so far so good

Since I have to be at home for the house leveling today, I think I might call up the state health & human services today, the branch located closest to me. It appears you can make actual appointments with them, maybe even get in person help if you do the forms via paper instead of on the website. I started on the website and uploaded a few things, but we do not have to submit forms that are not relevant to us, such as proof there is a veteran in the family or we are Hurricane Harvey victims. We lost a few tree leaves & small branches, but really that is so minor and not a desperate victim situation the way my one of my daughters' best friends had flooding in their house and lost a lot of possessions and are having to make tons of repairs and stay with other family in the meantime. And definitely I believe both veterans and Harvey victims need & deserve the help. Although the site I ran across offering artists making $50,000 dollars or less in one year could apply for help or a grant from some charity seems unfair to me as school teachers are making 50,000 dollars a year (roughly my husband's salary), why isn't there a charity to supply them aid?

My husband has to buy stuff for his classroom out of our own money. Sometimes he can use the dollar store, sometimes not. But he teaches physics and now AP physics this year, and they need to do labs. But kids come to school without notebook paper (and the teachers don't get a stash of blank paper to use), without things to write with (my husband eventually ordered golf pencils for that to cut down on the money loss if kids took them, not always on purpose, but something that just happens). Then, he has to buy lab supplies because the school won't have things like different balls in different sized shapes & weights, or toy cars to track down an angled track. Or scissors or colored pencils or markers. He has to spend a lot of our own money just to teach. He even has to spend out of pocket to buy the markers to write on the white board. So these are frustrating expenses that do not help us at all.

Anyway, I don't have panic or high anxiety the way I did yesterday, for which I am highly grateful. The foundation people are here now, but luckily, you can stay in the house while they level it; it's just a bit noisy, not unbearable though. At least not so far. And as frustrating as my mother can be, she offered to pay off my trauma surgeon's bill, which we have been paying $60 a month on, and it's still over $300 with the insurance adjustment. It says it would have been several thousands of dollars without insurance negotiation, but I am not sure I believe that if you have no insurance and trauma surgery is the only way to say your life. But anyway, it was nice of my mother to offer to pay the bill as I know my parents still struggle with money as my father's company is not very lucrative. But I did scan the bill and send it to her, as we need all the help we can get.

So at times my mom comes through for us and others not. She did come here & stay over 2 weeks when I had my trauma surgery (only going back to her home over the weekend when my husband could watch our daughter full time). However, she will send texts or emails that hurt, when you are at a time in your life when you need comfort and not blame & guilt. We used to have a very good relationship, and now it keeps getting more and more strained. But I made a delicate truce with her since she is going to pay a bill for us, I don't want a disagreement to bleed over & affect my maternal grandmother - she's 85 years old, still lives on her own - whom my mother drives to appts., grocery stores, the bank, and other errands, so surely she would talk about a bad disagreement with my grandmother. It's a complicated relationship.

Not panicky or super anxious yet, and that's good. I did not go running or even walking today as I am super tired (my period started yesterday, which is something I could to without right now), and I knew the foundation people would be coming, and at times they need to come into the house with a level to help with the outside work or to use the bathroom, things like that.

The dire financial situation of many teachers has also made the news recently and teacher strikes have had some success. Maybe you could get involved as a volunteer in a teacher's union or organization one day down the line (I'm not talking about right now...) . You could network with teachers in other states who have succeeded in getting raises and improvements in working conditions and maybe start a blog.

I'm glad to hear your mother is helping you out on something that really matters, like paying a bill, to the extent that she can. Sometimes when our illnesses act up in can be hard to see people other than in black and white terms whereas the truth is so much more complicated.

You could also ask your mom to limit texts and emails as you do not find them helpful. You can ask her to refrain from sending you messages when you are upset without blaming her. Just try to nudge her in a different direction...

I think you are right about all of this. I will tell my mom not to text or email immediately after hearing about a psych crisis. I'll tell her to process things first and once she is calm if she wants to text or email and then re-read it a few times and think about how she would feel had she gotten a message like that from her mother when she was my age.

My mom also had me very young; I was born 3 days before she turned 19, so she was pregnant at age 18 and married my father just a few months before I was born (I believe the fast marriage was for appearance sake),then my other sister came along 16 months later, then 4 years later my youngest sister. She never had the time to be on her own much. I know she was going to community college with one of her friends (commuting together) and couldn't finish her degree until I was around 8th grade or so. I don't think she got to enjoy college much as she had me (my grandmother taking care of me while she was in class) and pregnant with my sister so soon after. In fact we all (including my dad) lived with my maternal grandparents until my next sister was born. I think this affected her quite a bit too. She has often said she wishes she had had us when she was older and waited to marry. Not that she didn't want us; just she felt things would have been easier if she had been older, and I can't blame her for that. I had my daughter when I was 29, just one child, and that was and still is a handful for me even though I love my daughter to pieces. That is also why the CPS case is tearing me up.

I think it is great you are getting some work done on your house and meeting daily obligations.

The leveling was no big deal. It actually only took about 5 hours. I stayed in the house the whole time. We've had it done before, not a big deal, just someone has to be here while they are working. It wasn't really something stressful. I did call the state department (got put on hold forever) to ask what documents they needed from me, and they told me (after ages) they couldn't tell yet, the case was under review. That was frustrating because it seems they could go down the list and ask you questions that would help you determine if you need to send in a particular document. For example, everyone needs to send in proof of residency, social security number cards scanned it, but there are documents you send in if it pertains to you such as if you are or have a veteran in the family, if you have a foster child, things like that. Some of the statements are vague though like proof of costs (childcare, housing, etc.) Well, what is the etc.? Do I send in copies of my medical bills, electric bills, utility bill? And do I really have to send my utility bill twice as they do use that as proof of residency. Things like that. And they could tell me they had certain documents of mine on file -driver's license (my husband's and mine), (SSN cards for us all). They said they will tell what other things I need to send in are after a phone interview some vague time in the future (they couldn't even give me an estimate of the interview wait like close to 6 weeks, 4 months?, etc.)