Stumbling & Bumbling
(Revised May 25 6pm) I WROTE THE LAST TWO THIRDS OF THIS LAST NIGHT WITH MY EYELIDS DROOPING & POPPING OPEN AND THE COMPUTER KEYBOARD CONSTANTLY THREATENING TO FALL OFF MY LAP.
i WENT TO BED AT DAWN, AFTER GIVING UP TRYING TO REREAD AND CORRECT IT, WHEN I REALIZED i WAS READING THE SAME PARAGRAPH FOR THE ZILLIONTH TIME.
i'M SORRY THIS IS SO LONG & RAMBLING. Repetative! i'M "WITH IT" JUST ENOUGH NOW TO SEE THAT, BUT NOT NEARLY IN COMMAND OF FACILITIES TO DO ANYTHING MUCH ABOUT IT.
IN SPITE OF THE CONVOLUTIONS OF THIS POST, I HOPE THAT YOU'LL WORK YOUR WAY THROUGH TO THE END.
I DON'T HAVE ANYONE ELSE TO TELL THESE THINGS TO BUT YOU GUYS.
THANKS. SHERRYT
Stumbling and bumbling were about the best I could do through the last couple of days since my therapy session. In case I didn't mention it yesterday, I felt blindsided by my therapist's abrupt change in subject to anger--so similar to Desai's sudden question less than two weeks earlier. He -had- to have called her! Otherwise, this is freakier than doppelganger man.
Ever since Thursday, I've been depressed, very anxious, bewildered--just plain confused.
Today, Saturday, was Written Remain's first Author Master Class, taught by Ramona Long. We met from 9am to 2pm at First and Central Presbyterian Church in Wilmington. Before that, Ramona loaded us up with homework--8 short stories to read (a couple about the size of novelettes). We also needed to give her a completed work for her to edit. During the day,she discussed our stories with us one-on-on. Finally, we were told to bring along ideas for stories, story fragments and stories that hadn't made it out of first draft or outline. I chose "Dingle" as one of mine, (Poor story. It's been a quarter finished for years now.
I did my best to get through reading the assigned stories and selecting my drafts. II kept needing to stop, thanks to waves of anxiety and depression, to say nothing of time-outs during which I tried to work through what I would do about trips to the therapist, neurologist and psychiatrist in the future. I was and I am very inclined to give up on trying to get the Paratransit card and while I'm at it even on trying to get back to the neurologist.
The neurologist's only Positive Change in my treatment is to suggest those new headache meds than can be dangerous for my heart. Neurologist Negatives are taking away my migraine meds and refusing to authorize a hospital stay somewhere where medical personnel could run tests to find out what causes my headaches. (This worked out fine for my Mom when she went down to Johns Hopkins Hospital decades ago. They demonstrated she had three different kinds and made recommendations for two or the three. She never had as many headaches after that. There's been a lot of medical research since then.)
I spent most of yesterday and last night shifting between assignments, fending off emotional upheaval & desperately needing sleep.
The Master Class
I got up at 6:30, facing materials that still needed to be read or copied, but I was more concerned quelling waves of nausea spurred by anxiety and excessive crying. I knew though that I had done as much I could hope for by the time Joanne and Justin came to get me at 8;30 a.m.
The class was good but I'm not up to describing it right now. I'll try in a couple of days when (maybe) some of it will have sunk in.
Scanner at Staples
I asked Joanne and Justin to drop me at Staples on their way home so I could finally buy myself a new scanner. I bought my first one in the early 2000's and have always loved it! For one thing, it saved me a -lot- of work when I wanted to convert typed pages of later manuscripts to computer WORD files, using OCR. Recently the old scanner had begun to scan in subtle "stripes". It also had developed a mischevous tendancy to turn off my modern when it was turned on. The new scanner is also an HP. It isn't attached to the computer tower yet and I haven't read the manual but I dimly remember being surprised at a couple of built in features. I'm very much looking forward to trying it out!
And now to bed. To sleep? I hope
I hope I can get through a night's sleep tonight without getting fixated on what went on first in the psychiatrist's office a couple oof weeks ago and now in the therapist's office--with all of the focus suddenly shifted to anger and in particular queries about why I was (or am) angry.
I used to get angry a lot but to my mind you have to go back decades to see clear evidence of that when I dealing face-to-face with individuals. Recently, the whole mess with Amazon has made me furious. No question.I confess I've had some trouble keeping that anger out of my messages to Amazon, but I know it's seeped in more and more over the months, with so little progress after so much effort.
DART Para-transit is like a microcosm of that situation, built on top of my years-long frustration with the DART routes and schedules which make it so difficult for me to get to specialists. You all know that I grump about it here. I try to be less grumpy about it when on the phone to DART personnel. I am really good about that! I do not begin grumping on the phone to a play into I've been through several interations over several days with no discernable results.
In fact, when that lady called up and said that in spite of the reservations I had just made I wasn't eligible to use Paratransit, all I did was cry.
Was I exasperated with the psychiatrist two weeks ago, when he asked why he should fill out the form requesting that I be considered for access to Paratransit? Yes. I was surprised at his reaction though not that much because we had a conversation on the subjection a long time ago. Consequently, I had rather expected some hedging from him, since he deals with psychological diseases rather than physical ones. Was I angry? He says I was. I'm past the point of having a clue--either I was or I wasn't. Did I have a right to be or I didn't. Whatever.
Nonetheless, his words (and the therapist's) felt like having 20-year-old therapy concerns or issues being pushed in my face out of the blue. Having a mental health caregiver challenge me about something I do now, I'd get! For example, If I'm -- WHEN I'm
being self-absorbed. Tell me about it. Remind of how the attitude has made situations go south in the past and lets discover how I should be thinking and acting instead.
Same's true for all the other irritating habits I've got--like Interrupting People. Major My Bad! For those who have talked to me, as hard as it must be to believe, I really WORK at trying not to interrupt! I just get so excited when talking to real live people. I have all these things I know or anecdotes to relate! Occasionally something fits in an email or here on Scribblings, but chatting is a lot better. I like talking with other people in the next chair over. it's fun!
I simply couldn't get my mind wrapped around my therapist bringing up the "Sweetie" incident from last year! I thought I was anything but being condescending to C last year when I tried to explain about the storage boxes in the storage place not really working out for me. At that time "Sweetie" was my warning word, meaning "Brace yourself". (ex. "Sweetie, I don't think your rebate's going to be $1200. I hear they're mostly $600.) Even after all of these months, I'm still astounded by her reaction. She was furious! She not only got up and walked away, but she did it again a little while later that same day when I said something similar. (Back then, I used the expression several times a day. I never use it now!) Even now, months later, I believe that there is still a tentative atmosphere during our conversations. A constant checking of wind velocity, water current & the grays of the clouds. Ooh, I'd love to talk about blah-blah but is it a safe subject? Can I offer a different opinion on that, or do I just smile and nod? I have a suggestion but maybe it's safer not to mention it...
(At the time of the original incident, my therapist explained a couple of protocols about conversations that I had never "gotten" before. If you complain about a situation, people's first reaction is to offer solutions. I thought the first reaction would be to offer sympathy. I complained about the boxes, received advice, said yeah I'd thought about that but... and before the sentence was over made the other person angry. After the therapist's explanation, I tried to remember not to complain about situations in which I had already been through every solution I could envision. Still, the whole discussion with her (the therapist) at the time, left me wondering how you elicit sympathy for an insoluble situation during a conversation, without getting a dozen work-arounds you've already tried.)
I'm not sure how I've gotten myself into these situations where I have to take the reactions of the other person more into account than I do exchanging information or expressing my own reactions. I'm sure it's a corollary of the Golden Rule. At least I can get behind that.
Two weeks ago, when I gave Desai the Dart Paratransit form he didn't seem inclined to address my problems using Paratransit in some other way than just writing down my mental health diagnosis. He asked why he should fill it out, and I tried to answer with concrete reasons from my perspective via the list I made of dangerous highway crossings. That's when he asked why I was angry with him. Every step of that visit keeps queueing back through my thoughts two weeks after I visited him. Was I angry that day?
I'm angry and frustrated with the situation re Dart Disabiity -- Why?
Because two women could use Paratransit exactly the way I wanted to, even though they only had "ELD"on their cards like mine, I "successfully" made online appts but I was later denied using the service, via a phone call. I wasn't upset because the two women because they could have been confused(?) about card types & which types allowed someone in NCCo to get to hard-to-reach specialists. I was and am upset because a Paratransit busdriver confirmed that what the women said was correct. I was and am upset about software for the onscreen form allowing me to fill out the form, only to generate a phone call hours later saying cards with ELD on them are for people who are traveling between counties .(Honestly, how many people travel to a different county to see a specialist?) I was briefly angry with the woman who called my from DART to give me the bad news, because she asked me to stop crying. I don't believe I showed my anger when I responded that my disability was from depression so it wasn't an option.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's interesting though, isn't it?
1. I'm discouraged by those in authority at DART from being discernably(?) upset and crying about a situation that is itself upsetting me and making me cry.
2. My mental health workers "call me" about evidencing anger (which is actually off my own radar at that moment!) while discussing a subject that has been making me frustrated and angry.
3. When I have a predicament that I've mulled over from every side and finally given up on ever resolving, my mental health care professionals recommend that I don't bring it up in public conversation (in hopes of a bit of sympathy about the pesky thing)--because others will assume that I want solutions and will be hurt when I say that I've considered the offered solution but my circumstances would prevent it from working as planned.
4. This is an old one but as long as I'm making a list. For the most part, when people pass you and they say "How are you doing?", they don't really want a factual answer. ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So there I am with quite a reservoir of anger and frustration built up about Paratransit
And nice little reservoirs of anger and frustration
RE
being denied a shot at a hospital headache study to learn the causes of my headaches
OR
or any recourse to counter my doctors' very imaginative belief that: I've so overindulged pain meds in the past, now I should not be allowed to touch anything between plain Tylenol & the potentially deadly new pain meds that might hurt my heart.
I still don't understand why the migraine meds were abruptly taken off the table. They have always been a medicine that if I could take at the first sign of a migraine devloping did the trick. After that, forget it. But when they worked they definitely worked!
WHY AM I BORING YOU?
I'm sorry that I'm going over all this again, Dear Reader. I guess I have a vague delusion that if I go through all of the events enough times, I'll begin to understand why people said what they said, and what is supposed to be coming out of all this. Any health care worker or close friend or concerned family member would probably say "Let it go.You're building it up to be much bigger than the others view it. They're not obsessing over it all the holiday weekend."
They probably aren't either. In the meantime, it's left me feeling skittish and confused and very vulnerable. I didn't see the original incident coming last year, and I didn't expect either the psychiatrist or the therapist to zap me with "Why are you angry at me?" question right in the middle of a routine visit. I have no way to prevent the same things happening repeatedy as long as
-1- DART Routes & Schedules, and Para-transit applications themselves plus trying to persuade 4 health care-workers to fill them out, and
-2- the combination of A. I will not authorize a cause-of-headaches-study and B. you are no longer permitted safe-and-effective-pain-meds tend to make me a mite grouchy, and I continue to not be aware I'm broadcasting that.
Why are You Angry at Me? Really, I didn't knowingly act angry toward Desai the other day. If this had to come up, I would -so- rather they both had said, "Do you realize how angry you sound? What is making you feel angry?"
"Knowingly?" I sneaked that in to hedge my bets, right? Or, I'm ducking the issue? Again, I haven't been acting angry toward individuals consciously. (Is consciously better than knowingly?) I thought Desai & I were still in negotiations. I was ready for my next step of explaining how dangerous it was becoming to cross Kirkwood Highway, but I got waylaid before I got there.
"Why are you angry?" (One more reason)
Off the top of my head? Because the whole situation is frustrating and infuriating?
I concede that it's hard for me not to feel frustration and anger when I ask someone to help me get my headaches studied or trying to convince DART to change its mind about who is eligible for Paratransit, but then I leave their office feeling like I got sidetracked so I didn't convey the urgency or my needs. Isn't that the correct answer? Sure feels like it is to me.
How about because I'm negotiating for something of great importance in my life, and you're (the doctor) changing the subject? Not saying that keeping one's emotions under control isn't an important subject. Just wondering why it trumps the subject we were already talking about. Can't we put a pin in that one and get back to it?
So often I feel like I don't have a chance to properly present my case about something with doctors--or with people who work in bueaucratic situations like Amazon and DART (esp Disability and Paratransit). You know what I mean, don't you? I know any intrepid person who has read this all the way to the end is with me on this. Long before you've explained about all the wonkiness of the digital TV reception or how that sound the computer makes when Norton is running may be related to those corrupted files, whoever you've been talking to has tuned you out. That's why it's never that much of a surprise, is it, the next time you talk to their business, when they begin discussing what's incontrovertably your Ticket Number but some else's residence or a notebook model or financial situation.
Maybe I should stop doctors in the middle of their examinations and explanations and ask, "Why are you so indifferent?"
Nah! Not one of them would get it.
TO ANYONE WHO KEPT READING THROUGH TO THE END,
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
YOU ARE A TRUE FRIEND!
Sherryt
p.s. non sequitor afterthought
It's hard to be absolutely silent when people are talking about some things that I've never experienced and in a manner that assumes that everyone in the group is familiar with the experience. "Silence is consent".
If I don't take a few minutes to explain--up front--about not having a car for example, people will be more confused later when I finally do have to reveal my "carlessness".
If the analogy being used goes on for too long and if I'm not familiar with the activity or situation on which the analogy is based I might as well stroll off and pick daisies or find an espresso shop. ;-)
This actually has nothing to do with all the above. I'm just reminded of our former pastor who used nearly every Scripture verse to create sermons based on the nuclear family.
I know bunches of you have heard analogies like this before--God's love for each created human is like the love of a father for a child. That works well enough if the persons hearing the message have or had a strong loving relationship with their father but that's not universal. In the exceptional cases, I believe it's a counterproductive analogy.
i WENT TO BED AT DAWN, AFTER GIVING UP TRYING TO REREAD AND CORRECT IT, WHEN I REALIZED i WAS READING THE SAME PARAGRAPH FOR THE ZILLIONTH TIME.
i'M SORRY THIS IS SO LONG & RAMBLING. Repetative! i'M "WITH IT" JUST ENOUGH NOW TO SEE THAT, BUT NOT NEARLY IN COMMAND OF FACILITIES TO DO ANYTHING MUCH ABOUT IT.
IN SPITE OF THE CONVOLUTIONS OF THIS POST, I HOPE THAT YOU'LL WORK YOUR WAY THROUGH TO THE END.
I DON'T HAVE ANYONE ELSE TO TELL THESE THINGS TO BUT YOU GUYS.
THANKS. SHERRYT
Stumbling and bumbling were about the best I could do through the last couple of days since my therapy session. In case I didn't mention it yesterday, I felt blindsided by my therapist's abrupt change in subject to anger--so similar to Desai's sudden question less than two weeks earlier. He -had- to have called her! Otherwise, this is freakier than doppelganger man.
Ever since Thursday, I've been depressed, very anxious, bewildered--just plain confused.
Today, Saturday, was Written Remain's first Author Master Class, taught by Ramona Long. We met from 9am to 2pm at First and Central Presbyterian Church in Wilmington. Before that, Ramona loaded us up with homework--8 short stories to read (a couple about the size of novelettes). We also needed to give her a completed work for her to edit. During the day,she discussed our stories with us one-on-on. Finally, we were told to bring along ideas for stories, story fragments and stories that hadn't made it out of first draft or outline. I chose "Dingle" as one of mine, (Poor story. It's been a quarter finished for years now.
I did my best to get through reading the assigned stories and selecting my drafts. II kept needing to stop, thanks to waves of anxiety and depression, to say nothing of time-outs during which I tried to work through what I would do about trips to the therapist, neurologist and psychiatrist in the future. I was and I am very inclined to give up on trying to get the Paratransit card and while I'm at it even on trying to get back to the neurologist.
The neurologist's only Positive Change in my treatment is to suggest those new headache meds than can be dangerous for my heart. Neurologist Negatives are taking away my migraine meds and refusing to authorize a hospital stay somewhere where medical personnel could run tests to find out what causes my headaches. (This worked out fine for my Mom when she went down to Johns Hopkins Hospital decades ago. They demonstrated she had three different kinds and made recommendations for two or the three. She never had as many headaches after that. There's been a lot of medical research since then.)
I spent most of yesterday and last night shifting between assignments, fending off emotional upheaval & desperately needing sleep.
The Master Class
I got up at 6:30, facing materials that still needed to be read or copied, but I was more concerned quelling waves of nausea spurred by anxiety and excessive crying. I knew though that I had done as much I could hope for by the time Joanne and Justin came to get me at 8;30 a.m.
The class was good but I'm not up to describing it right now. I'll try in a couple of days when (maybe) some of it will have sunk in.
Scanner at Staples
I asked Joanne and Justin to drop me at Staples on their way home so I could finally buy myself a new scanner. I bought my first one in the early 2000's and have always loved it! For one thing, it saved me a -lot- of work when I wanted to convert typed pages of later manuscripts to computer WORD files, using OCR. Recently the old scanner had begun to scan in subtle "stripes". It also had developed a mischevous tendancy to turn off my modern when it was turned on. The new scanner is also an HP. It isn't attached to the computer tower yet and I haven't read the manual but I dimly remember being surprised at a couple of built in features. I'm very much looking forward to trying it out!
And now to bed. To sleep? I hope
I hope I can get through a night's sleep tonight without getting fixated on what went on first in the psychiatrist's office a couple oof weeks ago and now in the therapist's office--with all of the focus suddenly shifted to anger and in particular queries about why I was (or am) angry.
I used to get angry a lot but to my mind you have to go back decades to see clear evidence of that when I dealing face-to-face with individuals. Recently, the whole mess with Amazon has made me furious. No question.I confess I've had some trouble keeping that anger out of my messages to Amazon, but I know it's seeped in more and more over the months, with so little progress after so much effort.
DART Para-transit is like a microcosm of that situation, built on top of my years-long frustration with the DART routes and schedules which make it so difficult for me to get to specialists. You all know that I grump about it here. I try to be less grumpy about it when on the phone to DART personnel. I am really good about that! I do not begin grumping on the phone to a play into I've been through several interations over several days with no discernable results.
In fact, when that lady called up and said that in spite of the reservations I had just made I wasn't eligible to use Paratransit, all I did was cry.
Was I exasperated with the psychiatrist two weeks ago, when he asked why he should fill out the form requesting that I be considered for access to Paratransit? Yes. I was surprised at his reaction though not that much because we had a conversation on the subjection a long time ago. Consequently, I had rather expected some hedging from him, since he deals with psychological diseases rather than physical ones. Was I angry? He says I was. I'm past the point of having a clue--either I was or I wasn't. Did I have a right to be or I didn't. Whatever.
Nonetheless, his words (and the therapist's) felt like having 20-year-old therapy concerns or issues being pushed in my face out of the blue. Having a mental health caregiver challenge me about something I do now, I'd get! For example, If I'm -- WHEN I'm
being self-absorbed. Tell me about it. Remind of how the attitude has made situations go south in the past and lets discover how I should be thinking and acting instead.
Same's true for all the other irritating habits I've got--like Interrupting People. Major My Bad! For those who have talked to me, as hard as it must be to believe, I really WORK at trying not to interrupt! I just get so excited when talking to real live people. I have all these things I know or anecdotes to relate! Occasionally something fits in an email or here on Scribblings, but chatting is a lot better. I like talking with other people in the next chair over. it's fun!
I simply couldn't get my mind wrapped around my therapist bringing up the "Sweetie" incident from last year! I thought I was anything but being condescending to C last year when I tried to explain about the storage boxes in the storage place not really working out for me. At that time "Sweetie" was my warning word, meaning "Brace yourself". (ex. "Sweetie, I don't think your rebate's going to be $1200. I hear they're mostly $600.) Even after all of these months, I'm still astounded by her reaction. She was furious! She not only got up and walked away, but she did it again a little while later that same day when I said something similar. (Back then, I used the expression several times a day. I never use it now!) Even now, months later, I believe that there is still a tentative atmosphere during our conversations. A constant checking of wind velocity, water current & the grays of the clouds. Ooh, I'd love to talk about blah-blah but is it a safe subject? Can I offer a different opinion on that, or do I just smile and nod? I have a suggestion but maybe it's safer not to mention it...
(At the time of the original incident, my therapist explained a couple of protocols about conversations that I had never "gotten" before. If you complain about a situation, people's first reaction is to offer solutions. I thought the first reaction would be to offer sympathy. I complained about the boxes, received advice, said yeah I'd thought about that but... and before the sentence was over made the other person angry. After the therapist's explanation, I tried to remember not to complain about situations in which I had already been through every solution I could envision. Still, the whole discussion with her (the therapist) at the time, left me wondering how you elicit sympathy for an insoluble situation during a conversation, without getting a dozen work-arounds you've already tried.)
I'm not sure how I've gotten myself into these situations where I have to take the reactions of the other person more into account than I do exchanging information or expressing my own reactions. I'm sure it's a corollary of the Golden Rule. At least I can get behind that.
Two weeks ago, when I gave Desai the Dart Paratransit form he didn't seem inclined to address my problems using Paratransit in some other way than just writing down my mental health diagnosis. He asked why he should fill it out, and I tried to answer with concrete reasons from my perspective via the list I made of dangerous highway crossings. That's when he asked why I was angry with him. Every step of that visit keeps queueing back through my thoughts two weeks after I visited him. Was I angry that day?
I'm angry and frustrated with the situation re Dart Disabiity -- Why?
Because two women could use Paratransit exactly the way I wanted to, even though they only had "ELD"on their cards like mine, I "successfully" made online appts but I was later denied using the service, via a phone call. I wasn't upset because the two women because they could have been confused(?) about card types & which types allowed someone in NCCo to get to hard-to-reach specialists. I was and am upset because a Paratransit busdriver confirmed that what the women said was correct. I was and am upset about software for the onscreen form allowing me to fill out the form, only to generate a phone call hours later saying cards with ELD on them are for people who are traveling between counties .(Honestly, how many people travel to a different county to see a specialist?) I was briefly angry with the woman who called my from DART to give me the bad news, because she asked me to stop crying. I don't believe I showed my anger when I responded that my disability was from depression so it wasn't an option.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's interesting though, isn't it?
1. I'm discouraged by those in authority at DART from being discernably(?) upset and crying about a situation that is itself upsetting me and making me cry.
2. My mental health workers "call me" about evidencing anger (which is actually off my own radar at that moment!) while discussing a subject that has been making me frustrated and angry.
3. When I have a predicament that I've mulled over from every side and finally given up on ever resolving, my mental health care professionals recommend that I don't bring it up in public conversation (in hopes of a bit of sympathy about the pesky thing)--because others will assume that I want solutions and will be hurt when I say that I've considered the offered solution but my circumstances would prevent it from working as planned.
4. This is an old one but as long as I'm making a list. For the most part, when people pass you and they say "How are you doing?", they don't really want a factual answer. ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So there I am with quite a reservoir of anger and frustration built up about Paratransit
And nice little reservoirs of anger and frustration
RE
being denied a shot at a hospital headache study to learn the causes of my headaches
OR
or any recourse to counter my doctors' very imaginative belief that: I've so overindulged pain meds in the past, now I should not be allowed to touch anything between plain Tylenol & the potentially deadly new pain meds that might hurt my heart.
I still don't understand why the migraine meds were abruptly taken off the table. They have always been a medicine that if I could take at the first sign of a migraine devloping did the trick. After that, forget it. But when they worked they definitely worked!
WHY AM I BORING YOU?
I'm sorry that I'm going over all this again, Dear Reader. I guess I have a vague delusion that if I go through all of the events enough times, I'll begin to understand why people said what they said, and what is supposed to be coming out of all this. Any health care worker or close friend or concerned family member would probably say "Let it go.You're building it up to be much bigger than the others view it. They're not obsessing over it all the holiday weekend."
They probably aren't either. In the meantime, it's left me feeling skittish and confused and very vulnerable. I didn't see the original incident coming last year, and I didn't expect either the psychiatrist or the therapist to zap me with "Why are you angry at me?" question right in the middle of a routine visit. I have no way to prevent the same things happening repeatedy as long as
-1- DART Routes & Schedules, and Para-transit applications themselves plus trying to persuade 4 health care-workers to fill them out, and
-2- the combination of A. I will not authorize a cause-of-headaches-study and B. you are no longer permitted safe-and-effective-pain-meds tend to make me a mite grouchy, and I continue to not be aware I'm broadcasting that.
Why are You Angry at Me? Really, I didn't knowingly act angry toward Desai the other day. If this had to come up, I would -so- rather they both had said, "Do you realize how angry you sound? What is making you feel angry?"
"Knowingly?" I sneaked that in to hedge my bets, right? Or, I'm ducking the issue? Again, I haven't been acting angry toward individuals consciously. (Is consciously better than knowingly?) I thought Desai & I were still in negotiations. I was ready for my next step of explaining how dangerous it was becoming to cross Kirkwood Highway, but I got waylaid before I got there.
"Why are you angry?" (One more reason)
Off the top of my head? Because the whole situation is frustrating and infuriating?
I concede that it's hard for me not to feel frustration and anger when I ask someone to help me get my headaches studied or trying to convince DART to change its mind about who is eligible for Paratransit, but then I leave their office feeling like I got sidetracked so I didn't convey the urgency or my needs. Isn't that the correct answer? Sure feels like it is to me.
How about because I'm negotiating for something of great importance in my life, and you're (the doctor) changing the subject? Not saying that keeping one's emotions under control isn't an important subject. Just wondering why it trumps the subject we were already talking about. Can't we put a pin in that one and get back to it?
So often I feel like I don't have a chance to properly present my case about something with doctors--or with people who work in bueaucratic situations like Amazon and DART (esp Disability and Paratransit). You know what I mean, don't you? I know any intrepid person who has read this all the way to the end is with me on this. Long before you've explained about all the wonkiness of the digital TV reception or how that sound the computer makes when Norton is running may be related to those corrupted files, whoever you've been talking to has tuned you out. That's why it's never that much of a surprise, is it, the next time you talk to their business, when they begin discussing what's incontrovertably your Ticket Number but some else's residence or a notebook model or financial situation.
Maybe I should stop doctors in the middle of their examinations and explanations and ask, "Why are you so indifferent?"
Nah! Not one of them would get it.
TO ANYONE WHO KEPT READING THROUGH TO THE END,
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
YOU ARE A TRUE FRIEND!
Sherryt
p.s. non sequitor afterthought
It's hard to be absolutely silent when people are talking about some things that I've never experienced and in a manner that assumes that everyone in the group is familiar with the experience. "Silence is consent".
If I don't take a few minutes to explain--up front--about not having a car for example, people will be more confused later when I finally do have to reveal my "carlessness".
If the analogy being used goes on for too long and if I'm not familiar with the activity or situation on which the analogy is based I might as well stroll off and pick daisies or find an espresso shop. ;-)
This actually has nothing to do with all the above. I'm just reminded of our former pastor who used nearly every Scripture verse to create sermons based on the nuclear family.
I know bunches of you have heard analogies like this before--God's love for each created human is like the love of a father for a child. That works well enough if the persons hearing the message have or had a strong loving relationship with their father but that's not universal. In the exceptional cases, I believe it's a counterproductive analogy.