Today I am thankful for being resourceful.
The kids and I have been able to live full lives despite not having a car.
We have our groceries delivered. I order the small things we need on Amazon, Victoria's Secret and Blair (they sell geezer clothes).
I've learned to avoid Instacart. $149 sneaky yearly fee? No thank you. King Soopers and Sprouts use their service.
The delivery man for Safeway is kind. Their delivery fee is only $3.99 if I let them have a 4 hour delivery window. It's not like I'm going anywhere.
I like Walmart's delivery service but they don't let you tip the drivers. That breaks my heart.
I'll stick with Safeway.
The problem is that my car is so old that my mechanic is having trouble getting parts. He needs to rebuild the transmission himself and is waiting for the ball bearings.
This might go on for a few more weeks.
Sigh....
My job search is on hiatus.
I have an interview with a California doctoral program tomorrow morning.
I guess I can live like the liberals live for now.
*****
I still talk to homeless people at the bus station.
The government gives them free cheap phones but they don't stay charged.
I still think I should invest in a bunch of solar chargers to give away. I tried to buy some at wholesale but I'm really having trouble trusting the cheap Chinese crap on eBay and Amazon.
Some of the descriptions trip me up.
I was looking for a sterling silver pendant for a ritual and kept coming across descriptions that read
.925 sterling silver alloy
If it's an alloy, it's not sterling silver. It would be worthless for the rituals.
I'm finding myself distrustful of many listings on those websites. Once I get my car back, I can head over to Microcenter to see what they can do for me.
If I buy a box of solar chargers, can I even trust that they'd work? I'm reading horror stories about the return policies.
*****
For the first time in twenty years, I'm feeling my fibromyalgia diagnosis. I am in tremendous pain that keeps me up at night.
I'm trying so hard not to go to the doctor. I don't have insurance and I know that Medicaid will pick up the bill.
I'm not sure they can do anything for fibromyalgia except prescribe Lyrica. The symptoms started when I was bit by a tick in 1994. I tested negative for Lyme disease.
Back then I slept about two hours a night. This is why I started a graduate program focusing on psychoneuroimmunology. Now a program like that would be called Behavioral Health.
There was a theory, back in the day, that fibromyalgia patients didn't get enough REM sleep. I'm a hypnotist, I can easily put myself into a Delta state. I haven't really taken the time to do that recently.
Perhaps it is the lack of deep sleep that's causing the problems.
I don't understand Medicaid.
Let me tell you the story of a dental cleaning gone awry.
I had scheduled a cleaning. I was in a lot of pain and thought a cleaning would help improve my job interview confidence. I had a habit of hiding my mouth when I spoke.
Medicaid kept denying the service.
I thought about a credit card. I mean, how much can a cleaning be?
$100 at most?
Maybe I could sell something to pay it off. Yes, I maxed out my credit cards on legal fees to the ex and paying school fees for the kids. I will get a home loan once I find a real job.
Well...last week, .I got a call stating that my cleaning was approved. I get to the dentist office and find I had a $307 copay.
Well...it turns out that the dentist wanted to cap my front teeth. When I was seven, my mother used to smack me in the face a lot. My front teeth were 60% broken; I still had the outer outline of the top and sides of each tooth but the sides facing each other were horribly chipped.
Every smile was a reminder of the hell that awaited me at home. My mother died when I was fourteen.
Three months after her death, a kind dentist fixed them for me by filling them in with composite. He charged me $12.
This dentist changed my life. Bullying in my life ceased. I modeled for a short time.
My graduate thesis was on the importance of dental care in one's confidence (you can actually find it on Google Scholar of all places). Another dentist actually heard my story and knew who the dentist who helped me was. He is still alive but he's been retired for many years.
Every five years or so, I'd have to have them refilled.
It is hard now not having that reminder of human kindness in the mirror every time I smile. I'll get over it.
My teeth look very much different now as they temporary caps on them.
I, being a big shot, walked to the dentist.
After the procedure, I walked to the grocery store with my mouth still numb. I was unable to talk. I had to wipe my face every few minutes to wipe away the blood and the slobber.
It was funny when I lost my phone and a clerk had found it and asked if it were mine.
I couldn't enunciate the word "yes."
That was embarrassing.
I bought far too many groceries and wound up schlepping them on my back for the mile long walk home.
I swear, I must have looked like Quasimodo with rabies that day.
Or maybe a sickly vampire.
Sigh.....
That must've been a sight to see.
It appears I owe the taxpayers another $1,000.
There has to be a way to pay it forward.
I do regret getting my teeth capped. They're bleeding. They've never bleed before. I can feel the teeth shift in my mouth.
Well....
hopefully I'll heal soon.
I hope I didn't re-trigger my TMJ. I'm finding all of my joints are popping since the day at the dentist. I'm sure my jaw impacts my neck, which impacts my spine, my hips, my knees and even my feet.
I put in an order for foot care braces and knee wraps on Amazon.
*****
Part of the reason I drive older cars is that I rarely get injured in them. I used to drive Mercury Lynxes (what is the plural of Lynx?...why don't just call them what they are - off brand Ford Escorts). I had two crashes in them and I was severely injured in both.
The first crash in 1998 gave me TMJ and a bad hip that goes out of joint every few months. I have to manually put it back into place now.
The second crash in 2001 caused me to lose 1/4" in height and shifted some of my internal organs. It was a head on crash with a woman who decided to make an illegal left turn in front of my car. The car only had 50,000 original miles on it. The insurance company, State Farm, claimed the car was only worth $500 (of course it was worth so little after their insured crashed it) and my injuries only worth $7,000.
The surgery I need will cost far more than $7,000 even with insurance. Of course, I don't really have six weeks to heal from a surgery (never have had that kind of time) but I'll have to do something soon because I can't tolerate the condition any more. My ex really wouldn't cooperate with my injuries or illness as he had back pain which always took precedence over my medical concerns. He became incredibly abusive after this accident and, for a while, blamed a possible head injury.
After a visit to a neurosurgeon, I learned that there was no head injury. His therapists were never seeing him for very long. I even sent him to people I KNEW were good. When one asked for the funds to pay for an MMPI due to suspected NPD, I understood what was going on.
Health insurance doesn't cover personality disorder testing and/or treatment because those disorders are fixed.
I can't diagnose him. My suspicion is more of a covert type of narcissism; these are people who play the victim and the rescuer in public but expect to be catered to in private. These are the kind of people who will pretend to be homeless and alcoholic so they can get out of child support and alimony. All narcissists are known to stalk but covert narcissists can be more dangerous because they are sneaky and hide their intentions. Overts don't typically care who knows what they are doing. Coverts do.
There is a third possibility. It is said that severe trauma and stress (such as PTSD from war) can cause a person to become incredibly self-absorbed but I don't know what the trauma would have been. Thinking back, he was always off. When we met, he criticized me because he didn't like how I said the word "herb" with an h sound and went off like a nut-job. I had to grab a dictionary to show that both were accurate before I ushered him out the door.
I was an orphan. I learned to talk from BBC television. The British say the "h." He should stick a sock in it.
He also went nutty when my two year old had an errant toenail clipping in the tub. He didn't live with me. Why did he care?
Of course, there were the numerous threatening telephone calls from his family before we even dated. I had never met some of these people. I should have sent him packing in 1992 when he refused to talk about it.
I couldn't control his behavior. I can control what I drive and minimize the chance of injury.
I decided it was worth the money to pay more for gas in order to drive a sturdier car. It seems to have helped, I've had a couple of crashes with no injuries (knock on wood).
I'll keep my older tank.
******
I'm just checking in....
and letting everyone know I'm still breathing.
Maybe tomorrow I'll share insight from a stalking victim (maybe....). Someone taught me today that the medical and psychiatric establishment doesn't take it seriously. I cant go into it too much.
There are procedures for people who experience rape. There are procedures for people who are being abused domestically. There are no procedures for someone who has just experienced an obvious stalking event.
Stalking feels like a very long rape. Sadly, it's up to the victims to collect the evidence and go to the authorities. It can be very disabling not to be heard. Stalkers, especially when they start infiltrating your home and work life, know where you are! It truly undermines one's sense of safety.
Truth be told, for confidentially sake, I cannot go into the issue very far. It may have to be a topic of research for an article using anecdotes from people who wish to share their stories.
It's sad that people don't understand that stalking is a form of domestic violence in many cases. It hurts me to meet other people in the throws of stalking victimization and to have people who are supposed to help them blow it off.
I wish I were the only person with that experience. Yesterday I discovered, yet again, that I am not.
This person is not someone I can advocate for because of the circumstances in which I have met her.
Sigh....
Love ya,
S.