Just Because I Look Normal, Doesn't Mean My Brain is…

Many people misinterpret brain diseased people because of what they look like. Most people with mental disease look like normal individuals.

While we can see and understand for the most part when a child has downs syndrome, many other mental disabilities do not have physical characteristics. 

For the most part, my everyday life is pretty normal. I “look” normal, I “talk” normal and I “do” things normally…until I go into a Bi-polar manic phase or a Bi-polar depression. Then things start to become off the wall.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/bipolar-disorder-ellen-forney_n_5823138.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046&ir=Women

This article says it all for me.

Another excellent example is a child with high functioning autism. These children can suffer a great deal in the school system and with their peers when there is no education in why a child can “look” normal, but not “act” normal. Without educating staff at schools and especially the peers many of these children are left behind mentally, emotionally and physically.

It all goes back to what mental disease looks like.

The child LOOKS like a normal teenage boy. He is High Functioning Autistic, so can be confused with a normal child misbehaving. His voice is cracking like any normal young mans, he has a full head of hair, he walks and talks, he laughs and he cries. But sometimes, his disease, Autism, shines through. When it did, these people assumed that because he LOOKED normal, he should ACT normal and so he was just ACTING out instead of it being his disease causing an issue.

Different types of “misbehaving” that people might confuse acting out to a chemical imbalance could be the “rages”. Chemical imbalances can cause so many types of issues in our bodies that people do not understand, “rages” are definitely one of them. These are classed as temper tantrums to most people.

Some of the people who have been honest with me about when I have had a rage have explained what I have said and done during a rage. There have been times where people have told me of the same types of things happening with my grandmother, who was also Bi-Polar. Saying and doing things we normally would not do, but once again, our brains are telling us it is the right thing to do or the right thing to say.

Looking back to when I was very young, my mother would tell me that there were times where I would, for no reason, hold my breath. I wouldn't be upset, I wasn't hurt, but she explained that I would be breathing funny and all of a sudden I would hit a certain pitch and quit breathing, at which time I would faint. I wonder now if it wasn't panic attacks, this was happening before the age of 7, maybe a symptom of poor brain development or an overload on a brain not capable of handling the information?

Today I will deal with severe migraines after “thinking” too long, especially when I write. So writing is something I try to space out over a few days.

These are not “normal” things for a “normal” brain to do. Normal people do get headaches, but not headaches that put them in bed for days after writing papers. Normal people do not go into rages because a child falls off a swing from a sibling pushing too hard, they have a bad dream or they do not listen when you tell them to do something.

Medications do help by allowing our bodies to have the chemicals that are missing, but those medications do not always work, time, constantly trying new medications and the "hit and miss" philosophy comes into effect with meds. They also have side effects that can cause problems themselves or they can actually stop working and you have to start on other medications. It is a vicious cycle that I would not wish on anyone who has the luck of a NORMAL life.

When you are mentally ill, acting “normal” when you really are not, is not as easy as the normal family member or friend of a mentally ill person wants it to be. I have been told many times to “Grow up”, “Control myself”, and “Behave Myself” and the problem with these statements is that the people saying them do not understand that I wish with all my heart I could.

These statements do a lot of harm because I start to wonder why I cannot control myself, why I don’t grow up, how come I don’t behave myself. Without my counselling I end up in very deep depressions to the point of suicide because I believe I am a bad person because I say and do things I believe are okay when I am in Manic phases when they are not. Where counselling helps me realize that while I have control over some issues, my disease does contribute too many of the behavioral issues that have caused these people to say these statements.

I may look like a normal 43 year old mother and grandmother, but I have brain function issues that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

Expecting someone who has poor brain function to act normal is like asking yourself to do something that you yourself have never been trained to do.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/09/19/depression-symptoms_n_5849920.html?ir=Canada+Living

Growing up, my family could tell you that I fought every single symptom on the list in my teen years.

I remember being disgusted with myself because I could not get out of bed when my family members would call me to get ready for school, I would lie in bed crying because I did not have the energy to even dress myself or the opposite sometime I would not be able to sleep all night, staring at the walls all night then not be able to get up in the mornings from lack of sleep. 

I remember never wanting to take care of myself hygiene wise, teachers pulling me aside to talk about it. I remember never feeling happy about anything, always looking at the negative side of even the good things in my life always unhappy.

I remember never eating properly, I still don't when I go into a Bi-Polar Depression. I remember always losing interest in the things I loved to do and I still do this when depression hits me.

I remember having issues concentrating on doing school work/homework and even now when I am not myself, concentrating on what I am doing is hard to control.

I thought of suicide many times when I was younger and have thought of suicide many times since.

My siblings and cousins could tell you how irritable I could and can become at the drop of a hat when depression is at my door and especially when I am manic.

I was always suffering from stomach aches and headaches as a teenager. I had issues with my memory back then and even now my memory is very bad. I cut myself as a teenager and after moving out of my parents home at the age of 16 and until I was in my early 20s alcohol was my drug of choice.

A reminder to everyone...Mental disease is/can be hereditary. It runs in families like any other disease does. You might think that your children are safe because it is your wife's cousin on her mothers side that is a little nuts...it doesn't mean a thing...inform yourself, just in case. Better safe then sorry isn't that the old saying?

I have survived 43 years so far, I might have lost some people along the way, but I survived and there are others out there like me.

What are royalties for?

When Alberta’s Premier Ed Stelmach chose to up the amount of royalties companies were going to have to pay Alberta for extracting oil and gas the companies were outraged and Saskatchewan took advantage of that by opening its oilsands.

I have become more enlightened about what royalties are used for over the last few years. Only because the area I now live in has become swamped with pump jacks over the last five or six years.

Many people are making a great deal of money off of this venture, land is becoming very expensive and housing even more so. There are those who will and are taking advantage of this situation, oil and gas companies are in the lead.

What is not happening is the care to the system with the extra people coming into the province.

With more people, come more expenses. New housing developments take new sewer, new power and new development while older areas are overlooked. This always happens no matter where you are.

With more people there is more use of infrastructure and services.

http://www.oilandgasinfo.ca/wp-content/uploads/PW_august_2010.pdf

http://www.oilandgasinfo.ca/wp-content/uploads/PW_sept_10.pdf

Several examples of this are easy ones, like roads.

this was shortly after they "fixed" the pothole.

Sask. Transportation warns people of a danger spot with the "red flag"

Oil companies hauling the oil from the rigs take a toll on the surfaces of the roads and reconstruction/maintenance is always needed. This road is far from the worst in Saskatchewan, it is just one of the main roads I use. 

(Please notice the large chunks of asphalt that could be caught in a semi trucks tire and spit up at a vehicle following...that could cause one hell of an accident and who would know what caused it if there was no survivors. My last blog about the roads in Saskatchewan talks about this.)

Another is power.

With the rigs sucking the power out of the grid, I am sure that wouldn’t be the cause to peoples and businesses appliances burning out and break down with the surging and constant cutting in and out? No one is responsible for paying the cost of our refrigerators, freezers, washers and dryers, etc. being replaced or fixed because of this is there?

But adding more power to the grid will not do any good if the older infrastructure is not updated; something a government should have thought about 5 or 10 years before allowing companies to come in and suck the power right out from under their current customers...ahem... 

Updating the power lines and poles before allowing the rigs into the area would have made more sense. 

But sense doesn't always come into play when cents are involved.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/20/2187071/federal-government-charges-lower-royalties-than-many-states-for-oil-and-gas-drilling-taxpayers-lose-out/

(It looks like this is not just a Canadian issue…Go figure huh…yes, sarcasm)

Many people forget things like schooling and health care.

The men and women who work for these oil companies are not all single.

Many have families and these young children need schooling. It is no wonder the government cannot afford to pay its teachers more, but maybe had they demanded a better deal from the oil companies when it came to royalties your teachers would be getting paid a better raise over the next four years.

Some think that the teachers are asking for too much. I think those people are crackers!

Our teachers have to deal with 20 to 35 children in one class each day, some teaching more grades then one and teaching more than one subject. Many of those children have learning disabilities or are just downright disrespectful and should be dealt with by parents or police not by teachers.

We ask teachers to teach our children things that we as parents should be teaching our children; “we” do not have time to teach our own children anymore. Teachers, who are accused of not working enough days, getting too many long weekends during the year, having summer holidays and only having to work from 9 am to 3 pm…if only people knew.

Shadow a teacher for one 24 hour period and you will be sorely surprised at what they do in one day for our future!

Back to my original point,

Royalties are to help with the influx of people using the services and infrastructure in your communities. If you do not demand that the companies pay those royalties, they are not going to be generous and give them to you.

They may donate a little here and a little there to make themselves look good to the general population, but it NEVER amounts to what they should be paying to offset the cost of what their companies and their workers are using.

Health care is another biggie.

In the area I live there is a clinic that used to be a hospital. Not anymore. The closest hospital with an emergency is approximately 34 kilometers away and it isn't exactly what you would find in a larger center either. The doctor that comes to our little village once a week comes from that town. Once a week we can see this doctor or once a week we can see a RN.

With more people there is more demand on the doctor’s time.

The doctor out here is the only one, he deals with several small villages and towns in the area. He works his butt off in a very large area, so when I am sitting in his office I tend to bring a book…it could take awhile.

With the influx of people in the area this doctor’s office has a habit of double booking. I can understand many people can be rude enough to either demand to be seen immediately or they just don’t show up so staff get to know who might be a no show.

On one occasion, being as polite as I could, I had to remind a jerk that there were children present as he was complaining to another patient with the F-bomb every other word that the doctor’s office was double booking his appointment time.

Here is my point;

Once again, the overflow of people with jobs from the rigs has caused a massive amount of strain on services like doctors and teachers. It has caused substantial damage to infrastructures like roads and the power grid.  

Without the extra investment of royalties from the oil companies that are bringing in these issues, the issues are going to keep getting worse…not better.

Oil companies love free. They will rape Saskatchewan and move on. It might take years, but it will happen and in the mean time, it is the pee-ons that suffer. 

Land owners that rent to the oil companies don't suffer, they are getting well paid for the pump jacks being on their land. The government isn't suffering, they do not have to deal with cranky children or disrespectful patients. 

The lowly taxpayer who has new neighbors disrespecting his property, the doctor who has to deal with hundreds of patients with very little time off and the teachers who do not receive the respect and pay they deserve are the ones who suffer. 

http://desmog.ca/2013/02/28/if-canada-oil-rich-why-are-we-so-debt

(Our government is doing the taxpayers no favors. They are not working for us, they are working for the wealthy oil companies.)

Making any company pay to use the infrastructure and services that a province has only makes good sense.

Companies are not going to “take their business elsewhere” they have nowhere else to go! They need our resources, the longer the resources are in the ground the more they are worth.

If Norway can get 70 cents of each dollar an oil company makes, then why are we in Canada begging for pennies? 

There are many things that Norway does that Canada could follow examples of. Not having any foreign debt and having a "rainy day" fund sure does go to show they are a country worth watching and learning from, but will we?

Any company that wants to work in our country, take our resources, use our resources and bring workers into our country that use our infrastructure or our services need to start paying royalties.

That is where the royalties come in, they go to help alleviate the extra costs in fixing the roads, upgrading the power grid, hiring more teachers and doctors…

The important things that are needed and used.