I mean, really. I've had how many months to adjust to this? It's not like I'm any stranger to neuroses, and yet I still manage to be embarrassed (and, retrospectively, slightly alarmed) when one bad day somehow tips the scales and slides me into Crazytown.
I've decided that I'm writing a manual for coping with life and a special needs child. Rule #1: check your sanity at the door, people, and don't expect it to call again anytime soon. When you think of it as a foregone conclusion, it's really not so bad - kinda like the way I feel about finally giving up on trivial things like housecleaning, shaving my legs regularly, and managing to remember the correct kid's name to yell when one of them is misbehaving. There's a certain peace that comes with acceptance.
So, on to today's blog, subtitled: The Day I Bid A Fond And Sentimental Goodbye To My Sanity.
I don't know why (except to think that God has definitely got a sense of humor), but lately things just haven't been going my way. Mostly little things, things people with a consistently stable anxiety level would find merely frustrating, but then there's me. And said neuroses. So when the car stereo guy screwed up what was supposed to be a congratulatory (and relatively cheap) present to myself for a recent accomplishment, I was frustrated, but managed to still cling tightly to my Zen. After all, he was nice, right? And they're trying to fix it...
Then, when the windshield wiper motor in my aging but desperately needed and paid off car went out, I took a deep breath. Things like this happen to people every day, I told myself. And tried to ignore myself when Myself demanded, "To people who have huge therapy bills due IN THREE DAYS??"
But the tipping point was the interns.
My insurance company and I have a complicated relationship, mainly defined by the fact that my kid needs very expensive therapy, and they have an aversion to paying very large therapy bills. Like I said, complicated. So I decide to call the insurance company one morning on my work break, after checking their website and again finding that our claims are "in review.". I've since discovered that this term, roughly translated, means "Hold on while we try to figure out a way out of paying this.".
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, my coworker, who sits across from me, has been assigned two interns for an hour. Not just any hour, this hour. What I am sure is now thought of, in the minds of these two poor, fresh faced, defenseless college kids, as the "I have NOT had enough drinks to be able to deal with this" hour. Unfortunately, I do not discover this until after I am dialed in to the insurance company and terrified to hang up, lest I never get through to an English speaking representative again. The details are long and complicated, but the gist of it is that apparently no one in insurance companies talks to one another, and Cyd's therapy bills are not getting paid any time soon. Add to that a little patronization from a representative whom I am sure has at least one perfectly neurotypical child at home, and I started crying. A lot. I am not usually an emotional person, and cry pretty rarely, but when I do, it's not pretty. So my sweet, long-suffering coworker is frantically trying to distract the increasingly alarmed interns by talking over my hitching breaths and ugly crying, and the representative on the phone is deciding no, she definitely does NOT make enough money to be dealing with this. I just want this day to END already. Multiple departmental transfers later, not much was done, except the representative adopting a "Please don't jump" tone of voice with me. I'm considering playing the Mean Girls DVD on loop to gear up for a conference call with these people.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to plan ways to avoid two college kids for the rest of their internship.
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