BS: stay afloat while others don't

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Nov 22 - 09:46 AM

Bon courage, keb.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Nov 22 - 04:44 PM

Another rite of passage completed: enrollment in Medicare.
Because the social security website would not verify my identification,
I had to do this by way of a phone call with an SSA operator.
The call went on for thirty-five minutes!
The operator kept putting me on hold to double-check facts and stuff.
But we got it done.
And now I won't have to pay the dreaded penalties I was warned about.
A bunch of stuff will be sent in the mail from Social Security
and, eventually, notice of "award" if I heard right.

One more thing to help keep me afloat, so to speak.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 06:51 PM

There is a lot of emotion coming up without any obvious trigger.
I suppose this is what my counselor would call "productive" ,
I call it exhausting. Feeling is raw.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Dec 22 - 06:45 PM

Hmmm, lots of emotion usually meant working on something to me... Here's to success if that's the case!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Dec 22 - 10:43 AM

It looks as though my attorney has come through for me
and the money will be distributed to me after all.
It took months of negotiating. Whew!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Dec 22 - 10:59 AM

I drove my middle dog to the vet this morning for a surgical procedure. That will be a one-time hit on my finances, hoping it just a fatty tumor and isn't cancer because long-term expensive pet treatment when it's so hard on them isn't in the cards.

I only mention that trip this morning because I drive a back-route to get to my vet who is in a rough part of town. Literally. Tough, and rough, with a lot of homeless people who refuse to sleep in the night shelter (because of their xtian rules, and because of bed bugs.) There are lots of brushy vacant lots in that hilly part of town adjacent to large brushy street rights-of-way, and on my way out again I counted at least 10 tents with tarps over them in vacant plots of land; they are usually at the back of the space beyond a few trees and out of sight if someone isn't looking for them.

It was early so there were a lot of men (this time) out walking towards the main drag where food may be purchased. There was one pair of tents set up with a bit more equipment around, including a propane grill. That is great for cooking and I imagine propane can be purchased nearby on the main drag. These are small communities, and they are hugely impacted in places like Dallas where they go in periodically and "clean up," essentially removing any personal items along with any tents or structures, leaving these folks all that more hard up.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Dec 22 - 07:33 PM

Stilly, I hope Pepper is feeling better very soon, poor thing.

Spending Christmas at the clinic, my third Christmas here.
Something to celebrate, the family/trustee have said "yes" to reimbursing me for my clinic bills. That's a big one.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Dec 22 - 07:47 PM

That is big. It seems to be a comfortable space for you.

Pepper is feeling better, but don't get near her tummy or she becomes a dreadful barking monster. Threatening anyone with a growl and a snap. I fear the trip on Tuesday to remove stitches is going to be very difficult. Staying afloat - getting through stressful events - it's one day at a time. Sometimes one hour at a time is good.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 Mar 23 - 06:16 PM

Got through the winter months,
and spring is on a see-saw with winter,
up and down, back and forth.
Some blindingly sunny clear days,
and on days like those I get restless to be anywhere else.

However, I don't have to leave for want of money;
and it's not clear that I'm ready to discharge, have not set a date.

Other patients, esp former patients, tell me
that I will know when it is the right time to make my exit.
I hope they're right.

A staffperson sighted gypsy moths last night. Ugh.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Mar 23 - 09:14 AM

Hang in there, keb!

Wedding planning for my well son is bringing up all kinds of pain about his twin, still homeless, still mad.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 01 Apr 23 - 07:09 PM

A few years ago I was part of a chamber music performance here at the clinic. Besides me there was a violinist, a violist, and a cellist. All were patients at the time; I'm the only one still in treatment, the other three discharged already.

The violinist, who is in medical school (very difficult), is a good email correspondent and has stayed in touch with me from that day to this. The viola player responded to some emails but the responses have gotten fewer and fewer. The cello player did not respond at all to my email.

This week I was told, third- or fourth-hand, of a suicide attempt on the part of the cello player; I was told two other things:
that this happened some time ago, people here are just now hearing about it, and
this patient is a twin, whose brother committed suicide --
and the former patient made the unsuccessful attempt using the same method as the twin brother. It was not possible for me to ask what method that was.

THis former patient is/was a very good musician, practiced diligently and had been well-taught; he could have gotten work in music.
I've only scratched the surface here:
there is more which I will not tell; he has a lot of problems.

Talk about staying afloat while others don't ... it's uncanny.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 09:02 AM

Yikes!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Apr 23 - 07:03 PM

One of the things that needs attention for me is
my attitude toward my family's occasional surveillance/harassment.
Over the years it has declined so that it hardly happens,
there were years when something happened on a daily basis.

The thing is that I still let it bother me more than is healthy.
What I worked out this past week is that
I feel guilt about abandoning my family, against all reason,
and the guilt is what makes me so paranoid.

This means that I have more work to do. I don't think it will be fun.
But if I can't get it done here, then where?

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Helen
Date: 13 Apr 23 - 04:07 AM

Hi keberoxu,

I read a news article about a very clever, very funny, very empathetic Australian writer of fiction for children and young adults called Paul Jennings. The article was about his memoirs and one of the situations he faced his whole life was having a father who was very difficult to deal with. He said it took him a long time to realise that the fault lay with his father and that he (Paul J) should not hold the guilt or responsibility for that behaviour.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Apr 23 - 09:10 AM

Saw my mad, homeless son napping in the ground by a coffeeshop. Had a more coherent conversation than usual, he spoke kindly to me, smiled, asked for money but not threateningly... He did say he was a Cherokee chief prophesied to kill the people involved in his legal woes so, still mad as a hatter, but it had been over a year since I'd seen him so in all, a positive interaction.

Plans for the forthcoming nuptials of his twin brother proceed. I cannot talk said brother into letting me tell his crazy twin about the wedding. I would like to offer the chance to clean up temporarily, but have been forbidden from saying anthing. So I am not. But that is distressing me out,I can say.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Apr 23 - 02:28 PM

Some stories have happy endings, and some stories have endings that are anything but.
Living a story like yours, Mrrzy, is not for the faint of heart.
The estrangement between your twin sons is surely complex, and to navigate the present situation you need to use your head as well as your heart.
It's not easy for you to be there for each of your sons;
but what you relate proves that you are indeed there -- for both of them.
All this is a clumsy attempt on my part to say, Take heart.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Apr 23 - 03:33 PM

Mwah, keb.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 May 23 - 06:12 PM

Have been reading Judith Lewis Herman, MD, the psychiatrist who contributed the diagnosis "complex PTSD" some twenty or thirty years ago. She has long worked with survivors of abuse and trauma. She said something that resonated with me.

When a recovering patient goes through their memories and their story, especially the repressed, fragmented pieces around the abuse, time seems to stand still. Or, at the very least, time seems to pass much slower for them than it does for everybody else. It is as if time is frozen. It is natural for them to wonder -- as I did -- if they will spend the rest of their natural lives trapped in this heavy and frozen experience of time.

One sign that such a patient has moved on to another stage of healing and recovery, is that "time begins to move forward again", to quote Dr. Herman. There is even a sense of ordinary time being a special gift, after so long -- years in my case -- experiencing time as a form of purgatory.

I am having that experience now. My routine is mostly the same from week to week, with a schedule that is sometimes busy and sometimes waiting for the next thing. And the passage of time is no longer purgatorial. This doesn't mean that I am "cured". It means that I now get to go on healing in real time rather than in frozen post-traumatic time.

THis seems like a big deal to me.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Vashta Nerada
Date: 12 May 23 - 08:06 PM

Being estranged from a sibling is a complex situation; our parents seemed to have some influence on my youngest brother, though even they at times said they were afraid of him. When it comes to the sibs, we all recognize that he is more likely to hurt one of us than a stranger. He has a mental illness that is untreated; there may be underlying chemical imbalances. He had trouble in school, and as an adult it got a lot worse. He can't hold a job for very long. He is smart, he knows how to do a lot of things, but he can't get along with people. His one skill seems to be charming little old ladies, but even there, I fear some dreadful outcome one day.

Anything that happens is someone else's fault, when he's fired at a job it always ends up (when he tells the story) that when he talks to the boss the boss understands and ends up siding with him (but somehow he is still fired?) - so there is no knowing the truth of occasions like that. He had a union job with low seniority and his co-workers voted him onto the night shift, and then those workers insisted that he work in the tail section of airplanes (at Boeing) where they didn't have to deal with him. He's not in that job now, my other brother thinks he might have figured out a way to collect disability so he's not doing any of his old side gigs (not advertising because it could nullify the disability). He's a gambling addict and has lost all of the family stuff he hoarded from our parent's estates (that he fought so hard to get his hands on.) He has lost two houses and a condo, and now lives in a single-wide mobile home.

He tried scamming family, including he tried to shake down our rich aunt and uncle in another country. He kept going to the other brother's house, and that brother gave him money to get him to go away - and you know that isn't going to work. Only when the cash was no longer offered did that stop. No one lives close to him now, though that younger brother can probably track down any of us, but no one will open the door to him or take his calls. I've told my grown children not to give him the time of day if he managed to track them down.

Years ago we tried reaching out to the woman who he had a child with; we sent gifts to the child via the mother - they were returned "refused" in the mail. I have a nephew I've never met, but now that he's over 21, the next time I'm in the area I will look him up.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Jun 23 - 08:08 PM

Today I had something like fifteen minutes before a panel of clinicians to talk about my treatment.
They let me talk freely as I wished; their questions were friendly.
I have been seen by this team of clinicians before, so they are all familiar.
In spite of which, I was a big bundle of nerves, short of breath, had a hard time just speaking.
I struggled through and spoke at some length about what I still need in my treatment,
things I could not focus on before that I am ready to work with now.
I remember some awkward pauses when I had trouble answering questions,
and I remember that it was easy to answer some questions directly.
I don't believe I dissociated, which I was afraid that I would do.
It was kind of excruciating just to stay present, but I did stay present.

There is no decision that has to be taken or change that has to be made at this point.
I just felt ready to update the clinical team on how my treatment has gone and on my thoughts on how to continue.
It was time to attempt something, however nervous or awkward I was.
So I did my bit. It's a small success for me.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jun 23 - 05:18 PM

Good on you, keb!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Helen
Date: 16 Jun 23 - 05:47 PM

Which translates into "Onya, Keb!" in Aussie.

Congrats on reaching this milestone. Remember what I said (sometime in the last few years) about learning and progress in life is more like a spiral than a path straight up the mountain. You appear to have reached a point where you can look back at the significant points on your path and see them as milestones to achieving your life goals.

All power to you!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jun 23 - 09:50 AM

While others don't - The suicide rate is at an all time high.

On this Sunday CNN has a special on mental health at 8 PM.
It is about the future of therapy in mental health - Magic Mushrooms.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Jun 23 - 01:24 PM

Helen, I believe you are right about the spiral versus the straight line.
And the spiral twists and turns, and it can be disorienting at times.
And the direction is not always up --
sometimes one has to go down before one can go up again.

Am getting my calm back after a month or so of hectic activity,
and catching up on sleep -- always important.

More power to the people who are actually helped by the mushrooms,
but for some of us, our recovery must be with prescription meds.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Helen
Date: 18 Jun 23 - 05:24 PM

Yes, keb, the way is not always straight up, but hopefully Trending upwards - look at the straight blue central line in this image and not at all of the little ups and downs, peaks and troughs.

The other thing about the spiral is that usually in our lives there are a lot of different issues we are trying to work through. On the spiral, we move around, past different issues, try to make progress and then another issue comes into view which needs attention. But, when we look back at our progress and compare where we started, way back there, it becomes clearer that we have made progress. If we only looked forward to our goals we would become overwhelmed at where we hope to be, but looking at how far and how well we have progressed already brings hope and optimism for future progress.

That's how I view the milestones in my life. I'm not there yet, where I want to be, but I have made a lot of progress so far.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jun 23 - 05:58 PM

Dig it.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 06:02 PM

Right now we are floating through a metaphorical swamp of heat and humidity.
While I wish that the air conditioning in my bedroom was working -- it isn't -- refrigerated air is available in most rooms of most buildings on the campus here.
It is something to be grateful for.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: NightWing
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 05:30 PM

Just read through this thread. Seen all at once, it looks like you are progressing toward better health. I'm sure that living it one day at a time, it feels much more of a question :-)

I have (thankfully, very minor) issues with depression, so I can definitely sympathize.

Know that many people are holding you in their thoughts. Get better!!!

BB,
NightWing

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Jul 23 - 08:07 AM

Thank you, that is really sweet.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Jul 23 - 08:58 AM

Mwah, Nightwing!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jul 23 - 10:20 AM

Heat can be dangerous when you're not accustomed to it. A friend who recently moved from Texas to Cupertino, CA, sent a screenshot of the heat advisory in her new town - it will hit 90^o this week. She being glad that isn't a problem for her to adapt to. Here in North Texas today is forecast to hit 107^o. But for those CA folks not accustomed or prepared for heat, 90 can make people ill or kill some. Same in Seattle (we didn't used to have air conditioning in most of our houses up there.) So New England also - and when it's as humid as it can be up there - ugg. Stay safe, and sleep on a sofa in the lounge if your bedroom is too hot.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Jul 23 - 09:41 AM

I got the working air-conditioning just in time to get cooled off
by the heavy rains,
and there's a tornado watch in effect.
Stay afloat, indeed . . .

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jul 23 - 10:58 AM

Yikes!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 23 - 12:04 AM

Mudcatter Haruo has had some hard times lately and has a GoFundMe account set up: Help me avoid homelessness... an injury and an electric bill, and the need to set up services for someone over-65 have converged.

I sent cash via PayPal that won't count toward the GoFundMe account, but he doesn't have to wait to use it or share a cut with the fundraiser company.

PM me or Haruo if you want his email address that works with PayPal.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 23 - 06:14 PM

Today the high is under 100 for the first time in about three weeks. I'm watering, hoping to keep the foundation from cracking worse than it has already. My house is "afloat" - built on a slab on this clay soil. Few basements in this part of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jul 23 - 08:17 PM

Would the news about Haruo get out to more readers if it were on
the Check-In Mudcatters Worldwide thread, I wonder?

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 06:31 PM

This is a surprise:
It was time for me to submit another temporary change-of-address /forwarding order.
The USPS wants you to do it online.
So I started online, only to find that a new requirement has been added.
Unless you have a working mobile phone account,
you MAY NOT submit an order to have your mail forwarded.

I have a little flip phone with a cancelled account.
Now it seems that the mobile phone is part of the means
for verification of identity.
It has come to this . . .

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Helen
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 12:40 AM

Hi keberoxu,

During the height (or depth?) of COVID here, a lot of businesses required smart phones to scan QR (quick response) codes but people like me with no smart phone were given alternatives, like downloading and printing a card which could be scanned by the business instead.

There has to be an alternative to using a smart phone. It might be worthwhile contacting them to work out an alternative. A comical aspect of my no-smart-phone status was watching the young people serving me while they tried not to look amazed, aghast or even disgusted at the little old biddy who is so out of touch with modern life and technology. ("I mean, how can anyone SURVIVE without a smart phone?")

The other thing is that in all of the government related departments I worked in there was a clear, strict policy of not denying access to services especially if the person had special circumstances to be taken into account.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 Jul 23 - 06:08 PM

Well, to shorten a long story,
I had a debacle of an experience last year,
trying to use a little flip phone as a mobile device.
It's cancelled now, but I did end up with a mobile phone number.

So, out of curiosity, I pulled up the US Mail online form
for a forwarding address,
and submitted the cancelled mobile phone number.
And guess what -- it went through.
So now my mail will be forwarded as before, for another six months.

The misadventures I get into ...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Helen
Date: 30 Jul 23 - 07:15 PM

Well done! A neat bit of sidestepping.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Jul 23 - 09:40 PM

Plus whomever they sell your number to, hah, foiled!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Aug 23 - 10:51 AM

This month, the dining hall needs a new floor. They tore it up this week.
It will be another week or two before the new floor is in.
All the tables and chairs have been moved out of the dining hall
and into various adjoining corridors and rooms,
and there we sit when we eat our meals.
The kitchen can still function even when the dining room is under construction, fortunately.
But the hammering and sawing are ferocious noises.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Aug 23 - 09:15 AM

Doesn't sound appetizing.

I had an urgent meet wih my shrink to discuss betrayal, and my huge and childish overreaction to it. Shrink thinks what was taken was Agency. I am not so sure. We will meet again tho next month when I'm back from my vacations. I will think-and-feel on that as I sun sand sea myself into near-liquidity...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 23 - 11:15 AM

Keberoxu, you can set up a Google Voice account and port a mobile phone number into it to keep forever. The catch is that you have to have a phone number that it can forward any of those calls to. Do you have a different phone number now? Google has a one-time charge, maybe $25. I did that with a cell number that was once my house number. For a dozen years it has been my Google Voice number and it is the one I give in stores when they ask for a phone number. So it catches all of the spam. The account is set to only forward numbers from calls in my contact list. The rest go to voicemail, set upon Google Voice. I can also use it via computer and send text messages through it.

You can also set up a Google Voice account and have it assign you a number. But you still need a phone for it to occasionally forward calls to.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Aug 23 - 06:20 PM

Ah, the word Agency!
Here at the clinic, there are three A-words that are part of the jargon.
Agency
Authority
Alliance

As in, patients are encouraged to take up their authority, a phrase that is repeated often.
Alliance refers to the interchange between patients and staff, the latter representing the institution.

You know, I'm not altogether sure what Agency means . . .
maybe I'm the one who had Agency taken?

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Aug 23 - 08:33 PM

The Agency fallacy is the root of theistic thought, but I digress...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 23 - 10:08 PM

When Mrrzy wrote "Agency," why did Steinbeck's "nonteleological" philosophy pop into my mind? I've stumbled across Steinbeck several times this week. It must be time to pull out a book to read.
FYI, from an online homework help site:

There is no meaning to life. Life has no inherent meaning. The meanings of our lives are chosen by what we feel and experience or are assigned to us by others. The ends of our existence cannot be foreseen and will not be limited by such things as destiny. These are the ideas and philosophies of those who believe life to be non-teleological. A famous literary example of a non-teleologist is a man named John Steinbeck. Throughout his life Steinbeck experimented with Darwinism, transcendentalism, realism, socialism, naturalism, and Taoism (Endnotes 1). Each of these ways of thinking show up in Steinbeck’s philosophy and therefore his work cannot be classified specifically. All that may be said is that he had a non-teleological way of thinking. As nature played such a major role in his life, Steinbeck’s characters are shaped by nature and their surroundings give purpose to their lives. These characters’ fates are not pre-determined. Instead every event in the natural world gives new meaning to a life. As a result of Steinbeck’s non-teleological beliefs, his characters’ lives contain no inherent meaning and their ever-changing paths are influenced by occurrences and over the passage of time.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 08:07 PM

Today some triggering news came to me.
A musician I worked with forty years ago,
who has had a burgeoning career since then,
has been accused, by multiple other musicians,
of sexual misconduct.

This is messing with my head.
At the time I liked and trusted the man.
He was gay, and I'm a straight woman, so neither of us threatened the other in any way.
It's all other men who have come out with their allegations.
He has now resigned from all his posts and duties.

It's a heck of a thing when it's somebody that you used to know.
I'm talking about it and trying not to isolate with it.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Aug 23 - 08:42 PM

Don't let it mess with your head. Such people are past masters at concealing their predilections whilst putting on a face. I've mentioned in other threads a couple of people in my life who fooled us all into thinking they were pillars of society. One pretended to us all that his wife had tragically died and he was moving into our area to start afresh. He died of leukaemia a few years ago, and only then did we discover that his wife was still very much alive and that he'd fled from accusations of sexual abuse of his own daughter (he'd lied about plenty else too). The other was in his eighties, a true man of the Church, who is now serving twelve years in prison for grooming and sexual abuse of small boys decades ago. Lots of us round here knew him well (though not well enough....) and we all feel incredibly bitter that we'd been hoodwinked by him for many years. To say that we feel tainted would be an understatement. We should feel good about the fact that we generally try to see the best in people. That opens us up to being deceived, but I'd far sooner have it that way than to go around automatically suspecting everyone all the time. I feel your pain, having been through similar emotions. But if you knew him and loved him for what you thought he was, that's you just being a proper human being. That's good enough, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Aug 23 - 01:02 PM

Reading this thread makes *me* feel better. Grope therapy...