Not exactly a polite way of phrasing it, but... it might help if you (Warkitty) could come up with a step-by-step plan. Maybe we can find a solution to your obstacles? Wisdom of many and such...
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The trick there is to make your new place your home. You've only been there a couple of months, it takes a lot longer than that before everything in your new location feels familiar enough that you can call it home. Give it two years and I reckon you'll be feeling homesick for where you are now when you're away visiting your old haunts.
The main financial problem right now is that my medical bills are crazy high and my insurance is lousy. So I'm basically paying a rent payment a month just in medical bills, which really cuts into my ability to have the money to support myself. I have what's supposedly a "good" paycheck and insurance plan around here for my skills. But the trend around here is towards high-deductible plans, which are good if you're the kind of person who needs the doctor a few times a year, but bad if you require regular medical care.
What I need is a better job. I'm not entirely sure how to find that though. Most jobs for my skill set are the same level or worse. It's plain I can't apply to every one that might be suitable. But they don't generally tell you enough upfront to know whether to apply or not.
Are there any synergies between your skillset and better paying jobs? "Tack on this class or that certification" sort of things? It sounds like the advancement opportunities for your current position are slim. Alternatively, who do you know?
Do you have any friends looking for a roommate or looking to strike out on their own? Rent is much easier to manage when split.
Another part time job could help as mentioned, though that might be rough since its not a fixed sum you need to save up. The other option is looking elsewhere for jobs such that either cost of living is lower or insurance is better.
Also have you looked into what type of government benefits are available? Welfare traps seem unfortunately common in many places. It may be more worthwhile, financially, to get a lower paying job so that you can get some government benefits. Also since you mention medical bills are the largest problem and there's no good insurance providers there, you should definitely consider looking elsewhere in the country for work. This would entail some sort of fixed cost you could at least save towards rather than a constant recurring one.
Finally, you SHOULD apply to every job that provides a better pay/insurance package. Apply to jobs you only partially meet requirements for. Job requirements are the ideal of what an employer wants. Many, particularly experience ones, are not hard requirements. An up to date CV plus a generic cover letter that you can spend a few minutes tweaking to customize per company seems like it would be a worthwhile time investment.
The problem I'm having is more - you have 5 jobs. I'm qualified for all of them, and all of them have roughly the same job description. One of them has better pay and benefits than what I have. However, all 5 keep pay and benefits under wraps until you actually come in for an interview. So in order to actually get the one that is better, I have to apply and interview for all 5.
Then do so. There's no guarantee you're going to get an interview for any of them anyways, so apply and see what falls out. Not applying is clearly not going to get you anywhere. Yes you may end up wasting time, but if there's no other way to get the information you're stuck in doing it that way.
Well, I haven't exactly gone out of my way to go looking for people to socialize with. I have never been fond of bars, but there's a gaming store/used book store in town that I've only briefly visited, and presumably other places about town where people do things for fun. Usually at the end of the day all I want to do is go home, feed my cat, and then relax, but if I do that then I'm not making any new friends.
I wasn't familiar with the term Platinum Rule. Urbandictionary (hey, it was the top Google result!) gives me two definitions: one basically a modernized version of the "do unto others..." Golden Rule, and one from How I Met Your Mother. It sounds like you're referencing the second, though both are applicable in this case. I've seen patrons hit on said coworker and it makes her visibly uncomfortable, so having more of the same from a coworker that she's shown no interest in would likely be more of the same.
Working on it, slowly. As it is right now I tend to use the word "home" to refer to either my apartment or my parents' place, unless I catch myself and deliberately say "my parents' house. Even now, I'll admit sometimes it's a relief to hop back in the car for my apartment.
Hello again. I need to learn to stop hoping that my life will suddenly improve somehow. If I expect improvements I will need to undertake the sisyphean task myself.
Recently, I, in a fit of pique, purged the great majoroty my facebook friends leaving mostly family and a few people whom I feel are kind/nice with whom I have had positive experiences. One person I could have kept but didnt does leave me slightly saddened. But Ive realized, it snot worth the effort to try.
Sometimes I think about intentionally getting myself banned to clear up shallow connections. Truthfully though I should avoid burning what bridges I have, no matter how ephemeral.
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One person I could have kept but didnt does leave me slightly saddened. But Ive realized, it snot worth the effort to try...
Since I was just on the "why do people always use fallacies" thread, I'm not going to point out that this line of thought is an example of a black-and-white fallacy and/or a false dichotomy.Quote:
Sometimes I think about intentionally getting myself banned to clear up shallow connections...
In life, people need connections of every kind, both deep and shallow. Having a few acquaintances on Facebook, or on a forum, or whatever, puts you closer to your "have all the connections I need" goal than not having them. It's easy to fall in the trap of the "since I don't have what I want, I might as well have nothing" line of thought. But that's what it is, a trap laid by the part of your brain that hates you and itself and wants to self-destruct.
Now, I am not telling you to keep toxic relationships. But if the worst thing you can say about a relationship is that it's "shallow", then you have nothing to gain by severing it.
.... It's the uncertainty that's killing me.
I have no idea if my home is flooded, or when the rain will stop. I know that the river right by my house is going to overflow beyond our previous record, BUT that record didn't even breach the levee. If the water DOES reach my house, I don't know if it'll get in or what it'll get to. Almost everything legitimately valuable is upstairs or somewhere that water can't get to it, but there have been houses that have caught fire and burned down while being flooded. I don't know how much longer the rain's going to last and if it destroys anything how long it's gonna take to put my life back together. I'm not exactly in a position to help anybody else with their problems, and I feel guilty because I'm in such a (relatively) comfortable position and not doing anything even though I don't know what I would be doing if I could!
I just don't know what's going on or what to do about it and I hate it
Is there a way for you to inform yourself/get involved? As long as you're fairly certain that you're ok and your stuff and house are ok, why not reach out to people who are not so certain our who are affected one way or another?
With the lives of so many people being affected, I'm sure there are small things that are slipping through the cracks.
I'm sure there are systems in place to manage the emergency situation, but maybe they need volunteers for smaller tasks.. Or maybe you could give a little time to organisations that are run by volunteers who are now busy looking after themselves.. places like animal shelters might find themselves shortstaffed or deprived of other resources.. or maybe there are elderly people who are perfectly safe but have a hard time getting in touch with loved ones or simply need someone to sit with them and reassure them that they'll be fine.
Not really. Roads out of the area I'm in are flooded, so I can't get to nearby rescue centers, animal shelters or anything. ATM I'm just doing what I can to take care of my Mom (she has a bad leg) and the family friends we're staying with. And tbh, I wasn't sure of anything last night (and what I was, I was completely wrong about). Today I learned the river near my house is cresting faster than they thought it would, below the previous record.
So we're basically okay. Sorry guys, I just needed to vent.
Blargh.
Does C'thulu have a medical plan? I need one that causes less SAN damage per day than my present provider. I wasted $140 getting blown off by an out of network eye doctor and have to wait 4~5 months to be able to see another one because they're all overbooked for some reason. I had to wait 2 months to see THIS one, so I'm pretty miffed and depressed both. (Also, there are no in network eye doctors on my plan. No, I don't understand how that's possible or permissible, either.)
For as problematic as they are, my injuries from the wreck seem like fairly minor internal injuries, but with the trouble I've had with not one but THREE insurance companies actively working to screw me out of chance to get diagnosis and treatment, you'd think I had some kind of rare cancer or something. :smallfrown:
I've been hesitant about posting this here or on my Failpage. This is a personal matter that I've been thinking about for over a year and I don't want to worry any of my family or friends (or have to deal with those with doctorates from Google MD) and there're also more pressing things in my family that need to be looked at before I can focus my attention on myself and my health (terrible, I know, but I would rather ensure that my partner's brother is getting adequate care before having the family focus on me). So I guess I'm venting/seeking any sort of advice to help keep me stable.
About a year ago my family physician started drawing blood for testing because I've had a chronic cough for the last 10 years or so. Every time I got sent to a lung specialist I would get turned away because my lungs are clear, there's no build up any where, and there is no wheezing. Last year, my physician noticed something was up with my liver activity and sent me away for an abdominal ultrasound. The results of the ultrasound had my physician diagnosis me with a fatty liver (which is odd considering that the highest likelihood of developing a fatty liver is through alcohol use, which is approx. 3 beer or so a year in my case). When I asked her about what I can do, especially considering that there was no alcohol to cut out -- her advice was to lose weight and ushered me out of the examination room. I was looking into ways to manage my weight and then my father passed away (partially due to his alcoholism, mostly due the massive heart attack he took).
I put my health on the back burner, helped out my step-mother anyway that I could (which, turns out, I couldn't help -- who knew that people grieve differently to major things that happen in their lives?). After the funeral, I just set my mind to my work and just kept working. In the interim time my health hasn't improved nor declined. I had an accident on a bus that hurt my already bad leg which set me back further in my fitness goals (I can barely walk a kilometre without my leg acting up) -- there wasn't enough damage to do anything, so I just kept on going on with my daily life (being more mindful of my leg hurting more than I'm used to). I found out that the prescription for the pain they gave me puts me in a horribly dark depression so I cut those out the instant I figured it out.
Now we're at the point where I'm starting to get concerned. About a month ago, I had a sudden and debilitating headache at work. I couldn't do ANYTHING without making my head feel worse. I booked an appointment with my physician at her earliest available (which was 5 days after the headache). She danced around the headache issue (tried to tell me it's my vision) and was about to rush me out of the examination room. I then had her read my chart to alert her to the fact that the nurse who took my blood pressure recorded it at 152/99 and asked her if she was going to do anything or even make out a possible link between my blood pressure and headache. She was huffy and took my pressure and tried to assure me that my pressure is normal. I had also asked her about her diagnosis from the previous year and whether she could order some blood work to see if I'm still doing alright. She reluctantly agreed to a random blood sample test and ushered me out. I got my blood drawn and within 48 hours the office called me back in to discuss the results. There was a problem, though, she went on holidays until September but they wanted to discuss my results, so I booked with one of our NPs (who I much prefer dealing with but is often overbooked). My NP looked at the results and stated my liver function is much higher than it was last year but there's no notes on my record for her to act on (because my physician has not come up with a plan to manage my fatty liver). The NP asked a lot of focused questions about my family medical history, alcohol use, and anything else that could be co-related to this. My chronic cough came up and we agreed it was probably in my best interest to go for a much more focused blood panel. So I drew blood again and was contacted 2 business days later asking if I could go into see a disease specialist (that appointment is in October).
I'm freaking out as quietly as I can. I'm concerned that my physician hasn't been treating me case well (her own words when I asked about her diagnosis of my fatty liver: "oh, you won't have to worry about that for decades") and I'm on a wait list to be taken into my partner's family clinic 100 km away (I'm perfectly okay with the hour drive to the clinic as that's how long it takes on transit to get to my clinic in downtown Ottawa). I'm just very concerned that this could be cancer or something worse (I'm more at ease about it being not cancer/something worse because my appointment is in October and my partner has seen this specialist when we thought her appendix was going to explode and was seen pretty much next-day when referred in), I just can't help but think down those dark lines. My mental health has been stable through this so far but I'm not sure how much longer I can keep going on with a mostly cheerful demeanor.
There, it's off my chest.
Do you have the ability to choose a new doctor? It seems like that would be a good place to start. If nothing else, getting a second opinion might help either confirm or refute your current diagnoses. If your doctor is really being as lackadaisical as you seem to believe, it's possible that she's missed something that another doctor may catch.
The alternative is that your doctor is right and you're worrying too much. I don't know you, so I can't say whether you're the type of person prone to that. Either way, I would think getting a second opinion is probably a good idea.
I don't have the ability to select a new doctor in the clinic that I'm currently a patient, hence why I'm on the wait list at the clinic that my partner is a patient. I can always try to book with the Nurse Practitioner (who seems to always be on top of following through) but the clinic always opts to push my appointments with her to my current physician. I guess I should just focus on not overthinking things and wait it out until I see the specialist in October.
I agree that your current doctor doesn't seem up to the task, or willing... whether the latter is because you're making mountains out of molehills or not or because she's really not very good, that's impossible to say.
When you started talking about a chronic cough, it reminded me about my own health-scare that started the same way and turned out one of two possible things, lymphoma or sarcoidosis... luckily, it was the latter.... but the rest of the symptoms don't quite fit.
That said, all I can offer is sympathy and encouragement not to over-think things but also, do not refrain from making sure you are doing all you can to enjoy your health such as it is, or better it if it's not as it should be.
There's lots of things here we talk about that we don't have an easy way to change at the moment.
I feel like modern american society has gotten worked up in a way where if an adult can't 100% make it on their own with no assistance, it's implicitly treated as a moral failing. And that in virtue of needing help they lose all right to object to anything that anyone does. I mean, there are a lot of things that I am allowed to do that I don't do because they would be mean or hurtful. I think a lot of people cross what a person has a right to do with what they ought to do.
I've had lots of people tell me, regarding my health, that if I really wanted I'd "find a way" to work when I wasn't even able to get out of bed and shower reliably. Or that I'd somehow "find a way" to make medical bills plus rent not add up to most of my income (not only that but that clearly I could do it instantly).
I think it's more that from what I can tell, your mother and you do not have a healthy relationship. The lack of boundaries between the two of you...Well, let's just say that happens in very unhealthy families. I'm not saying that is happening in your case but it might have put people in this mindset.
Weird question, but does she text you? If you can save screenshots of texts or emails or hell, even recordings of phone calls if she goes a little nutso, it might help sway other family members who might be willing to get the heck off your case. With the others? I'd tell THEM to support her. Inform these people that you make time for your mother, but that you need to address your own issues and career as well. Or try to volunteer them to support her instead, you think you might not be up for the job, what with your medical issues...So what time are you coming over, Mr. Busybody?
Does your mother or you go to therapy? Maybe suggest a group session if you think they are a reasonable person, but I think I recall you having some issues in finding someone competent in that regard.
My company looks like it's going out of business and hasn't been able to make payroll for nearly 3 months. I've been quietly looking for a job, but it's been slightly tough since my current job (when I was getting paid) was actually paying me above market value. I'm just curious of how I should answer the salary range question?
It is indeed unfortunate that so many people act that way. I suspect it's actually always been that way to some extent; and people just ignore the degree to which a person's family used to cover for such things; or that nobody covered it and bad things happened, and nobody heard much about it.
a lot of people are simply very ignorant, and have no understanding of how bad things can be. work is being done to try to change that; but progress is slow.
If I may speak plainly, other people can't help you with mental problems.
Over the last couple of years, you have repeatedly come into this thread with tales of your mother's ****ty behavior. You either cannot or will not implement any of the proposed solutions given to you by anyone in this thread over that time frame, repeatedly citing that you can't do so because of money or some other reason. As far as I can tell, you are in a highly dysfunctional, abusive relationship. But you won't leave it, and it's so god damn frustrating to read/watch because that is literally all you can do. I only recently got my jackass father out of my life, and I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be rid of him, even if it's only for a few weeks at a time.
It's not American society that thinks this way; I've spent the last few days watching Americans travel miles just to help someone out of a flooded house, a situation that many of them put themselves in by refusing to evacuate. And my entire city is like this. People help out when you're in genuine trouble so long as you don't take advantage of them.
The problem isn't America, I doubt you've even met enough people in your life for a proper sample size of your state, let alone all of America. The problem is your mother and the people around you. You need to get away from your current environment, ESPECIALLY your mother. Your situation and mental health has not improved, and it won't until you change something.
A better way to put it...sometimes people need support even when they don't immediately have a way to fix their situation. There's no magic solution that will instantly make everything better. But it seems that a lot of people take the attitude that you have to either figure out how to fix the situation on their timetable, or you need to completely shut up and not mention any issues ever or look for support. Usually backed by the assumption that there. must be a solution and the only possible reason you are still in the situation is that it isn't that bad after all.
Right now, it's bad, but it's better than being homeless because you couldn't pay rent and medical together. Any further changes require a new job, which I can only apply for. I am applying but I can't guarantee when I'll get one that's sufficient.
Sometimes what I'm looking for isn't "how do I get out of this situation", but "how do I keep myself sane while it's going on."
With the risk of sounding repetitive but.... Have you tired therapy?
And sometimes, people express concern by offering advice. I don't think people are trying to be unsympathetic, just...It's a common response?
As for ways to be sane, try our advice on your mother. Just pester her with articles, advice and other solutions. You're just trying to help! Well, if she doesn't want help, you'll be out in the park or library reading a book. And then purchase a pair of headphones and pretend they are noise-cancelling. Whoops! Can't hear you!