunderstood I found myself being blamed for my — unbeknown st to me — for matters that were out of my control because of my traumatic brain injury. In the process of trying to “get it right” I very often was blamed and shamed for “not getting it right”.
Along the way I was given the role of a scape goat which conditioned me to believe that I was responsible for the conflicts in my family. In essence I was conditioned to believe that I was responsible for the unease with in the family and in my relationships with other people. In the process I also bought into the notion that I could control the conflict — if I could just got it right.
Unconsciously I believed that I could avoid being the object of conflict by assuming my role as the scape goat — please read my 2 part series, Traumatic Brain Injury and the Identified Patient — or through being perfect. Consequently, I found myself moving from one crisis to another crisis in my attempts to get it right. In my struggle I found myself living in a state of constant drama — as I moved from one crisis to another. With time in my recovery process I discovered that the drama — created by my trying to control the crisis (s) and conflict (s) in my life — unknowingly became the vehicle in which I experienced life.
In the next several paragraphs I will share what I learned through my recovery process.
Please read Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 for context. Thank you.
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