The Disability Assessment

I just got a call from vocational rehab, they are ready to get started, however, it has not been ok'd by disability.  I forgot to ask what this first step was.  We already did the intake, and I was waiting, for I still had at least one more week to relax and not worry about it.  Now, they called me and I am to go in on Wednesday this week, my heart stammered, I was not ready, but ready or not, it is time.

I can't help but feel  that since disability has not ok'd it yet, there is not much for them to do.  It won't be a job search yet, I don't have to have my resume, she told me on the phone, so I have to wonder what the first step is.  I'm wondering if it is an assessment on my disability?  Ways in which they can help me?  It's ok, but this is deeply personal to me, and I kinda would like disability to give the go ahead first, in case this is all for nothing.

And as of yet, I really don't know what my problem is.  I can't hold down a job, I freak people out, ok, but what kind of diagnosis is that.  I can't provide for myself, that's for sure, and if you can't provide for yourself, you still have to get ahold of some money some way, in order to stay alive.

I seem to have trouble dying.  I stayed alive during the craziest of times, did crazy things as a child, that should have killed me.  There was no one monitoring me during those times, and I kinda wonder where engulfing mother  was during those times, its weird.  I used to scale rocks in my bare feet, at one point I remember falling down from a cliff edge, but I somehow got my footing at the last minute, but I remember falling.  Or the time I ate some wild berries in the swamp.  I was used to blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, that was it.  This strange new berry tasted so good, I ate so much of them my tummy was bursting.  Turns out, they were blackberries, and they are not poisonous, and to this day they are my favorite berries.  I got some at the grocery store yesterday and wanted to take a picture of them, but I ate them too quickly, there are gone, sorry.  So many things I did, all on my own, but there are times I was not to leave mother's side, it remains a mystery to me. However, someone once told me that a engulfing narc will be an ignoring one too, it depends on what they want to do.  It was never about 'protecting' me.

So let me gather some momentum, on accessing what my disability claim is before I get into something that won't work for me.  I know I can't share the real truth about my upbringing, only stay in the here and now and figure it out what stops me, what compels me, what triggers me, and what makes this a disability.  What is this?

It's not about needing things to be made easy for me.  The more complicated it is, the more I will like it, unless if someone around me is in a bad mood.  I can't handle people, that is what it is.  If they are good people?  Maybe, but until my body makes that decision on whethere they are nice or not, my body will be triggered.  I can't help but think this is a physical thing, that they can see.  Its visible.  Its sheer crippling anxiety.

I've oftentimes have been put into situations where the job was easy, never being given the hardest tasks.  Maybe they thought I had a learning disability and/or not smart.  Or that I don't even look capable of the task.  I wouldn't have been able to step up and ask for more anyway, although that would have been a possibility.  I had an evil friend at one point in time, and she used to tell me not to bother people, get along with people.  She was a stinking pile of human waste material.

I am grateful everyday for my relationship site, that is really more than just about relationships with the opposite sex.  I am taught there that being nice to people is not the point, afterall, why would I want to be nice?  Is it so that I can extract some kind of approval from them?  Is approval seeking not just being selfish really?  Of course, it is.  Never seek approval, you are extracting value from humans.

So, since I would rather things get complicated for me, it can't be that the job is too hard.  But people must read me that way.  Its funny, cause the assessment worker said at the first meeting, that I am being misunderstood by employers, and she even wrote that down on the assessment form.  I'm grateful for that one.  It is absolutely true.  But only one piece of the puzzle.

Suppose I talk a little more about mother?

When I think of my mother, there is way too much to think about.  One of my last memories is when I lived in an apartment with my daughter.  Mother would call about 4-5 times a day.  And if I wasn't home during any of those times, I had to explain it to her.  I wasn't working during a long stretch of that.

So she would call me, and say that I wasn't home earlier that morning and the first thing that flew into my mind as of what to say is that I was out food shopping, and I told her that I "needed to".  Afterall, isn't food shopping absolutely necessary?  She told me that I was out too much that I needed to stay home more.  And every time she would inform the rest of the people that she talked to that I was always out running around, that I had no business out, that I should have stayed home.

One day I did stay home, and didn't go anywhere, and when mother called all during that day, and found me at home, she told me she was proud of me.  She told me that I was a good daughter.

This was all before I met my present husband.  My daughter was 17, she was living with me, I was trying to find work, and mother indeed wanted me to find work, but I was to stay at home.

"Here's what you need to do," she would tell me.  "You spend the day looking for a job, then when you are done that, you stay at home.  You are always on the computer anyway, you should be able to stay at home, and not be out, bothering people all the time.  You have to understand, it bothers people when you are around them, so stop doing that.  Be polite to people, I know this is hard for you."

Back, growing up on the farm, it was instilled in me to stay home.  I can't figure that one out.  She never explained it.  Nor did I dare ask.  It was just something that I had to do.

I always likened my mother and my life to that Stephen King movie, "Carrie".  In fact another girl in grade school at the time said I was just like Carrie.  I never did like that movie, and I never record it, I will never.  I saw it a few times, and just remembering that Carrie had a hard time going to that dance at school, because of her mother, and the way her mother was, was exactly how my mother was.

I hate that movie, hate talking about it, I hope you can remember the movie, hoping you might have saw it, and maybe you can see what I'm saying.

So, things that get complicated don't bother me at all.  In fact, I do complicated things all the time just for fun.  I don't mind if other people look at the quilts I make, and I'm rather not afraid of that.  At one point when I was growing up, I used to win awards all the time for my artwork and my writing.  I can't do that anymore.  I have entered a contest for my quilting, with prizes, and I did an amazing quilt for it.  I just finished it.  I would post it, but I did so well on it, that I'm afraid that it will get me disqualified.  No one is supposed to see our quilts made yet, they are to arrive at the fall retreat anonymously.  I will take a picture and show it when that is over.  Especially if I do manage to win. My gosh, if I do win, I think I'll be right back to that strong little girl winning prizes again, not the person that took in my mother in 2005.

Things changed for me in 2005.  I was winning awards as a child, but I still had problems.  I had low self esteem, they told me.  I used to win the awards thinking they were just regular things, not thinking I was great at what I did.  Just oh well, don't get big headed about it.  But mother used to tell me sometimes that I was marvelous at what I did.  She did praise me.  Her putdowns were way more extreme than any praise she could give me, however.

But I was always confused about praise.  It is not normal to me.  When I got drunk at the age of three, my mother laughed and thought it was funny.  She did not laugh when that whole thing had the potential to make her look bad.  So she would just say that none of it was her fault.  So it was bad what I did?  So was it good what I did?  Which was it?  Wasn't getting drunk at the age of three something marvelous for no one else could ever do it?  That is what she told me, she told me that no one else ever did it, only me.  So that made me great.

I delved to try to get drunk again.  I again got drunk at the age of five, then seven, then twelve.  She told me that I would be an alcoholic.  Not as a matter of scolding me, but just telling me in a matter of fact way. that is the way it is. You are already going down that road.

I think I got drunk more in my childhood than I ever did as an adult.  I was a child alcoholic.  But it was like God saved me through that, just like he did with the berries, just like He did when He probably held onto me while I was slipping from a cliff.  Do I have trouble with dying?  I think so.  I can't tell you why God allowed me to be born of mother.  I know that is probably what a lot of people might be thinking reading this, but He saved me over and over again.  I had no idea I was climbing a death defying climb, how could I even perceive such knowledge?  I wasn't very old, perhaps about 10, but I wasn't given living skills, so that must be taken in consideration, I wasn't batshit crazy, I just didn't know.

My oldest daughter told me that I never gave her skills to survive, that she didn't know a lot of things growing up.  So I tried to help her, but I found that child in particular very difficult to raise.  She wouldn't listen to me, and I would try, but like most children, she would be contrary.  I was very young when I had her, and I found this child even when very young, very difficult.  She had her own ways, and I was always tring to correct her, but I was wrong way more times than I was right.  I'd screw it up.  Hindsight always came to me, and I did grow, as such my other two children got the benefit of it not her though.

My youngest daughter seems to have a big problem with me getting a job.  She told me that.  She had two children barely a year apart from eachother, and she is having a hard time.  They need constant attention, she does have her guy, the father of her baby, but he works so much, and its hard.  After Wednesday I'm taking the baby for a week, but there is no way to tell what is going to happen after that.  But we only take it a little bit at a time, I've said that before, and I told my daughter that too.  So I learned to just do the best you can, the nature of life is that it is uncertain, the faster we can realize that the better.  If I could tell my youngest self anything it would be that.

But I did know that life can be unpredictable.  This is hard to dissect.  It was like I always had to create certainty when there isn't any.  I can't really explain that one well.  Like right now, I want to pave the way to take care of me, and even that one is hard.  I don't know what is going to happen at the appointment on Wednesday, and we can't proceed with anything until disability says its ok.  And even hubby told me that he doesn't care about money, and I am making a big deal over nothing.  He is a well heeled man, always been a well heeled man, and maybe that's not good.  Money, huh?  He has always been in the position of providing for himself, its like he can't ever relate to me.  I find that very annoying.  This means that he gets along with everybody, and treats me like I'm the oddball. Maybe its the other way around?  Jesus was never approved of by many people, he was rejected, so why do regular humans expect to be treated better in this world than Jesus was?

I'm getting myself into a mess here, trying to access my disability, and its just another trip down the rabbit hole.  I'm struggling with this.  I'm feeling like hubby rejects me but doesn't reject me.  I'm feeling angry at him, but I'm keeping that all to myself.  There is nothing going on to argue with him right now, and its just this constant simmer inside me.  Since I have to feel my feelings, I'm going it alone and just allowing myself to feel, all alone.  It's better this way.

I used to know this girl online that I never talked to.  I went on this forum once, never joined up, and just kind of followed her around on there.  She was strong and I felt that, without her being narcissistic, she had normal self esteem.  She even called out this guy once, that no one would even dare to, he was popular there, but she called him out on his shit.  I saw his shit going on too, but being so popular, he was untouchable, except for her.  She called him a clown.  I only lurked on this site, and this girl had me spellbound.  She was beautiful, from the pictures she took, exercised at the gym, took care of herself, and she only had one arm.

She had only her right arm.  So she was disabled, but she lived like normal people.   She didn't have to go flying down stairs, or play the drums with her feet.  Nothing like that.  But she said she could change a car tire, and even load a gun properly.  All the things people think they don't know how to do.  Things that are really so downright necessary.  She said her father made her practical, and I was so enthralled by this person, who dropped off the face of the earth from me, when she got off that discussion forum.  But I could just tell by the way she talked even, that there was something special there.

After that, I was out on a date with a guy for the first time.  It was 2010, and we met on a dating site. We went to see that movie, called, "Soul Surfer".  Basically, it was about a girl who lost one of her arms while surfing, she was attacked by a shark.  There were such tense moments in the movie, especially the part where she attempted to make her family breakfast, right after healing, and she made a mess all over the kitchen.  She had a lot of tasks to learn, first she had to learn that there will have to be acceptance over her new state.

The movie got me so upset, I was crying spilled popcorn, spilled my pop, the new guy had to share his pop with me, and I felt like I was in an uncontrollable state.  Oh well, guessed I screwed up that date, lol.  I was so sure the guy would be gone from my life forever, but he continued to come after me for more dates, just like that one he said.  No, that is not my current hubby.  That guy started to send me poetry that he wrote, and he said he wasn't a writer.  I was sort of creeped out by him, just for that.  I had to get away from him.  He told me that I would forever get hurt, that the dating site would cause me to get hurt, and I thought it was just him acting out from anger.  I wouldn't see him again.

I'm just pulling things out of my head now.  Things that are tangible, things I can remember.  Truth is, I'm afraid of the assessment.  I think I only need to work in a job alone, and no one around me.  But I don't like to be alone all the time, just I like to control when I'm around people and when I'm not.  In a job you can't make such decisions, and you need to go with the flow.  Go with the flow?  Yeah, sure, tell my body to do that ok?  I can't friggin do it.  So maybe working alone will be best?

One thing I'm proud of, is that all my children can work and hold down jobs.  As much as my older daughter tells me that I failed her as a parent, one thing is for sure, she has been holding onto a job right now for a lot longer than I was ever able to.  She is able to pay her bills, she is able to live normally.  Her mind doesn't scream and call herself a loser, she is capable.  So even if she is very angry with me sometimes, I know she will be ok.  I will have to go without her approval, its ok, as long as she is fine.

Random thoughts, eh?  Ha, ha, its ok.  It wasn't actually my intention to make some great analysis of myself.  This was just to talk.  I remember my last therapist I had who told me that I am burnt out over humiliation and fear of physical hurt and pain.  That was my diagnosis.  I have reached the maximum I can take with humiliation and violence, she told me.  My mother wasn't into hitting, but she was able to use other family members to do that dirty work.  I was afraid of getting hurt as a child, I was afraid of getting hurt as an adult.  I used to think that someone who hurts you loves you. Otherwise, why are they paying you such that special attention?

And humiliation, my gosh, I think I have wrote that all out a long time ago.  Sometimes I think it would be best for me to make a summary of my whole blog.  Put all the pieces together.

After my last posting it has dawned on me that I'm terribly afraid of rejection.  I'm afraid I'll be rejected by the disablility job for being too crazy, rejected by the people, rejected in life.  Maybe I should be talking more about my former work experiences.  Ugh.  To talk about anything specifically, pains me.  Lots of the good people just left me alone.  Even they would trigger my anxiety.  My mind couldn't pick out if they could be trusted or not.  Besides, most of my friends at the time were narcs, so I had a rather twisted notion of what trust really was.

I never trusted myself, even when I felt my friends were tormentors themselves.  I was always second guessing myself, always expecting the worst, and my best friend would compound those feelings about myself in our various coffee chats.  She even said that I probably had a personality disorder.  I was grateful.  I took that to my therapist I was seeing at the time, and my therapist wanted to speak to her about that some more.  What was so funny is that I had no idea what was going on.  My friend declined.  My therapist assured me, that I had no personality disorder, that I had PTSD which was compounded over humiliation and violence.  My friend told me that I had a severe potential towards violence, that I could be very violent myself, and after I told my therapist that, she wanted to see her again, it seemed like she was just dying to see my friend, which she never did.

My last get together with my friend was because she told me that I put the therapist's thoughts before what she had told me.  I told my friend that my therapist had 20 years experience dealing with people, and my friend only a couple of years, she was a social worker too, but anyway, that friend never spoke to me again.  Our last meeting, I screamed a bit while the wind almost took the door off on my way out, and I could see her laughing at me, eyes wide, I almost thought I saw mother.

I screamed a bit, but it what was weird that I wasn't scared or nervous about the door, it just felt like a normal thing to me.  You know I can't put this thing together.  Perhaps I'll just tell the person who I talk to on Wednesday what my therapist had said, that I had PTSD over humiliation and violence, and just leave it at that.  I just hope no more questions will be asked, and we can proceed.