THREE IN A ROW

This may seem unremarkable, and very sad, but today will mark the third day in a row that I actually leave the house (by car) if I go to Allstate later and pay my premium per my plan. For those of you who know me are probably experiencing some form of shock. Yes, I have become a recluse.


Day one was my trip to see my doctor. That really wasn't a great day. However, I did leave the house and so it counts. My driving skills are beginning to frighten me. Actually it isn't so much the driving but the remembering. And that has been frightening me for a long time. It was really bad when I lived here and was working. I'd be in my territory and forget how to get to an account I'd been to a million times. Then I'd have an anxiety attack while I was driving because I couldn't remember how to get where I was going and I knew I should. I got lost going to my doctor's office. Not lost, lost. Just wrong turn lost. I got found again. It didn't give me an anxiety attack; it just made me mad.


On day two I remembered the rest of what Debbie Strait said about filing for disabilitity... all of the work involved. I spent most of the day drowning out her voice by playing on facebook and writing a nice blog about my dog. I wanted to think about ANYTHING else. My mom had made plans to have dinner over at my aunt's house. My mom cooked dinner and took it over because my aunt had a biopsy done yesterday and she knew that she wouldn't feel like cooking. All prayers for her are appreciated:-)


I was still writing my Shelby blog and wasn't quite ready to go and drove separately since they only live a mile and a half away. I don't know what it is about the car but someday someone is going to name a band Drivin' and Thinkin' because that is invariably what happens when I get in there. Dontcha know I got lost going to my aunt's house since I was so lost in thought! Not really lost but I had to turn around and figure out where the heck I was. Anyway, I will explain my vision flashes because that's what they were for me: flashes. You get the long version.


Back in December 2005 I was divorced but very sick and my parents had already moved to FL. At Christmas they came to me because there was no chance of it being the other way around. The look on my mother's face when she walked into my house was priceless. My house was a disaster. It was paper everywhere. I hadn't eaten in my dining room since Rob and the kids moved out. I had stacks of mail all over the table, all around the floor surrounding the table, it had creeped into the living room, smaller stacks were in the kitchen, den, office, etc. My mother is super-organized. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She spent the rest of that trip trying to find my bills. I got 2-3 pieces of work mail daily, junk mail, and bills all mixed together. She had her work cut out for her.

I learned later in Divorce Recovery Group that hiding your mail like that is a subconscious coping method that people use when they know that they aren't making enough money to pay their bills. How true that was. I can't tell you many times my lights, water, etc, were cut off and I had to call my dad saying, "Help, I'm in the dark/without water, etc."


Overlay all of that with Debbie's voice telling me I needed to be super-organized to get SSD because the government is one big red tape machine that only cares about facts. It wants facts. What meds did you take for how long, etc. Holy crap. This all started back in 2001. I'm writing down when I take my pain pills because I can't remember so I don't overdose myself. I can't even remember my neurologist's name from back in 2003! Fear is the great immobilizer. I could feel myself spiraling down and that is how I missed my aunt's house.

Earlier today, I read a blog I've been following (A DELIBERATE LIFE). For right now, you will have to go to my profile and look at blogs I follow until I can figure out how to move what I want onto my main page (eeks!). She is waging her own war on her weight and she has been winning *yeah* until she hit her own roadblock. She used a chicken coop metaphor that I won't ruin for you. The thing is this: we all reach a place where we have to make a decision of which fear is greater. Hers has to do with her weight and her history. Mine has to do with wading through a lot bureaucratic medical bullcrap that will take time, money (I am going to have to go back to each doctor/hospital for a history and some will charge for this stuff by the page), and it will be migraine-causing, BUT I will have the information that I need or I can do nothing and continue to cause my parents to suffer and still have a migraine. It's always a no-brainer in the end. You just have to kick down that wall of fear to see it.


As for me, I have to try and find some visually interesting pictures for you and then I have a car insurance payment to make. I hope I find the Allstate office....