Kaboom

That was my mood slamming back down to plenty depressed.  I have no clue how long it will last.  I am feeling so overwhelmed.  For one thing I feel like I don't have a right to feel bad after getting my approval so fast and unexpectedly.  Yet I guess getting it fast and unexpectedly is exactly why I do have that right.  I find it difficult to not have expectations that don't make sense.  I had it in my head that if I was approved on the first time it would be another 2 months or so and by then I thought I'd be ready to manage some small amount of work, be a bit more stable, and just be more functional.  This hasn't happened.  It's unrealistic to think it should have, and my mood is of course as unstable as it was a week ago because nothing has changed in my biochemistry.  But it's hard.

I also am in the middle of trying to figure out how to manage medical costs.  I am getting 3 month supplies of every med I can before the end of this month, but May 1 I'll have only dental and vision insurance.  I just can't afford expensive coverage that covers little and I'm not eligible for any assistance or programs.  Cleveland clinic will assist and I just have to apply every 3 months and before any hospitalizations/surgeries.  It's just a lot to have to go there for everything because of distance, and because I prefer Dr. Body and Dr. Lungs.  Can't be helped though and I can always pay for a visit to Dr. Body if needed.  I spent a long time on the phone with Cleveland Clinic today getting information on this and also getting some subsidized care that had gone to collections out of collections.  I then spent time going through a website I was sent as a way to monitor the progress of my application to discharge my student loans.  After getting a password and account set up (tricky)  I read and read only to eventually discover that my loan is in the decision making process.  It was there 6 weeks ago..

Then I had an argument with my mom.  I was probably grouchy.  But later she called and earned every grouchy thing I'd said by asking if my loan discharge would be taxable.  We're talking $70,000 or so.  We are not talking something I can pay taxes on.  So that led to frantic searching that turned up NOTHING.  But why she couldn't google herself??????

And I'm frustrated because I have ever-so-cautiously been cooking a little more.  Mostly George Foreman grill and microwaved vegetables, but I made some eggs the other day and thought I could repeat it.  I just have to stand at the stove through all cooking.  I did it and then put a piece of plastic thoughtlessly down on the stove (ceramic top) right where the burner was.  So cooking still isn't safe.

I thought there was something else but I forget.  I didn't sleep nearly as well last night and that is part of why I'm depressed and grouchy today.  I just feel like this approval shook up my world again.  I'm so glad to have it.  Really, I appreciate every computer connection that got me here and even every time the word suicidal appears in my files.  But it is hard to adjust to just over 1/4 of my prior income, without insurance, without eligibility for food stamps or anything else, yet know that I'm making way more than most people on SSDI, because they keep telling me that.  So I feel guilty freaking out.  I guess on the counterside is that if you make more like the average you do get food stamps and maybe even Medicaid.  But plenty of people make just over average and get nothing.  I feel so ashamed that even though my medical expenses were 30% of what I made gross last year and medical expenses limited what I made, I get this amount of SSDI because I earned a lot of money and paid a lot into the system.  And it is hard to adjust to not being able to just buy whatever, or even to have to be careful to be able to buy gas.  To make this even more tricky I won't get my first check until mid-late May, so I have some time with things being even tighter, living off my savings.

And I am just finding it very hard to accept that when people said over the years that my bipolar was a severe form that they really meant it.  It is weird to accept now that when I've said like a parrot that I had a severe case that they meant at the far end of that rainbow.  (I saw 2 yesterday, by the way.  Weird thing:  I see rainbows ONLY when going to/from Dr. Mind, except once I was going to the hospital).  The government has spoken and said I am so ill they are willing to accept the risk of not closely examining my case because it would waste time and money.  That feels really weird.

This whole thing seems like more whining.  I'm sorry.  I just am having adjustment issues, good thing or not.  I am just trying to see myself a new way. Again.


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