I haven’t done much in the last week. I’m letting the dust settle. I have spent time doing fun things at the computer and spent many hours watching movies and old TV shows streamed over the internet. Despite not doing much there have been several important developments.
Jessica and I talked at some length about the current issues in my life. We also discussed the matter of getting comfortable with restaurants. She wanted to order food from a local establishment on Wednesday, and have the two of us go and pick it up. I know she wanted this to be a little something “special” on our last day before the holidays. She is taking two well deserved weeks off. But I panicked and would not consent to attempting this. Since I am unable to discuss my issues with restaurants verbally, I asked if I could write it down and hand it to her. I spent two days struggling to write a letter only to find myself unable to hand it over. If she had brought the subject up the next time I saw her I think it would have worked fine. I tried to bring up the subject but was rendered mute by anxiety and could not utter a word nor even a squeak. Wednesday we went out and did two errands I had been struggling with (credit union to make a deposit and town office to pay a tax bill), then grocery shopping.
I’m very disgusted with myself. I completely spaced out and forgot to get a Christmas card for Jessica before our last meeting. I can’t believe I did that!
On Thursday I got a call from my case manager whom I hadn’t seen in some time. We were supposed to meet last week but she called to confirm when I was in the middle of a major panic and I was not able to answer. She doesn’t know me well yet and mistakenly took no answer to mean I had forgotten our appointment and was not home. But I digress. Getting back to her call this week… she said she hadn’t talked to Jessica lately but I got a funny feeling she might have, from what she said to my answering machine before I picked up. I got the distinct impression she was aware of what happened last week. She came out here on Friday. Mostly we talked about my issues with the house, the dental situation, and my concerns about not being able to maintain this lifestyle. She asked how things were going with Jessica and DLS. I said it is going great but Jessica has the next two weeks off. To make a long story short, my case manager is coming out again Monday, and will take me to that very important appointment next Friday. We agreed to decide at that time whether and when to meet the following week.
I got a call from Jessica. She had received a call from my primary care provider’s office. It seems my PCP decided to sign the paperwork for MaineCare pre-approval after all. Perhaps it was my letter that did it. We don’t know exactly what she submitted for comments, if anything. I can only hope it was positive.
My case manager is going to contact MaineCare and see if she can get the deadline extended. She is also planning to make an attempt to “strong arm” my therapist into talking to her and/or me. It will be interesting to see how that goes.
Upon being promised I would not even have to walk through the door if I didn’t feel up to it, I agreed at the last minute to let my case manager come and get me this past Friday afternoon and take me to their company Christmas party, which is open to both employees and clients. I did go in for a few minutes but that was enough for me. I wanted to stay and meet people but it was too noisy for me. I couldn’t hear what anybody was saying and the high noise level was quickly getting on my nerves. But at least I did attempt it.
I’m feeling quite a lot calmer but still worried and depressed.