I have checked meetup.com before now; I didn’t rush off to check it yet again at your recommendation, but I do so periodically. We live in a very unlively little town full of empty storefronts, unfortunately, and it seems (looking at the bulk of the local population) the main thing to do here is get drunk, eat chips, puke on the street and harass people. Don’t assume that I’ve been sitting here for the past three years shooting down all suggestions, but when one doesn’t seem right for me I will say so.
Also, don’t assume that you’re the first one to make similar suggestions. It’s the same thing when complaining about the lack of jobs and people say “did you try this this this this this and that?” assuming that I’d never thought of any of those things or that they’d work if tried. Unfortunately, that kind of advice often comes from people who’ve never had to struggle to find work in their lives and haven’t even filled out a job application in decades.
ETA: Just checked again, and the meetup page for my town is still empty. Everything that happens happens “in town”, which costs money to get to and limits me to things that end before the last train home.
In any case, I still fucking miss my home and family like crazy. I can make all the new friends in the world and that won’t change. I live in fear that something will happen and I’ll never see my daughter or mother again.
Caller: “The IRS is charging me $20,000 in penalties and I didn’t even do anything wrong!”
Me: “Oh? What did you file with them?”
Caller: “I filed a 1040 Non Resident form–”
Me: “Well, ARE you a US resident?”
Caller: “I’m a citizen of the Republic of California!”
Me: “You’re a resident of something that existed for six days in 1846?”
Caller: “. . .yes.”
Me: “Do you have a Social Security card?”
Caller: “Yes.”
Me: “Do you vote in Federal elections?”
Caller: “Yes.”
Me: “Then you’re a US resident and you filed frivolous tax returns with the IRS. I can’t help you. Set up a payment plan or they’ll levy you. Have a nice day.”
My nephrologist appointment is in a few hours, and I’m terrified. Logically, I know I shouldn’t be - it would be wonderful to feel healty again, PKD is not a death sentence, blah blah. But my emotions are overriding everything. I know if it’s transplant time, I’m kind of screwed. I have one biological family member - TheKid. She has a 50/50 chance of the same disease. Add to it, I’m a weird blood type, so that makes a transplant even more iffy.
My mom is trying to be supportive, but she’s scared and running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. TheKid has been a rock, but she’s tired of my crying. My best friend has been a super rock, listening and offering me comfort to the extent that she “forgot” to tell me about her mini-stroke, as she didn’t want me to worry more.
I just want to roll back the clock and be fine again.
On this -particular- issue, I do have some (small) advice.
One- Video conference. Getting the software and hardware for a computer isn’t that pricey. It helps alleviate these things, trust me. Just hearing the voice and seeing the face can be golden. Set up a time every week, or every other week, just to chat. If nothing else, you can skype for free.
Two- Figure out exactly how much it would cost, totally bare-bones, to either go out to see them, or have them come see you. Divide that cost by 78. Then talk to them about splitting that number, and each side put away that many dollars a week. In one and a half years, you take a vacation to see them, or them to you. Yes, 18 months is a long time, but you’d be surprised how much faster it goes when you can look at the progress and say, “It’s getting closer, and I’m -making- it get closer.”
(Obviously, if your loved ones can’t contribute, you’ll have to adjust your weekly amount accordingly).
Three- Somewhat off-topic; a lot of what you’re talking about sounds a lot like the depressive symptoms I have. It took me -years- to find the right therapist, but he’s made all the difference in the world. Look around for help. It won’t be quick or easy, I suspect, but it’s worth it.
Wetherspoons pubs are a lot cheaper if you want to go all the way into town? I can probably come out to your town though (especially if any of those empty shop fronts are hosting charity shops, I love a good rummage)
I’m away for a few days, but will PM you when I get back!
I just replaced the radiator on my car and now something else is wrong. It starts, but dies within a few seconds. This seems to happen only when it’s warm. I’m taking it back to the shop and hoping it’s an easy (cheap!) fix.
Also, I’m sick of this nausea. I thought it was just a bug that I can’t get over, but maybe it is from the pregnancy. I thought it was called morning sickness, not whenever I eat sickness!
TL;DR: Thanks for the advice, I’m already doing some of it and some of it is not feasible at this point.
We do Skype, and my daughter and I chat on Facebook all the time. Half of the conversation consists of repeated exchanges of “miss you”, but it is better than nothing. It’s hard not to be able to hug, though. We’re both very huggy, and that’s another thing I need here, is more people to hug. Skyping with my mom is easier now that she’s got a broadband connection on the farm. When I moved here almost three years ago, they still only had dialup available in her area, and she’d have to use the wifi at her church or a hotel lobby or something in order to do video chat.
Parkhead and I are both unemployed and the jobseeker’s allowance doesn’t quite cover the housekeeping, my mother is on Social Security, and my daughter is working full time at a crappy minimum wage job she can’t afford to lose or take time off from. So at this point, visiting is not an option, and there’s literally nothing to save. I get £30 a week as my allowance, and have to buy all the groceries and other household goods out of that in addition to whatever I might need to get for myself. Whenever we get any cash for birthdays or Christmas, it goes to catching up on expenses, buying things we need for the household, maybe replacing some worn out clothing or the suchlike. So saving up for a trip will have to wait until we find work.
I do suffer greatly from anxiety and depression as well as a host of physical issues, the latter of which don’t help my mental state either. Nor do they make it any easier to get out and about to meet new people. It’s hard to gather up enough mental energy to force myself out the door (a real struggle in itself) when I’m in so much physical pain I can hardly move as it is. The cold, damp weather here makes the physical issues worse, too, just to add insult to injury. Even the small amount of volunteering I currently do can be difficult under these circumstances.
I’m trying to get permission to take the only antidepressant/antianxiety medication that’s ever been really effective for me: Wellbutrin, which is only available here as a short-term antismoking aid (Zyban). To get it off-license, I’ve had to beg a psychiatrist to ask the head of the medical board to permit it. She wasn’t keen even to seek it, but I did manage to convince her that it would be much better than the alternative. She said it wouldn’t address the underlying problems, but she didn’t offer any advice on what to do about them either, so from my perspective, taking the edge off my mental upgefuckedheit would be a vast improvement over doing nothing about it at all. I hope it pans out, because it would help improve my mood and energy and also help me drop the weight I’ve gained, all of which would make getting out and about easier.
I had the six appointments with a psychotherapist that the NHS provides, and then got a community person (not sure what her job title is) who’d been trying to help with things, such as referrals to these organizations which were supposed to help and said I was too “intelligent” and “educated” for them to do me any good, so I guess they’re geared towards people who are so bad off they can’t function at all, at all. Maybe if I proved a danger to myself or others I might get more help from that quarter, but I’d rather not go down that road if I can avoid it. She’s exhausted her options and is now wrapping up our sessions, because she’s not actually a therapist as such and can’t help me with the underlying issues. She did get me into an anxiety group a year ago, which helped. I was so anxious the first day that I nearly vomited in the middle of the group, but by the end of it, I didn’t have panic attacks just thinking about walking out of the flat, so that’s something.
There are a good few charity shops around, so yeah, come on out and we’ll have a good rummage. There’s Oxfam, Shelter, Age Concern and I’m not sure what else. I’d wait until the weather settles down, though. It’s fairly rubbish out these days.
We could probably make it to town for another wee meetup sometime too. Someplace cheap but not a rathole would be good, yeah.
The depression is chronic and of many years’ duration; it’s aggravated by the situation but not caused by it. Funnily enough, the only actual psychiatrist I’ve seen here seemed more eager to treat the situation than the depression. She basically told me to go home.
Something got screwed up and Sheetmusicplus didn’t receive the PayPal payment for my latest order, and now I"m not allowed to order anything else from them. My attempts at contacting Sheetmusicplus failed. FUCK.
I hope you find this funny - I mistook “nephrologist” for “phrenologist” at first, and was wondering how getting the bumps on your head examined would make you feel healthy again.
I know it is normal for parents to help their kids out with science fair projects and stuff, but come on, do you really expect us to think that little Johnny the third grader had the first fucking clue what was going on in “his” project to insert fluorescence genes into bacteria?
You never know. Child prodigies start somewhere, after all.
I had a friend in high school who, as a freshman, built a working laser for the science fair competition. Neither of his parents had any particular interest in or knowledge of physics, nor did they have access to people who would (his dad was a park ranger). The judges actually said his project would have taken first place except they were certain he’d cheated and had his parents help. So it does happen.
I suppose but this was a world away from a teenager cobbling together a working laser in his basement though. There were pictures of somebody (with what seemed to be rather large hands for a third grader) using a micro-pipette, an ice bath, incubator and UV light all in what appeared to a professional lab. I didn’t actually judge that one so it wasn’t my call anyways.
