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I will add to this as/if necessary.
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I will add to this if/as necessary.
Sometimes it helps to write down the facts of a situation, and since I make everything else about my alleged “life” public I might as well do this here.
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Con
I will add to this as other pros & cons occur to me. These are the obvious ones.
Bits and Pieces… meaning this is a collection of thoughts on various topics. But that could have a double meaning. I feel like I ought to be picking up bits and pieces of myself, because I have completely fallen apart.
I spent two hours Monday ranting, raving, pacing, and trembling in front of my poor DLS worker. I really need to apologize, but doubt my anxiety will allow me the luxury of doing so.
I have barely manged to be outside the house for several days. Monday I tried five times to walk to the curb and check the mail but panicked and ran inside shaking like a leaf in a hurricane every time I heard a car coming. I went out at 2:30 this morning to get the mail, but only after listening very carefully to be sure I heard no cars.
Later this morning I did manage to get out and do a survey of power line poles that supposedly are being worked on in response to my radio noise complaint. I left at first light and took all the off-road shortcuts through the woods, mud, swamp, and river to avoid people. This is close to as bad as it gets. I’ve spent most of the day shaking and having issues with my digestive system from the stress of that outing. The fact I went at all says a lot about how much I would like to get this cleared up and save my hobby. By the way I found no evidence of work having been done anywhere.
Tomorrow I am meeting my new case manager who was just assigned to me today. I hope I can manage to communicate my needs effectively with this one. If you’ve been reading for a while you know the last two didn’t work out well. My DLS worker thinks this one will be good for me, which is a hopeful sign. She knows me better than anyone.
I feel the time has come to start making inquiries to see if I have alternative housing options… like some sort of group home or assisted living facility that I could get into. I’m not sure if there are any for people with severe anxiety but I feel I need to explore all possible options. If I can’t make this place work, I will need someplace to go.
Things are getting worse.
Yesterday I got a letter from Social Security. They are reviewing my disability status. This couldn’t come at a worse time as I don’t have doctors to provide relevant medical statements. My current primary care physician has seen me a couple of times for physical issues but has limited knowledge of my mental health status. I am currently between mental health providers, having left my previous one because I didn’t feel he was really trying to help and for other reasons. My current transportation situation isn’t helping in finding a new one. This may be a difficult review process.
There is a very stressful issue with regard to some paperwork with the ham radio club. We are supposed to be signing a memorandum of understanding between myself and the club regarding my repeater station and the supporting infrastructure. The club President wasn’t able to make the repeater committee meeting last week so he left the documents with me to bring to the meeting. I brought them as agreed, but I was apparently the only one present who knew we were supposed to sign them at that meeting. My anxiety prevented me from bringing up the subject.
Because of this, I’m not sure how I will handle this at the next full club meeting where the MoU is supposed to be entered into the records. I am at high risk of going into total panic and not attending that meeting. That would certainly not be a good start to a new, more formal relationship with the club. If I’m not at that meeting I will miss out on other discussion and voting on matters critical to the future of my repeater which I have worked so hard on these last 15 years.
Last but not necessarily least there is an issue with trying to find a way for me to get my hair cut. The nearest barber is 30 miles away and has very unpredictable hours. One needs to call first to see if he is in, which isn’t practical for me. Obviously 30 miles is not happening with my current transportation status. I have been going there with help from a social worker but a more practical arrangement needs to be found.
There is a woman who goes to clients’ homes and cuts hair. My dad and I used to have her come to his apartment and cut our hair before he went to the nursing home. I was never very comfortable with her because she asks too many personal questions. As fate would have it, she was scheduled to come on the day my dad got sick two years ago. I was in crisis at the time, essentially homeless, but trying to help my dad. I ended up having to call an ambulance for him. The woman who was to cut our hair saw the ambulance outside and decided to cancel. Naturally she called to let us know, and guess who had to deal with yet another phone call? The entire situation, especially the phone calls, plunged me deeper into crisis and I ended up having to go away for crisis intervention.
About a year ago, my DLS worker tried to get me re-established with that woman to cut my hair. My worker made the initial call, but I was never in when the woman called to schedule something and was not up to playing phone tag. Eventually we just let the whole thing drop.
Having revisited this issue, we are making another attempt to see if this can be made to work. My DLS worker has again made the initial call, this time leaving very specific instructions on how we need this $@!*% phone tag thing to work. As yet there has been no call back. I’m thinking the woman recognized the number and doesn’t want me as a client given what happened last time. What worries me is there is so much anxiety over this whole situation I am at risk of total panic and being a no show if we ever do get things set up.
This could get really ugly. We’re trying to set it up so my DLS worker will be here at the same time. So if I freak out and disappear, I will also be a no show for an appointment with my DLS worker. That is bad. There is no telling how missing one appointment will affect the next, but if there is a domino affect I could quickly lose DLS services over this. Two missed appointments in a row without prior notice, and I’m automatically out. Of course, with my disability status up for review and expecting this to be a challenging and eventful review, I need services more than ever now.
It is maddening – and mind boggling – how such simple things can easily turn into disaster. Anxiety and panic are totally over the top now. From a mental health standpoint, I am already in crisis. If this snowballs and leads to losing critical services and/or loss of my only income, I could soon be in physical crisis as well. Such is life with this condition. One never knows when the tide will turn. I have been trying to bring up these issues with anxiety/panic escalating to levels that could cause me to just disappear with my DLS worker (who has no clue how bad this is getting), but anxiety has rendered me unable to utter a word about it.
As the reality of my situation sinks in I am even more depressed and anxiety is through the roof. I feel as though I’ve been gutted. Every day I try to find some way to feel better, to get something done, to find some way past this problem. But it as as if something inside has died or is so utterly defeated and exhausted it refuses to fight any more.
The reality is I cannot survive without a vehicle. When I have the expense of vehicle ownership I cannot fix up my home. I keep trying to figure some way around that, but the fact is that’s the situation. This is the only comfortable home I have ever known. It is the first place I could feel at ease and get some break from constant severe anxiety. But there are issues with this place that could very well make it unsuitable for habitation at any time. No matter how I look at it, the inescapable conclusion is my days here are numbered unless some solution to the transportation problem can be found. I don’t know where I am going after I am forced out of my home. I cannot imagine going back to an apartment, and the honest truth is I would much rather die than suffer that constant, grinding, unrelenting severe anxiety again. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I end up homeless. In fact, I expect that to be my fate.
It would be easy to say this is all for lack of having some way to get to a town 15 miles away twice a month or so. That is a big part of it, and perhaps the most immediate. But there is more to it than that. The very first winter I find myself without case workers to prevent disaster, I will be without heat. It has happened before and it will happen again. I am not making any progress toward being able to obtain heating oil on my own. In fact I have taken a step backward on that. The first spring I find myself without case workers I will have a major reduction of income and will lose health insurance. I am no closer to being able to sustain those things on my own either. Those are just the certain disasters. Any number of other, non-recurring things could result in similar calamity. If I find myself without workers before I am able to get a vehicle of my own, I stand a chance of losing all of my income.
Looking back over my life I try to see if there was a time I went wrong, a road not taken, a road taken in error, an opportunity missed. I don’t know why I seem compelled to search for an explanation. I just cannot seem to accept this was an inevitable outcome, that it could not have been prevented somehow. Maybe I just need to find a way to blame myself. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot see what I might have missed.
Given that I see no possibility of this place being my long term home, I have lost all interest in working on it. There is no money to start new projects, but I can’t even force myself to work on things I already have supplies for. It just doesn’t matter any more.
Through it all I still desperately try to figure out solutions to these problems, but it is nothing more than an endless circle. The only answer to being able to maintain my home and keep it habitable is finding an alternative to vehicle ownership – but I cannot identify any options not already explored and failed. The other issues – being without heat, losing my income and health insurance, etc. are just as bad. I can identify no means of circumventing such problems when and if I lose the services that keep me afloat. With the financial crisis and programs being cut it is undoubtedly just a matter of time.
For weeks I have been unable to work on any of the smaller issues. I’m too stressed and down to be able to handle it. I’m just wasting time and services that someone with a realistic chance of getting better should be getting. I’m thinking about ending those services. If I am ultimately going to and up homeless and in crisis anyway, why not just get it over with.
OK… so I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Why am I feeling so depressed?
Well, let’s see. I just turned 48. When I was young I had so many dreams. I was going to go to college, have an exciting career, fall in love, get married and raise a family, maybe do some traveling and see the world for myself. As I struggle with my illness through my twenties, even thirties, I still thought I would do all those things. When I turned 40 and was no closer to being able to do any of those things, I began to doubt I ever would. As the years continue to tick by, it becomes more and more obvious all those things are out. I missed out on life! This damn illness robbed me of having a life!
As it sunk in that some of those things weren’t going to happen, I downsized my dreams. Not all at once, but little by little. To compensate for losing the “big stuff”, I added new dreams – ones that seemed smaller, more manageable. For example, I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail. But every smaller dream I chased eluded me just as the big ones had.
Finally all I had left were small dreams. Things like fixing up my house, for example. Surely that was reachable? I really believed it was! I had a plan! Money was the only thing holding me back, but I knew how to fix that. I would give up having a vehicle and live a more healthy walking lifestyle. That would leave plenty of room in the budget for home repairs, over a period of time. But alas, it seems even this is not to be. I have failed to manage the walking lifestyle. I’m fine with day to day errands about town. I even enjoy it. But I just cannot find a way to get to medical/therapy appointments in the next town, 15 miles distant. It’s too far to walk. I tried bicycling but since it is 15 miles of steep hills that took too much out of me. With assistance I tried to get comfortable using the only semblance of public transportation we have, a government subsidized service to get the disabled and elderly to medical appointments. But the overhead in terms of phone calls for scheduling is too much. Reliability of the service is low. They left me stranded 15 miles from home the first time out! I just can’t handle it. So it seems I will have no choice but to buy a vehicle. Ownership and operating costs are so high I can say goodbye to any hope of fixing up my home. Which leaves the question what do I do 10 years from now (if I’m still alive) when this old place starts literally falling down around me?
It seems I am destined to live the rest of my days alone, isolated, under-achieving. Basically just existing, taking up space. Blah. No wonder I’m depressed.
I figured I could lift my spirits if I finished some long neglected projects around home… the aborted home improvement project from last year, re-taking the half acre clearing I created two years ago (which nature has been busy filling), doing some minor antenna work, and so on. Money wasn’t a deal breaker on any of those so it was just a matter of getting it done, right? Maybe.
After two days picking a little at projects here and there, today I decided to get started in earnest. I had been working about three hours when the “attack” hit. All of a sudden I felt acutely weak shaky, slightly nauseated and a bit disoriented. The world took on sort of a surreal quality, as though I and it were completely disconnected. I’ve written about these attacks before. They started six years ago. To date no reason has been found. Today’s episode was a bad one. As soon as I realized what was happening, I dropped everything and headed for the house. But, too weak and dizzy to walk, I fell and had to crawl the rest of the way. It has been several hours now, and while I have returned to normal mentally, my body is still weak and a bit shaky.
I will get up every morning and try to work as long as I can. If these attacks keep occurring, progress will be slow. This doesn’t do much for my depression. I get my mood up enough to devise a self-help plan only to be physically unable to move on it!
I’m just drifting through life right now. I haven’t been feeling well physically. I have no energy whatsoever. There are a hundred things I want to do, but I am vegetative most of the time. I feel totally exhausted and worn out.
I’m depressed. Maybe that explains the feeling so tired and not getting anything done. I had a recent birthday which has only served to remind me how much I’ve missed in life, how all my dreams didn’t come true. Damn this illness!
I don’t have much to write about. I get up every morning. I sit around thinking about how I wish I was accomplishing some of the tasks on my to do list, but feeling so tired I can barely bring myself to stand and walk across a room. At the end of the day I go to bed.
I made a decision and took action which may have a major impact on my life, either positive or negative. Concurrent with my present mission to get power line noise cleared up in my area, I had suggested to the executive officers of our local ham radio club, PARC (Piscataquis Amateur Radio Club) the idea of forming an RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) committee. Such a committee would assist club members who might be experiencing any form of RFI, whether it be from power lines, misbehaving electronic devices, or whatever. It really encompasses quite a broad spectrum of things.
The PARC Executive Committee discussed the idea at their recent meeting, and the idea was put before the membership at last night’s general meeting. The members present approved the idea and I volunteered to serve on the committee, using my years of experience, my time, and my test equipment (including Mr. power line noise sniffer extraordinaire 🙂 The result? I am now Chair of the PARC RFI Committee! At the moment it is a committee of one, and may remain so for some time.
I made it very clear that I was not offering to be a point of contact between those experiencing RFI and owners of devices causing it, that I was only volunteering to aid club members in figuring out what the source of their RFI is and suggesting corrective measures. That means I will only be working with ham radio operators, generally one on one, which I’m usually comfortable with. Still, there is potential for some serious anxiety here. I fear having to somehow work around issues with my anxiety. In particular not being able to walk up to someone’s door and knock. I’m hopeful this issue will be mitigated by the fact I don’t have a vehicle, therefore the likely expectation and plan (I hope!) would be the member requesting assistance will pick me up at my home and provide transportation. That would make things very much easier.
As committee chair I will also be responsible for making reports to the PARC on RFI committee activities. That is not a potential problem.
So, while I am clearly somewhat apprehensive wondering what I have gotten myself into, I am at the same time excited to have found a role in which I believe my knowledge and equipment can be put to use helping others.
Also I decided to take yet another financial risk. Yesterday I ordered an additional piece of equipment for hunting electrical sparking (usually on power lines). It’s another sniffer of sorts, but instead of listening for radio noise, this one is ultrasonic. It is a very sensitive electronic “super ear” that listens for sound waves above the range of human hearing. Electrical sparking makes such high frequency sounds. While the radio frequency sniffer device can lead one to the right area and often identify a specific power pole, this one can often confirm beyond any doubt that sparking is occurring on that pole and even narrow it down to specific pieces of hardware up there.
I’m telling myself this financial risk is acceptable in that if worse comes to worse and I absolutely need to buy a vehicle for survival purposes, I can raise money quickly by selling some or all of my ham radio equipment. Although I would hate to do that, the idea is sound. I could in fact raise significant capital on short notice.
Early morning anxiety attacks, that is. I hadn’t had one in weeks, a fact which somehow I had managed to overlook until this morning. I awoke having one of those horrible can’t breathe, can’t think attacks with no apparent focus.
I asked myself what has changed that might bring this on again? I can think of only two things: financial decisions and a tentatively planned visit with my dad.
I’m very seriously considering buying another piece of equipment to help me locate power line problems. If I do that will delay having enough money to buy a vehicle by yet another month or two (putting it at late summer or early autumn 2013). I’m worried about getting into serious trouble with this lifestyle if I lose my support system. I’m angry and depressed over having to make that choice (to go back to owning a vehicle and not having money for other things like home repair). On the one hand I know I can’t afford to spend any more money, prolonging this worry about what happens if I lose my support system. On the other hand my hobby, the one thing I counted on to help keep me going and safe from total meltdown has become unavailable due to the noise problem. I really do feel the need for more tools to help sort that out if my hobby is to be saved.
I’ve made tentative plans with my DLS worker to visit my father at the nursing home next week. I feel horrible about not having seen him in a year! I’m terrified of going there because it is just such an incredible ordeal with all the activity and so many people under foot and listening all the time. It’s a no win situation. I will continue to feel bad if I don’t go. If I do go I will pay a high price for it.
Is one or both of these things responsible for this morning’s attack? I can’t say, since these damned early morning attacks seem to have no focus. I have intense dread, a feeling that something horrible is going to happen and I can’t stop it from happening. Yet there are no thoughts as to what that horrible thing is. It is very perplexing.
