Bits and Pieces

Not really anything organized in my head right now, that’s why I haven’t blogged for a few days.  Last thing I think I wrote was a rant about my mental health clinic and my ‘team’ I have there.  Well, after thinking about it for a few days, I decided to go ahead and ask my case manager (who is the only ‘team’ member I actually like and get on with reasonably well) if I could switch to a different ‘team’ in the clinic, since she is the only one I don’t have issues with everytime I’m there.  Get this, her response was, ” Well, I’ll have to ask your team if they will approve a switch”.  So, if I’m having personality conflicts with all my team members and getting triggered everytime I see each of them, they get to decide if I can change teams.  Great.  Wonderful.  That makes sooo much sense.  Let the ones who see it as me being difficult and belligerent decide the merits of my request to switch teams based on my claim that they trigger me.  Well, I don’t know what will happen with this.  I guess, on the worst case scenario, if i am denied my transfer, then I could either continue to pursue it and call the ombudsman and advocate (the big guns) or I can just accept that things are not going to change and only use the clinic just for meds (skip the voc rehab assistance, the benefits management assistance, the groups…).  I guess I’ll live if that happens.  Although I hope that it doesn’t.

One of the examples of what triggered me the other day was I asked about Voc Rehab.  Now, I already opened a case with VR and already have a case manager.  My team rehab specialist kept telling me I couldn’t have a case at VR and I couldn’t have a case manager, because a case manager from VR comes to the clinic once a month, and I don’t have a case with her, so, whatever I think I have with whoever I think I have it is not really a real case with a real case manager from VR, because the only way it would be possible for me to be getting services from VR would be if I had this case manager who comes to the clinic as my case manager.  I don’t understand why they can’t just arrange for my current case manager to transfer my case to this one that comes to the clinic.  In any case, I was about ready to pop, standing up and so close to losing it and just yelling cause all I wanted from her was a reason for what she kept saying, for what she kept insisting on.  I just wanted to know why.  And she just wouldn’t say, just refused to answer.  If she didn’t know, or if the VR case manager could have explained it more, then that’s all she needed to say.  I would’ve been fine then, I would’ve felt heard and validated and not just like she was blowing smoke up my rear.  But she didn’t say any of that, and I almost went completely berserk on her.

And I think I’m starting to incorporate some of my improvements from therapy into my regular life, and, ****crosses fingers****hope I don’t jinx things****I think I am feeling some better!  I am very loath to even think that I may be feeling better, cuz I don’t want it to disappear right when I see I have it finally!  But, I think some of the progresses I’ve had in therapy recently have made their way winding round up there in my head and I actually think I might be feeling some bits better.  So, I am actually considering taking a part time job in addition to still volunteering at the animal shelter 3x/mo.  And if it goes well for a year-(ish), then I will go ahead and deal with all that VR crap from above to get them to pay for my education so I can re-enter the workforce and support myself.  I want to get the education to get a certificate for being an Ultrasound Tech.  But it’s wicked expensive at the place I found the program, so VR might not pay all of it.  Not sure if I would qualify for more loans (still have the ones from my BA).  If I qualify, great.  If not, I might have to pick a cheaper program, like medical assistant or something instead.  I don’t really care, I just have always worked in the medical field, and I enjoy it.  But, I do want to re-enter the work force with a job that I can actually live on, not just subsist on.  I don’t want to keep squeaking by…(like I have my whole life).  I want to have enough to live on without worry, and with the ability to get a few frills and luxuries once in a while.  I was hoping to get the Ultrasound certificate because it pays so well compared to other paraprofessional positions.  But that hand hasn’t been even been dealt yet, so no point trying to see how to play it now.  As a friend I once had would’ve said, ‘stop borrowing trouble’.

Well, I have not in the last 6 years even considered going to work again.  This is the first time I have even considered that I might have a future, and might actually be self-supporting, and might actually live out my natural years.  So, the fact that I feel that I want to get a part time job, and if that goes well, even get trained for a new position and go back to having a normal life, working every day…Well, that just says volumes to me, screams it even.  I might actually have a future, if all the cards fall into my hands at the right time, anyway.