Oh yeah, IOP the conclusion

I forgot about this not being something that you know.  Too much going on for me I guess.  Anyway, the IOP won't be happening.  The place I wanted to go just isn't right.  The other choice is even further away than I thought when I realized it wasn't an option.  It isn't at the actual hospital but at an off-campus second site that would be 95 minutes in normal traffic per Mapquest, meaning that snow and rush hour could make it 4 plus hours of driving daily.  There are no other programs.  So that means putting together something ourselves.  To make it worse the NAMI meeting I wanted to go to requires having attended a class that doesn't sound particularly appropriate for my needs at this time (would have been great in 2002).  Some of this is hard because I'm not doing this in the usual order.  Usually by almost 10 years after diagnosis you are not trying to adjust to stability that has imploded and unfortunately most people have experienced the degree of suicidalness I have just come through before.  So unless one of the Drs. feels I need to attend the course and review skills I've had for a long time there isn't at all what I need.  There is regular support group on Sunday nights; I'm not sure that it is ideal because keeping me out late (and I think this would be going both directions in the dark) isn't great.  It's sort of Dr. Mind's call at this point.  I'm taking a break for hefty decisions for a while.

Ideally the hospital social worker would be helping.  However she doesn't like me much for some reason (this isn't my first problem with her) and she just avoids helping me with anything.  They initially offered to have her get in touch with me and try to help but I didn't want to deal with her either not calling me or not being helpful; I needed to ideally be enrolled in the program and knowing what I was doing; she would have not gotten information at this point, just referred me and then the same thing that did happen would have; I would have had questions, called them, and found out that the referral wasn't appropriate.

The talk to someone thing is to get me out of the house and interacting.  I'm supposed to try to leave daily.  I think.  But that's going to depend on things like today did with panic attacks.  Until I have some anxiety meds that I can take more of if I become extremely anxious I am kind of stuck fighting those the best I can with deep breathing and decreased stimulation.  The trick is without specific destinations I start to feel panicky.  The next few days I'll be meeting this goal as tomorrow is the vet (the thing seems to be healing but I can't get a very good look, I don't know what the cause is so don't know what it is (burn vs. other injury), and for all I know it is a gross infection from chewing on herself while I wasn't here.  She also needs checked for anything else and that is not a one woman job.  If it is a burn I want to know my vet's position on her heating pad.  I thoroughly messed with it and it's warm, not hot, seems to be heating evenly and there is no indication it could burn her, particularly not rapidly enough to hurt.) and then the next 2 days I'll be at my mom's for time with my sister's family and then "Christmas".  And Tuesday is Dr. Mind day as it Thursday.  Saturday is Dr. Brain day.  So I only have to do something Wednesday and Friday.  Or I try to talk him into letting me off the hook.  Which is unlikely since isolating helped me get into this mess and isolating is dangerous.  The talking thing means just talking to clerks in the store, librarians, whatever.

My poor injured darling is screaming at me (trust me) to feed her so I guess I should since I have, according to her, caused grievous harm to her need to eat constantly by being away.  She wants to pick everything right now-what, when, and how much she eats.  Whatever cat.

There's another layer to all this by the way.  My mother is being pretty obnoxious about guilt and the moving of Christmas.  Things like saying my niece may not enjoy it now.  Things that HURT.  Dr. Mind was livid about this last night.  I've been pushing it away because it hurts but I don't know what to do about it.  He wants me to say something back, including offering a referral to counseling of her own.  While I don't think this happening I do appreciate that he was mad for me because I know it's not appropriate but I have way too much on my plate.  I need him to take her on for me.  (If I brought her in he would, gently and kindly and then she'd leave believing him to be on her side of everything.  Forever.)

And the cat is DYING she says so I must run before she is just simply a pile of hair.