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Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
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Well, getting up at 9:00 seems to be the going thing around here. Yes, being happy and safe makes a difference. I don't end up with so much of my energy being sapped by emotion regulation. I'm actually surprised that I'm not sleeping more right now.
I'm still trying to get used to the idea that I really can do something productive. There's some kind of huge mental block that makes me feel like my place in life is just to be here and that I'll never get too far beyond the whining stage. Yes, I know that's craziness. I'm actually rational enough to remember and, somewhere, to believe the truth that I'm an adult with not only the responsibilities and expectations of an adult but also the rights and privileges of an adult. That is a tough one for me sometimes. I feel like I'm supposed to act like an adult but that I only have the rights and privileges of a child.
Ok, now for another piece of news. Well, I don't know if it's news or not yet. We'll see. A month or two ago, I saw a post on one of my other lists from a lady whose niece has the same eye condition that I have. She was saying that this child's school district was hunting a teacher of the visually impaired and that the child's mom was pushing for an aide at least, but that the teachers were all being snatched up by districts paying more. I wrote back to her about it, but I didn't do anything else because I'm not teacher certified, let alone VI certified. I have all the coursework for the VI background but not enough for the teacher certification, and especially considering that the courses I do have are Texas-specific.
Well, she posted it again yesterday. The districts are getting desperate because their staff doesn't know what to do with the VI kids. So I sent a rough draft of my resume. Now I need to send another because Mom and I have made some changes. As far as I know there is not actually a job posted. I would meet the qualifications for an aide, and perhaps if I got up the money totake my one class and finish this silly BA, I could move on and pursue teacher certification. But I think some of the parents areaggressively pushing the district for an aide and trying to find out how to advertise for the teaching positions outside of Ohio State University. So anyway, that's my latest big dream. We'll see if it goes anywhere. I'll keep you posted.
I asked Dad this, but I'll put it here anyway because tomorrow when I think I'm fine I will need to look at this and realize I'm not quite so fine as I think I am. The thing is there are things that happen that make me respond in certain ways (excited, happy, disappointed, etc) and it's within some normal range. It's a tolerable level of emotion. There are other times when the emotion, whatever it is, just goes flying off to extreme. It's most noticeable when I'm upset. Duh. That's when I do my complaining, when my emotional clinginess gets bad, etc. But it's just as bad when it's other emotions, too.
The job news sent me into this really flying high mode, and no matter how hard I tried to keep it in perspective there was no controlling it. Normally I would be terrified of the idea of going to apply and have the interview. No, not today! Today it's like I've won the lottery. More than won the lottery. It's something I can't describe. It's like I've had just a bit too much caffeine--I'd say too much to drink, but I've never had a drop in my life.
Then this ugly lady calls and it's a wrong number. She threw a fit because I couldn't help her find the person she wanted. I thought I was going to go into a major rage over this. Blamed it on Megan, but this time that's not a fair thing. The truth is it wasn't anyone's rage in particular. If it was I'd have known and sent them inside.
Then mom gets home, and somehow we get off on the doctor thing. Yesterday I found out that not only has my referral period run out with the retina specialist, but it's also over with the cornea specialist. I haven't even gotten my stitches out! Half of them come out in June, and the other half come out next year. The retina specialist is covered by Medicaid. The cornea specialist is not. No one told me about this. No one told me I would haveadditional expenses over the $800 which the cornea specialist agreed to let me pay out. No one will tell me if I'm supposed to pay the $40 at each visit in addition to the $50 I am already paying each month or if they'll just add those to my bill. In fact, not only did they not tell me, but they made me feel like I was stupid for even asking, like I was one of those problem patients or something.
All I want is a bit of reality here. It's not unreasonable to think that when a doctor's office is discussing financial arrangements with a patient they should discuss all of it, not just today's, because the next 18 months' visits are all related to today's. I said to mom that I think it's unethical for me not to have been told this. She acted like that was a stupid thing to say, said it wasn't unethical but just poor customer service. Well, now I'm flying into a rage over this. This is no big deal to her. We'll just pay it, she says. Um, with what? Seen my budget lately, Mom? Seen your own budget lately, Mom? Ok, well the truth is I modified my budget. It'll take me longer to pay the bills now, but it's not impossible. But I still feel like the doctor's office did not give me the information I needed to decide or plan how I would take care of all this stuff. If they had, I would have pushed harder with Medicaid before the surgery or something. As it stands now, unless they tack the upcoming visits onto the bill I'm paying out, they will be getting 20% of my monthly income, and that's kind of a lot, especially when another 40% is going to my parents and I may or may not see it or get any help from them with any of these things I'm paying.
Ok, I've got a lot of stress. So the question is this. How much of this moodiness is stress and how much could be hormones, chemical imbalance, or result of the eye meds? There's not any way to tell, which is eventually where the conversation with Dad went. He did tell me after I started talking about the irrational episodes that it sounds like some of it might be chemical or something. But the real kicker is this. I was telling him that I was so used to being told that it's all in my head that I felt like I didn't know when I was ignoring my need for help (i.e. meds). I wanted him to say a certain thing, but I didn't think he would. He's the king of telling me I'm in control of how I feel. Well, when I started saying this, he came over and held me and told me it was ok to ask about the meds. I didn't realize how stuck in this need to hold it together and please him I was until he did that. I just lost it. I bawled.
So tomorrow I'll be calling and making an appointment with the psychiatrist. Man, I'm glad I don't live in TX. If they give me back the meds I stopped, I'll be up to a whopping seven meds. I'm already on five. That was the other reason I didn't want to ask about the meds. But I need to quit denying myself something that might help me.
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