Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent

[Aria]

I love my work. I love my coworkers. I love my company.

I hate my boss.

She just came back from maternity leave, a whole month earlier than she’d planned. It’s been five days and so far I’ve broken down in tears in a meeting with my favorite teammate once and woken up at 4AM without being able to go back to sleep because of anxiety twice.

I don’t want to leave. I’m going to have to figure out a way to leave, because this is going to be terrible.

[Cobalt]

I may literally go outside and scream at the top of my lungs. My rheumatologist who told me she would not help me get on disability and who has told me I have “connective tissue autoimmune inflammation”…. Fucking diagnosed me to:

• Rheumatoid arthritis.
• inflammatory polyarthropathy
• Polyarthritis
• Ankylosing Spondylitis of multiple sites in my spine
• Fibromygalgia
• Other psoriatic arthropathy.

This may be more information than my one wants to know about my heath but these are all things listed as CONFIRMED and ACTIVE in my medical records SHE KEEPS but she did not bother to tell me and yet hasn’t convinced her I’m disabled.

NO FUCKING WONDER I CANT WALK.

[Rinel]

@Cobalt said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:

yet hasn’t convinced her I’m disabled.

One wonders what her criteria for disability is. I’m so sorry; that’s grossly unprofessional behavior on her part. Is there any way you can find a new rheumatologist? You certainly deserve a better one.

[Jenn]

@Cobalt

Bodies are SO terrible, and I’m really well and truly over the defective meat-suit my electrified jello got assigned as its transportation mech. Absolutely on team yeet it all into the sun and just give us brains in jars with alexa and screens and think to text uploads already!

Also. I’m sorry that we’re all in this horror-show of dystopian lacks of basic existence level needs due to faults we were just assigned long before we had any concepts of what existence meant, much less what it SHOULD be. But If I have to be a (rarely) walking dumpster fire, I’m glad to at least share the glow with you over the smell of inedible s’mores. So much love and compassion to you, my friend. I absolutely see your struggles, and share the disgust and contempt for those making your life and existence harder instead of better.

[Testament]

@Cobalt Take your records and get a second opinion. Because having fibro on it’s own is usually enough to qualify for disability.

[Rucket]

Working 60hr weeks since mid-November, finally told to go back to normal 8 hour days and then shit happens and now its time to go back on the overtime train.

[RightMeow]

@Rucket

This is the reason I found a new job and quit my last job. At the end, it wasn’t worth it.

[ten]

• the slow recovery time of this shoulder injury.
• my dog’s allergies to life.
• my asshole roommate - also known as my brain.
• fucking health insurance.

[Sillylily]

Moving in the midst of medical procedures.

Trying to figure out how to move with one and a half people. My SO and I don’t have many friends nearby.

Packing.

Having no job security.

Being in that shitty medium place were I currently make too much for income restricted apartments, I make too little for an apartment that isn’t restricted unless I want to up my already 2 hour one way commute towards 3 hours…

Ridiculous problems but I needed to vent.

[tsar]

Since December:

My MIL had to have surgery to remove a mass in her lungs. The surgery went well and she’s recovering.

My mom was admitted with pneumonia where I found out she has COPD, asthma, and possibly diabetes. She’s home and recovering and planning on quitting smoke.

Two of my husband’s uncles (brothers) have died, one of them just two days ago.

And we’re coping as best as we all can. This is just life stuff, it hits everyone. But man, I’m just walking in this sudden understanding that my parent’s generation is really starting to decline. I’m witnessing it happening in a very real and clear way that I guess I never actually saw before.

[Coin]

@tsar said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:

Since December:

My MIL had to have surgery to remove a mass in her lungs. The surgery went well and she’s recovering.

My mom was admitted with pneumonia where I found out she has COPD, asthma, and possibly diabetes. She’s home and recovering and planning on quitting smoke.

Two of my husband’s uncles (brothers) have died, one of them just two days ago.

And we’re coping as best as we all can. This is just life stuff, it hits everyone. But man, I’m just walking in this sudden understanding that my parent’s generation is really starting to decline. I’m witnessing it happening in a very real and clear way that I guess I never actually saw before.

When my dad died a few months ago, my mother told me something she was told when her mother died: when our parents die, when their generation passes, it hits us particularly hard because in a very real way, we become the frontline. There is no buffer. We are next.

[Testament]

Yesterday I had a series of pyschologogical testing at my psychiatrist’s office yesterday in my pursuit to figure what(if any) form of neurodivergnecy I might have. With the added potential that I may be dealing with a form of PTSD from my time in the military(because the VA is so good about helping with that kind of thing).

I was sat down in a small darkened room in front of a computer. I had to sit a particular distance away from the computer, which held had a camera set into the wall. I was then instructed to place a headband around my forehead that had one of those balls you see on a motion capture suit for voice actors doing said motion catpure. This was, obviously, meant to track my head movements for the camera, as well as a secondary camera that was tracing my eye movement.

There was a clicker that was I told to hold in my left hand(or whatever your dominant hand is). The test itself was a blank grey screen on the computer, which would flash a random assortment of a series of four colored shapes:

A red circle
A red square
A blue circle
A blud square

The goal, was to click the button in my hand every time I saw a succession of the same colored shape twice. So red circle -> red cricle = button click. And red circle -> blue circle = do not click the button. These colored shapes would flash at random for what I think was for less than a second, perhaps half a second. The goal was for me to pay as much attention and focus to the screen as possible.

This went on for half an hour. And with the environment I was in, I can say that this was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a long time. And being set in a darkened, soundproof chamber with only this screen and unable to really move my head, a half of matching rapidly flashing colored shapes for a half hour felt like something out of A Clockwork Orange. I have to admit it was outright terrible and felt more like three hours than a half an hour.

Next week, my psychiatrist and I are planning to go over the results and where we need to go from here and wether this is enough information(beyond the other testing I’ve already done)in order to get a diagnosis.

The only downside to all of this was the fact that the stress of having to do that test wound up giving me a migraine bad enough that I had to leave work early last night.

Not sure what happens from here, but I hope to have some kind of answer.

[Pavel]

@Testament CPTs (Continuous Performance Tests) are the worst. Hopefully you get the answers you need, though!

[Smile]

I have reached the stage when I realised I don’t want to be around my SO’s mother. It’s hard to know where to go on from here after having told him.

So yeah, it sucks.

[Kestrel]

@Rucket said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:

Working 60hr weeks since mid-November, finally told to go back to normal 8 hour days and then shit happens and now its time to go back on the overtime train.

This isn’t at all legal where I live, and I just want to say that I feel intense sympathy, and anger, on behalf of everyone I know who goes through this in a country with such lax workers’ rights protections.

[junipersky]

~lice~ and this little girl HATES when any of her knots get tugged on. So once I get permission to treat her she will be one sad little muppet.

[mietze]

Got a painful procedure done on Monday, promptly fucked part of it up yesterday, slept through a painkiller dose time today and still not quite catching up pain wise. also stubbed that toe tonight and ended up seeing stars on the floor (while my fluffy menace cat roosted on top of my of course).

Hoping tomorrow is an okay-er day, stupid things happening wise.

[Testament]

@Testament And update to the gauntlet of tests I’ve gone through.

Apparently I’ve been dealing with untreated Type 3 PTSD(which is also called Uncomplicated PTSD and apart of me would like to point out that bit of hilarious irony because it’s sure as fuck been complicated for me) which likely goes into a number of factors, but it partially explains my sudden mood swings and my difficulty handling relationships/friendships when something foreign occurs outside the everyday norm. Still learning about that one.

The test I previous spoke discounted ADHD, but did not count out ADD, and it’s been a long damn time since I heard that acronym, but it’s still a thing.

All in all, my psychiatrist has put me on atomoxetine, which I guess is similar to Adderall(or meth as I call it), but Adderall also contains a stimulant, which my psychiatrist felt I didn’t need.

I’ve only been on it for five days, so I can’t give any real thoughts on whether or not it’s doing it’s job, but I think I’ve been looking at my phone less while at work. So that’s something.

Regardless, it answers in some form and for that I’m grateful.

[Faraday]

@Testament said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:

The test I previous spoke discounted ADHD, but did not count out ADD, and it’s been a long damn time since I heard that acronym, but it’s still a thing.

ADD is no longer in the DSM5. There’s only ADHD, though there are now three different presentations: Predominantly Hyperactive, Predominantly Inattentive, and Combined. It’s possible that provider is using outdated terminology to describe the inattentive presentation, but that’s still officially ADHD. (The hyperactivity is just more internal than external.)

Hope you feel better!

[Testament]

@Faraday To note, I called it ADD, but my psychiatrist called it something else that I can’t rightly recall. She just said “it used to be called ADD” when I stared at her blankly after she first told me.

I actually think she said Predominantly Inattentive, now that I’m reading that again.