(Thread IKs:
Josherino)
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I've been out of it, and it's worse today. I'm coming down with something, and hopefully it's not covid. I've been demanding everyone in my support group wears masks. It feels like a losing battle. I've been working with our new intern on a lot of new stuff for our chapter. It's nice to finally work with a similarly-aged peer who gets it. I'm tired of having to explain poo poo. Seems like I usually focus my energy on trying to convince people that problems actually exist, and that cops/insurance companies/etc are not here to help. We may have to work with these organizations, but we sure as hell don't need to share their propaganda or pretend that they're good. A friend is on the verge of a (long overdue, in my opinion) divorce. Trying to be there for her without ramping up my own anxiety/depression. Gene Hackman Fan posted:Work bullshit That's hosed.
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Mar 31, 2022 18:40
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I feel terrible. Had a break down, left the office and flung my laptop bag into the bushes in front of the office. Not that I was going leave it there, just did it out of anger without even thinking about it. Realizing I've been planning self harm and continue to despite being aware. I wish this would stop. I hate even typing this. I hate having no one to talk to. I hate being isolated and feeling worthless. I hate that I cannot even enjoy a simple day. Every moment I am in agony and can't wait for this to end. I go to bed alone. I wake up alone. Besides conference calls at work I don't communicate with other people much. I don't know how to function anymore and I'm at my breaking point.
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Apr 1, 2022 01:35
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I often feel disappointed in my life, despondent even when I really start reflecting on certain things. I don't even know what the gently caress to do anymore.
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Apr 1, 2022 04:54
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The Demilich posted:I often feel disappointed in my life, despondent even when I really start reflecting on certain things. I don't even know what the gently caress to do anymore. What are you looking for? Like, what do you want to see reflected in your life the next time you look? I'm sorry you feel this way, and it's super loving hard to go through that. I know the feeling  .
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Apr 1, 2022 05:17
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Nailed it. There are two steps to life: (1) Everything is habit. (2) The brain builds for what it believes. Everything else is contained in these two steps, down to your breathing and other learned physiology. My best success was just pausing and refocusing on the sounds around me. It's enough of a distraction that even a microsecond of recognition of this lays the seed of understanding and self control, and you can stretch it more and more until whatever you don't want to have as part successfully unlearns. Rinse and repeat. Obviously, deep introspection is still beautiful and encouraged. Enjoy.
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Apr 1, 2022 05:33
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tinstaach posted:Hey, so I've been seeing a therapist for about a year and a half now, the second one I've ever talked to, and he's unquestionably helped me get to a better place than I was in when I started seeing him. And I think he just got drunk during a session with me. this is a month out from the post but I'm replying now in case other people have been in a similar situation and there is something beyond the possible impairment that should be pointed out. Self-disclosure by a therapist in session is only appropriate when it serves the clients' need and any therapist starting off a session by mentioning that they are having a hard week is a red flag. That might seem a bit heartless and I'm not saying that anyone should immediately drop their work if a therapist says something like this, but if it is happens even once you should be on the look out for indicators that the clinician isn't as "locked in" as they should be once you walk through that door/log on. Most often self-disclosure by a therapist is going to be used to help generate rapport and there are a million other more appropriate items that could be shared by a therapist to serve this purpose before they get to something that could disrupt the treatment in such a severe manner. The major issue is that a disclosure like this includes an implicit bid for empathy on the part of the client, now you are sitting there in session thinking (subconsciously or VERY consciously) "gosh well i hope I don't do anything to make this person's week even worse! I'll make sure to only share the positive bits of the week." There could be an instance where self-disclosure of this nature might be helpful, but it would need to be made explicit to the client why it is occurring. For instance, perhaps there is a client that really struggles to empathize with others so the therapist might remark on their personal mental state over the past week and follow it up with inquiry about how it makes the client feel to hear those details. but even then there are probably better ways to investigate this phenomenon. It sounds like this is no way what was happening in this case though and that you (OP) might even be on the OTHER end of that spectrum, overly aware and concerned about your impact on the emotional state of those around you. in that case it would be doubly important to not trigger that response UNLESS the therapist was then prepared to explore that experience with you. This self-disclosure isn't something that you would likely go report to any advisory board, its natural for clinicians to slip up sometimes, be overly casual in a moment, etc. But if these "slip-ups" seem to show up on a semi-regular basis its uhhh not good! To the OP: hoping you got some closure or understanding around this whole event. i can't imagine the kind of discomfort that situation would create and I hope that clinician is getting the help they clearly need. Don't forget, your calling it out or reporting it to someone coudl be the thing that pulls them out of the spiral. its not YOUR responsibility to fix them of course, but its important to keep that in mind.
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Apr 1, 2022 18:00
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No. 6 posted:I feel terrible. Had a break down, left the office and flung my laptop bag into the bushes in front of the office. Not that I was going leave it there, just did it out of anger without even thinking about it. Last night I dreamt of being with someone, a partner. someone I've never met, something new in my life, and I wasn't alone. they were understanding of me and yet still able to love me, some miracle of grace. nothing went wrong, no loss, just endlessly running towards one another to embrace. my dream let me have it like that until l finally woke up. Now I'm back alone and the dating app is again telling me there is no more available love in my area. I feel ya.
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Apr 1, 2022 18:16
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whiggles posted:Last night I dreamt of being with someone, a partner. someone I've never met, something new in my life, and I wasn't alone. they were understanding of me and yet still able to love me, some miracle of grace. I've had exactly the same dreams before. It's a rough one.
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Apr 1, 2022 18:54
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I hate having OCD, and I hate how the general lack of control I feel in life manifests itself in anxious insignificant attempts at controling things within my power. For example, I just set up my television and my VHS and blu-ray players last night. The VHS produced sound just fine via the RCA connectors, but the HDMI from the blu-ray was producing picture, but no sound. It's a brand new cord, so it's unlikely to be a mechanical failure; after all, if the cord was bad, then I shouldn't be getting picture either. It was also not the television itself, as the VHS played tapes with both video and sound, so, it must be either the blu-ray or the TV's settings. It's late, and I have work in the morning, so this gets relegated to Tomorrow's Problem. But, I cannot sleep. It bothers me on a very deep and almost emotional level that the sound is not working as it ought to. Cut to today, and I spend most of my lunch break testing settings on the TV, and, when that doesn't solve the problem, digging through boxes and boxes looking for the blu-ray's remote. Finally, the problem is resolved in a sub-sub-menu of the blu-ray player that allows one to switch off the HDMI sound going to the TV's speakers, and instead run it through a 5.1 surround system using the various multi-color component plugs (said HDMI sound being disabled by default for some reason, and not contained without the "sound" menu, but instead the "HDMI connection" menu). All of this makes little sense, as I have no plans to watch movies anytime soon, nor is there anyone else in the household who needs this blu-ray player functioning Right Now. I have maybe two DVDs unpacked. Making this work correctly is about as low a priority as is possible. The OCD catastrophizing makes even less sense than usual, as, very worst case, I have to buy a new blu-ray machine, and I'm out $50. Annoying, but hardly life ending. Both the TV itself and the player were gifts from a friend moving back overseas, years ago, so it's not like I'm annoyed at an expensive purchase not functioning correctly. No one will be hurt, no one will hate me, no one would even know or care if the thing works or not. The anxiety is well out of scale to any possible negative outcome. And yet there I was, unable to eat, unable to concentrate on work, and getting a bad night's sleep, all because a setting in a sub-sub-menu needed to be changed from "off" to "on" on a device I'm likely to use perhaps once or twice this month, if at all. My mom was exposed to Covid the other day, and, being a bizarre anti-vax person who only got her initial shots because she'd otherwise lose her job, isn't boosted, and can't seem to square the need for a good mask versus going out to eat with her friends. She's nervous to take a rapid test, because what if it's positive? And anyways, isn't this just a flu, and she read online that it's actually better to have a mild case while vaccinated for greater protection, and she refuses to live in fear and and and... I can't do anything to help her. I've tried, and she does not want to hear me. Anything further would just injure the otherwise decent relationship I have with her. But, I can hook up a blu-ray player correctly and gently caress with it until it works right. Just wish I didn't feel like such an idiot for sublimating and fixating on these things. And I feel no relief or pleasure or satisfaction for having gotten things set up correctly, and know that all of this will soon manifest itself again in a misaligned typebar on one of my typewriters or new weather-stripping on the doors to prevent that annoying whistling sound when the wind picks up or something... Toph Bei Fong has issued a correction as of 21:42 on Apr 1, 2022 |
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Apr 1, 2022 21:39
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No. 6 posted:I've had exactly the same dreams before. It's a rough one. lol I remember I had a dream like that where I met someone at the height of covid and woke up suddenly because I realized there wasn't anywhere open to go
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Apr 2, 2022 06:42
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I've got therapy later today and I don't really know what to say to him. I'm feeling OK. I think I look better than at any other point in my life and that feels weird - it's been an axiom of my life that "I look like poo poo" and now I just...don't feel disgusted when I look in the mirror. At some level this feels like a betrayal. I know that I've got some fairly severe mental problems still ongoing but they all feel kind of managed at this point. I mostly feel like I'm kind of vaguely stuck and possibly even trapped but I'm not sure how to approach this, I'm not sure what would get me out of this rut or what the rut even really is at this point.Toph Bei Fong posted:
Oof, yeah. I mean tbh I think this is very normal. Not sure if I'd say its healthy but it is very normal to react to a situation that is bad and out of your control by doing something "productive" even if it doesn't help with the actual situation at hand. I got a lot physically healthier this year and I can talk about all sorts of more wholesome motivations but the actual real fuel underneath it all was that I was spiralling out because of stuff I didn't have any reasonable control over and either I made myself sick with worry or I poured it into the gym and other bullshit like that. And I just kept burning that anxious energy on stupid distractions until that particular emotional storm passed.
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Apr 4, 2022 16:54
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I feel that I’m fortunate in a lot of ways but man do I feel burned the gently caress out. I work at a unionized electric utility call center, and have great health insurance and pay (around $41 an hour) but god, taking back to back calls all day long sucks so bad. Many of my coworkers have been with the company for decades and the thought of that kind of terrifies me, even if I have a pension to look forward to. I have depression and ADHD so long term planning and motivation are a big challenge for me. This past October I was called in for a random drug test and failed due to recent weed use. Thankfully, due to the union, the first time we fail a drug test is in effect a freebie and we have to go to “treatment” which in my case was remote therapy twice a week to mainly deal with my depression rather than a rehab or something like that. I ended up being off work for almost 2 months on paid short term disability, just had to forego a week’s worth of pay for the first week of it. It was amazing basically being on vacation for 2 months. I do have an infant son though, who is now 14 months and was like 10 months old then, so I got to spend more time with him. I’ve been back to work since January and man does it suck. I have an open intermittent FMLA that I have on file to use whenever it gets overwhelming where I take a couple hours off. (I’ve been working from home since Covid). This past paycheck ended up being like half its normal amount because I had used almost a full week’s worth of unpaid FMLA. Other paychecks were short too but not as much. It sucks that my brain is so broken that I can’t even get through a 40 hour work week at a job that a lot of other people would probably kill to have. I’m thinking about getting my psychiatrist to fill out the form so I can take another 6-8 week short term disability. I feel like it could possibly screw me over when it comes to getting promoted out of the call center though so I’m not sure if I should do that or not. and what I should do with the time off to better improve my mental resilience so I don’t just masturbate and play video games all day.
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Apr 4, 2022 21:32
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You make $41/hr answering phones and they do random drug tests? What the actual gently caress. That sucks man.
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Apr 4, 2022 21:49
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hailthefish posted:You make $41/hr answering phones and they do random drug tests? What the actual gently caress. That sucks man. yup. federal DOT regulations require it for my company. even though I don’t drive trucks or anything. Pretty sure without the union I would be making like 15 an hour at best. But of course since the company pays us so well they skimp on hiring new people so we’re chronically understaffed with customers having to wait 10 minutes or more to reach an agent. Can’t tell you how many times I get bitched at about the long wait times from boomers who don’t know how to use a website.
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Apr 4, 2022 22:00
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the day after my last post, ~6pm posted:
Right, so I have managed to sleep since then. Let's have a think about what's happened. I quit my job. Did I do anything wrong? Maybe; every decision has a cost, and sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits. When you find yourself going from the job to the ER because your blood pressure was in a hypertensive crisis, there's not much you can put in a pro column to outweigh a con like 'dead.' I made an effort, and it wasn't good enough for them. My health is worth more than $14/hr (and if that motherfucker wants to talk to me like that again, he can pay fair-market rates like every other cheap bastard on Grindr) So what's the plan? Well, it's been helping ma recouperate, helping pa when we aren't arguing with each other, and taking a couple of days before confronting the existential dread of yet another customer service gig. The crushing despair that comes with job hunting in the end times I've more or less gotten used to. But I'm also going to be trying something else while I'm also job hunting-- if I'm not surrounded by rejection and bad news on every single front, maybe I will be in a better frame of mind for when an opportunity does come along. Ain't figured what that'll be, but I need to settle on something.
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Apr 7, 2022 20:33
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I walked out on my job. Going to for for disability and find a new employer. This poo poo isn't worth my health.
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Apr 7, 2022 20:42
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No. 6 posted:I walked out on my job. Going to for for disability and find a new employer. This poo poo isn't worth my health. 
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Apr 8, 2022 00:06
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I've been in a funk for a couple months now and it's just getting worse and worse and it's affecting my job performance which only makes me feel guilty and scared on top of whatever awful feeling this is.
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Apr 9, 2022 04:33
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I've put so much of myself into my local NAMI chapter. I've been running the entire peer side of things for nearly 5 years. Pretty much everyone else involved is the parent of a peer. It seems like, by default, I'm viewed as their kid, their employee, or their therapy client. Feels like I have to provide a resume to be treated anything like an equal human being who's worthy of respect. I don't have that problem with other peers. They look right at me, as if we're on the same level. I love working with peers, and that's why I've stuck around. I nearly quit last week. Not just the board, but the entire loving organization. I started a new support group over zoom, and we've been meeting weekly for about a month. The family side of our NAMI chapter (read: everyone but me) started their Family to Family classes, and they scheduled one of them at the same time as my support group. Our zoom account only allows for one meeting at a time to be hosted. I knew this was going to be an issue. I tried to upgrade our account from pro to business, but apparently I would need to upgrade TEN accounts at once in order to host a second meeting at the same time. I was told by the president of our chapter to call zoom to get it resolved. I'm an unpaid volunteer. They started their class just before my support group, effectively cancelling mine. I didn't realize this was going to happen, and ended up scrambling to make the meeting happen. I ended up just upgrading my personal zoom account to pro, and sending the new meeting address to everyone right before it started. No one on the board offered any help, or anything resembling an apology. The next day, they were all complimenting each other on a job well done with their classes. I think I'm usually pretty chill, or at least I try to be. It's very easy to be that way when I'm in a deep depression, but I've been hypomanic recently. I knew I was itching for a fight. I was worried about overreacting, so I just set my phone down and walked away from it for the day. I talk to peers about these things, as I consider many of them to be close friends. I haven't bothered bringing this up to the board. I'm still getting calls, texts, and emails from board members requesting help with things. Those things may be NAMI-related or not. As the resident peer--the only peer willing to put up with these people--a lot of work is sent my way by default. As the resident millennial, of course all technical issues are sent my way. I know it's well-past time to set boundaries. It's incredibly frustrating knowing that I'm not stable. It's so hard to deal with people head-on when I'm in a deep depression. We have a new intern, and she's amazing. She has anxiety and depression, and is very stressed. I'm worried that forcing this issue will cause her problems, but I think that might just be an excuse. I'm still hypomanic, but not quite as angry as last week. I've been asking for help with the peer side of things for quite a while now. Our intern is the only person to ever offer me any practical help. She's an MSW student, and it bothers me to see the board texting her 24/7 to assign her secretarial work. I'm trying to help her where I can, and I offered to intervene with the board on her behalf. I know she's struggling, but I'm going to be careful not to be patronizing. I need to do something about my situation. I do a lot of things that I consider important through NAMI, and there are things that I enjoy doing. I've been connecting with other organizations recently, too. The local school district, the county advisory board for mental health, and others. I know them through NAMI, and I interact with them as a representative of NAMI. I don't like making threats, especially empty ones. I'm not going to threaten to quit. I might say that I was seriously considering quitting. It's seriously stressful to keep compartmentalizing like this. It's hard for me to get a good read on the situation, because I know my mood is all over the place. I'm dealing with side-effects of medication, and I don't know what else. The week this all happened, I could barely think or focus. I have no idea why. I think it was more than just anxiety. I'm going to think about what to say to the board. It probably needs to be an email. In my interactions with mental health professionals at other organizations, I keep encountering the same poo poo. They repeatedly call us "consumers." They call it "enabling" if someone dares to temporarily put a roof over our head. They call our hosed-up legal system "justice." They act like the recently-homeless people receiving section 8 vouchers are being irresponsible if they dare to allow their homeless friends stay them. I heard all these things in one short meeting a couple days ago. I was offered an application to join the county mental health advisory board. I'm going to keep attending, and think about signing up. I'm just trying to figure out how to get my message across in an effective way without burning a bunch of bridges that I could use to advocate for peers. My attempt at a calm, kind, respectful approach works well in support groups, but it seems to just get me ignored or outright steamrolled in other circumstances.
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Apr 9, 2022 16:17
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I was in a similar situation (volunteer position I put my life into while getting treated badly by the leader and deprioritized behind other members of the organization who were less effective and less interested in the job), and I never resolved it. This sounds very childish, and it doesn't apply to your situation, but I quit and took my expertise to one of our competitors (who paid me!!). It sucks rear end and feels bad to be in your position, and I had no idea this kind of stuff happened with groups like NAMI. Sorry you have to deal with that poo poo!!
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Apr 10, 2022 20:24
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Thanks for your validation and input. Feels a bit like I'm going crazy. I left another local mental health organization without warning (DBSA), and the support group mostly fell apart after that. It was also unpaid and stressful as hell. I know it wasn't my responsibility, but I still feel bad about leaving people I care about high and dry At least the meeting I mentioned wasn't directly a NAMI meeting. It was county-level, and was mostly bureaucrats and mental health professionals. Almost all of the volunteers I interact with at my local NAMI are non-peers, meaning they don't have a mental health diagnosis like me. I think there's a lot they will never understand due to a lack of personal experience. Ironically, the non-professional volunteers "get" it better than many of the people with fancy certifications. At least they don't call me a "consumer," or tell me that acknowledging discrimination is "not recovery oriented." I think this is all hitting me harder than ever because I'm seeing these issues in new ways. I'm interacting with high schoolers, and some of them want to volunteer at this NAMI chapter. Those students are so far ahead of the curve. They care, understand quite a bit, and go far beyond what anyone could expect of them. It kills me to think of them enduring this stuff. I see our intern's phone blowing up because our older volunteer base doesn't understand how to use a website. They demand that she "fix" the functional improvements she just made to our webpage. The county board meeting just hammered home how much the powers-that-be don't understand or even empathize with us. I plan on contacting a representative from the local 24-hour mental health urgent care, which I stayed at last year. It was unpleasant, to say the least. The representative gave a presentation, and someone asked about the cost of staying at the place. She touted the advantages of the place, and added "can you really put a price on that?"  Good thing my mic was off.There was a retired psychiatrist at the county meeting who seemed to be much closer to getting it than anyone else. He acknowledged that everyone mostly wants to hear the "success" stories, rather than real perspectives from people who live with a mental illness. I may contact him.
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Apr 10, 2022 23:55
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Not everything is horrible. I'm stressed, but there's good stuff happening, too. We have a nestbox for wild barn owls. They laid eggs again, and the first one hatched yesterday.
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Apr 11, 2022 16:44
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IMO many or even most institutions that use unpaid labor are breeding grounds for predatory dynamics. Thievery of physical labor, time labor etc, then emotional labor too. I've seen so many "non-profit" orgs like this. There's some strain of them that seem to pull the predatory narcissistic leaders to the top and they are experts at working people with lovely or no boundaries, and thus the system is complete because everyone is happy: the narcissists are happy, the organization is happy because they are getting good labor for cheap and things are running, and the people who let their boundaries get invaded are happy, because they are fulfilling something unprocessed within them. Some people can't stop giving, and they run themselves into the dirt trying to give enough to be recognized, but it's never enough because it's not meant to be enough. It's the same mechanism as capitalism, you just feed it till you dissolve.
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Apr 11, 2022 18:49
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sounds a lot like the dynamic in a lot of creative industries (film/animation, game dev, etc.) and for similar reasons
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Apr 11, 2022 19:40
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thehandtruck posted:IMO many or even most institutions that use unpaid labor are breeding grounds for predatory dynamics. Thievery of physical labor, time labor etc, then emotional labor too. I've seen so many "non-profit" orgs like this. There's some strain of them that seem to pull the predatory narcissistic leaders to the top and they are experts at working people with lovely or no boundaries, and thus the system is complete because everyone is happy: the narcissists are happy, the organization is happy because they are getting good labor for cheap and things are running, and the people who let their boundaries get invaded are happy, because they are fulfilling something unprocessed within them. Some people can't stop giving, and they run themselves into the dirt trying to give enough to be recognized, but it's never enough because it's not meant to be enough. It's the same mechanism as capitalism, you just feed it till you dissolve. I honestly appreciate your frank assessment. I've been through this with other nonprofits I haven't mentioned yet. It's a pattern with me. Feels like I'm trying to prove to myself that I do more than produce carbon dioxide. No one values what I do in any material way, and that seems to include me. I quit my previous support group at DBSA due to a narcissist and some toxic, enabling people. I did literally everything for that organization for over a year. None of that earns me any respect. I'm just left with people expecting more of me. The support group I've been a part of at NAMI has someone like that, too. There are 3 facilitators, including me. The narcissist and their best friend are the other 2. It's embarrassing to admit to being bullied at a support group, of all places. I stopped responding to this person's texts, calls and emails. I stopped doing what that person told me, and I'm not simply agreeing with what they say any more. I know that's not the same as drawing a solid boundary, though. I'm actually scheduled to attend all-day trainings over the next two days, so I can teach other people to run NAMI classes. Unpaid, of course. I could potentially get paid for teaching those classes, but every little bit of paid work involves a shitload of unpaid labor to make it happen. I have people who care about me at the organization, but they all have a vested interest in keeping me right where I am. I'm at my limit, and I'll probably end up quitting to one degree or another. I could quit the board and all of the extra bullshit they piled on me, but I'd still be beholden to the organization if I stick around. I started that new zoom support group, and I could continue it without NAMI. I started interacting with county-level bureaucrats and professionals about policy, but I think that's just going to be the same old bullshit. I was thinking I needed NAMI to continue doing that, but that's probably not true. It may not be something I should put myself through, anyway. If I attend that training tomorrow, I'll bring these problems up. I'm curious to know what peers experience at other chapters of NAMI. I don't want to keep enabling this poo poo, and I need to decide if that means leaving the board, my local chapter, or the entire organization.
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Apr 11, 2022 21:53
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Uganda Loves Me posted:I did literally everything for that organization for over a year. None of that earns me any respect. I'm just left with people expecting more of me. Efficient workers get more work. And yes nonprofits are a nightmare. A LOT of my family works nonprofits and I think I despite private nonprofits even more than for-profits, they do the same stuff but are more brazenly emotionally manipulative.
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Apr 11, 2022 22:30
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It feels good to be the put-upon guy. You're the hero, you shield other people from abuse, you have to scramble and there are villains to hate. It's the perfect situation for someone going through mania. Don't change anything, boundaries are for cowards that aren't really dedicated to [local NAMI chapter]
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Apr 11, 2022 22:40
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lol "Working at NAMI is driving me crazy!"
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Apr 11, 2022 22:43
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Jorge Bell posted:lol "Working at NAMI is driving me crazy!" Maybe we could use a new thread title?I'm going to skip the two days of unpaid training. Our intern offered to talk to me in person tomorrow. She's awesome. EDIT: Yeah, I'm quitting the board. I'm going to keep the new support group separate from NAMI. For now, I'll continue to attend the other, official, NAMI support group. I have gained a HUGE amount from the peer support side of NAMI. My support system is bigger than ever now. Keeping this stuff to myself hasn't helped me or anyone else. I'm going to raise the issue of the narcissist facilitator, too. I absolutely love interacting with my peers, and I'm realizing that I don't need to put up with this treatment to continue that. Uganda Loves Me has issued a correction as of 03:07 on Apr 12, 2022 |
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Apr 12, 2022 02:23
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No. 6 posted:I walked out on my job. Going to for for disability and find a new employer. This poo poo isn't worth my health. Good choice. Just a heads up though, in case you're in the U.S., you can do one or another, disability from social security sadly requires you to sit on your rear end and do nothing for months/years. Searching for work will show you are not disabled. Gene: I saw the original post, but I'll say I'm in an extremely similar situation, and the lack of agency is extremely frustrating, I know. Let's hope it turns around for the both of us. Ronwayne has issued a correction as of 03:19 on Apr 12, 2022 |
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Apr 12, 2022 03:17
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When I tried to apply for short term disability due to a torn rotator cuff in my shoulder, in New York, they told me the most I could get was $100/week. My rent was $2300/month. America sucks rear end and wants people to die!
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Apr 12, 2022 03:39
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I was recently rejected for food stamps in California. I mentioned that I sometimes "prepare food" with my family. They thanked me for my honesty before informing me that I'd have to include my parents' income on my application, too. EDIT: They started off by sending me a letter that informed me of my appointment time and date. The appointment was apparently scheduled to take place the day before the letter arrived. They sent me another letter chastising me for "not keeping my appointment." I think I'm going to refocus my efforts on doing stuff that results in me receiving money for my labor. Uganda Loves Me has issued a correction as of 04:21 on Apr 12, 2022 |
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Apr 12, 2022 04:18
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Uganda Loves Me posted:Not everything is horrible. I'm stressed, but there's good stuff happening, too. We have a nestbox for wild barn owls. They laid eggs again, and the first one hatched yesterday. I only just jumped into this thread so excuse my ignorance if so, but there are a ton of paid peer jobs where I am at that would treat you 1000x better and recognize your value as a peer. Does your state not have official paid peer support positions yet? Peer supports are the best but I'm sort of biased bigtime.
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Apr 13, 2022 03:16
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Yeah, I want to get in on that. We've had disruptions in peer employment training programs thanks to the county cutting funding and COVID related stuff. I want to get a job through the school district or the county doing peer support. I spent the day with some peers I know through NAMI, and it was helpful. Still hypomanic, and trying to use self-care to keep it from escalating. I spoke with our intern for a couple hours, and have a lot to think about. I feel a whole lot less stressed after deciding to quit. For now, I'm going to limit what I do to my new support group. That's the kind of thing I enjoy doing.
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Apr 13, 2022 05:19
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Uganda Loves Me posted:I was recently rejected for food stamps in California. I mentioned that I sometimes "prepare food" with my family. They thanked me for my honesty before informing me that I'd have to include my parents' income on my application, too. I made it clear that my mailing address was not my home residence and i was not part of my parents household for those purposes due to being semi-transient, and that my parents were attempting to sabatoge my ability to get foodstamps to keep me under their control. Just full on going "help i'm in an abusive situation that only YOU, random bureaucrat, can save me from" can solve apparently provided the humanization needed to my case to get me over the hump. The main way to get anything from a system is to appear as a human to whatever cog in the machine you're talking to. The amount of help I get increases dramatically when I successfully do that. Ronwayne has issued a correction as of 20:56 on Apr 13, 2022 |
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Apr 13, 2022 20:54
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I hadn't really thought about that approach. I'm going to try applying again. I sent in my long-rear end resignation letter to [local NAMI chapter]. I raised as many issues as I could think of. I wanted to just say "I quit," but I figured I'd never end up returning to these issues. I had my letter peer reviewed, too (get it?). I did my best to own up to my mistakes, too. I know I essentially set no boundaries, and allowed the situation to fester for years. I hope, with a better understanding of where I hosed up, I can begin to make some changes. Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone who responded. I needed the blunt feedback. Hopefully I can stop being the main character of the thread--at least for now. I have a D&D game tonight. The second owl egg hatched. I feel a hell of a lot better than I did last week.
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Apr 14, 2022 01:58
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I had a sub-par day.
MLK Ultra has issued a correction as of 12:52 on Apr 14, 2022 |
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Apr 14, 2022 05:11
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Uganda Loves Me posted:I have a D&D game tonight. The second owl egg hatched. I feel a hell of a lot better than I did last week. That's the content I need. Thank you for that.
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Apr 14, 2022 05:33
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MLK Ultra posted:dealing with a abusive parent That sucks!
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Apr 14, 2022 07:15
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Jorge Bell posted:That sucks! Thank you for calling a spade a spade. I'm high INT. low WIS. and i'm staggered how long it took to realize this isn't normative behavior. like i said. i didn't need a "oh, you're so right." just. that sucks. and saying it sucks doesn't end it. thanks for ... thanks. <3.
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Apr 14, 2022 08:39
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