Intake Please

I am a wacked out girl. I have never met someone to have the mood swings that I do. On Monday I wrote the previous post. Pain and suffering to the nth degree. Then I go home last night bake a mock up wedding cake for dad’s wedding and some pototato chip cookies that Mr. M has been wanting.

Here I am this morning on my way to work actually looking at the list of therapists I found and thinking – well it’s not THAT bad. I forced myself to make the call anyway. I called the clinic that the 3 women therapists that I saw online who offered “relationship and couples treatment”. First I got the main number

“How may I direct your call?”

“Intake please”

[transfers – listen to elevator music]

“Scheduling – how may I help you?”

“ I need to make an appointment to see a therapist and I have 3 possible names I’d like to check availability of.”

“You need to talk to Mental Health – I’ll transfer you”

[more elevator music]

“Mental Health – how may I help you?”

“Hi – I would like to make an appointment with a therapist”

“Have you been to us before?”

“No – but I have a list of people I’d like to see.”

“Oh – well you’ll need to speak with intake. One moment please.”

[elevator – you get the point]

“Intake – how may I help you?”

“I would like to make an appointment to see a therapist and I have the names of 3 possibilities.”

“What’s your insurance?”

“Aetna”

“You should call them first to see if you’re covered”

“ I know I’m covered for 45 visits a year for behavioral health.”

“Yes, but they sometimes only cover some people on our staff – you really should call and check first.”

“Ok – thanks”
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then of course I had to press a zillion buttons on my “touch tone phone” in order to talk to a real person. In the end I found out that 2 out of my 3 choices were covered.

So I called back

“Hello – how may I direct your call”

[I thought I had them figured out this time!]

“Mental Health Intake please.”

[lalallalalalall elevator]

“Mental health how may I help you?”

“I would like to make an appointment to see a therapist.”

“Have you been to us before?”

“No – bu..”

“Then you’ll have to talk to intake – one minute please”

“but I thought you were..”

[elevator]

“Intake – how may I help you?”

“Therapist… please… appointment… err ughh blah”

“Did you check to see if your insurance would cover them?”

“Yes”

“Who would you like to see?”

“Nancy Helpsalot please”

“She doesn’t have any openings till March 21 – will that be ok?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“I can put you on the cancellation call list”

“Please do – and keep me for the March 21st as well.”


---------------------------------------------------------------
So I made the appointment. It took me 45 minutes, but I did it. Just think how awful it must be for those who have severe depression and can’t focus longer than a minute at a time. I think the process alone has sent me back into depression.

The Pain Is Too Great

As much as I try to convince myself that "I'm Ok" with the current situation of my home and love life. I am not. I'm just not. I can tell myself that "this is my station in life" and that this will just have to be good enough, but it's all lies. I can't go a minute without thinking about all of it. I can't sleep at night for all the worrying I do keeps me in fits.

Mr. M says that he's very afraid that we will embark upon a life together and I will never be satisfied. First it's the "I'm not happy till I'm married" thing then it's the babies need then what? I can't defend this statement because I know part of that is true. I know that I'm a person who's always looking to the next thing and never sitting in the comfort of the moment. I've gotten better at it as I've gotten older. There are glimpses of happiness where I wouldn't change a singe thing - I try to hold on to these glimpses as long as possible. Like clinging to a rope as I'm dangling 100 feet off the ground.

I'm sick of opinions. I can't possibly hear another person say "you should just..." Because they don't know. They dont' know him and they don't know me. They may think they do - but it's so much more complex than that. It's not so simple to look at the man you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with and say "yea - I think we're done here." Especially when that man has all of the things you'd never find.

I know people always say that - "I'll never find another one as good as him." In this case though - it's pretty true. Sure - a lot of people say that they "like classical music". Which by the way is a huge red flag that they have no idea what I'm talking about. Because anybody who adores the Brahms, Whitacre, and Faure that I do would never say 'classical'. I need someone who will weep over a beautiful chord structure. Hold my hand tightly when we're surrounded by the most beautiful 'amen' ever written and push my music envelope by introducing me to composers I've never dreamed of listening to. I NEED that and it just doesn't exist people - trust me I've looked. All I find are arogant ass holes who don't really know anything about it. Or cute boys who end up liking the other tenors more than the cute alto - if you get my drift.

I feel like if I let this go I'd be being the stupidest girl ever. I feel like I'd regret it the rest of my life. I feel as if I'm being a spoiled brat for wanting marriage and children right this second. But I can't breath. I just can't breath. I want this 'needs' or 'wants whatever they are to just dissapear. I want to be happy - and content with the amazing man that I have and let things progress naturally. If I can't do this - then I've lost him forever - I've lost the possibility of seeing the children we'd create and the amazing life we'd have.

Why isn't what I have now good enough? I'm 26 years old - I'm not running out of time. I have plenty of time. When I was painting my perfect life as a child I always thought I'd get married at 30. I never expected to want the things I do so early. I thought I'd spend a while being a corporate money maker - climbing the ladders. What I didn't bet on was that I'd end up yearning for babies so badly that my skin would sting when I'd touch one. That the need for a commitment and a promise would be so important that I would turn into a shell of a person when I didn't get it.

What this all boils down to is that I'm finding myself a therapist. There are too many things in my brain that I just can't sort out by myself. I can't put it into perspective because it's too fresh and too immediate. Mr. M doesn't like the idea - he's ego is too big to handle criticism from a therapist or to have an outsider tell him 'how to think' as he says. I told him that I wasn't asking him to go - I was telling him that if he wants peace this will have to be one of the steps. This step is critical in us surviving this time in our relationship.

I'm broken.

*comments are closed - not that I get many but I just can't hear anything right now. Thank you.

Sometimes People Surprise Me

My mother came up from Iowa this weekend. I got all psyched up for it like I usually do. Since usually it involves alot of me being pissed off and her pushing my buttons. So I went to see my friend's brand spanking new baby this morning and then made my way to see my mother.

At first she annoyed me like usual.

Then at lunch she asked about me and MR.M and brought up the whole marriage thing. I was ready for this and said "I don't want to talk about it".

Naturally that didn't work.

However - the surprising thing is that she took a completely different stance than I thought she would. She said that she feels like I'm getting no support from anyone (meaning my family) and that she wants me to know that she loves Mr.M and that I should ignore everyone else's opinions.

I could go on and on about all the interesting things she said but I won't because I'm sick of talking about this subject. and I'm positive you all are sick of hearing about it.

Let's just leave it with the fact that I was pleasantly surprised and that my mom might not be so off base all the time. Sometimes she even knows what to say to make it not seem so bad.

This Won't Hurt A Bit

Thanks for all the support on the last post. I guess I just needed a little pep talk - and thanks to all of you I got one!

Today was annual exam day! YAY!

Don't we all just love the yearly pap-smear??

Ugh

Feels like they are scraping out your insides - all the while keeping up a casual conversation as if they don't have a metal implement prying you open.

I think I like the new OBGYN though. She was funny and didn't take herself too seriously. Didn't give me any of that preachy crap that some of them do. You know - the "How often are you excersizing?" kind.

She switched my birth-control pill since the one I'm currently on causes me to skip periods months in a row. I can't take that "what if" crap - so I was happy to switch. ALthough I do like some aspects of the pill I'm on now. Like - no cramps, no pain, and no mood swings. Let's hope the new one (Yasmin) will be have all the good stuff of the last one and none of the bad stuff.

Might be taking a cruise in the beginning of March. Since I've never gone on a cruise before I have no idea what the difference is between any of them. 3 night, 5 night 7 night, Inside stateroom, Oceanview, balcony - blah blah.

If any body has any tips or past experience with selecting the right cruise - let me know.

Oh Yea - The Blog

Hi - Still alive. It's been a while I know.

I got a little bummed that I was dead on with the amount of readers I had comment during de-lurking week (8). That means that there are 8 friendly people out there who come to my site to read about my little life. Thanks to those 8 people - I really do appreciate you stopping by. It's just that - well ... it's almost been a year since I started this blog and really I thought I'd maybe break into double digits one of these days.

Then I see all of your lovely blogs with the 182 comments or 68 on a regular normal old day and I get green with envy. Which brings me to wonder about why one writes a blog anyway? Is it so you feel special that people care enough to read it? Or is my old need for popularity rearing its head from high school. I was a popular girl - I wonder when I'm gonna get over that.

In other news - I went to Vegas at the beginning of the week. Lost a lot of beans. that didn't feel so nice. I have a balance of $0 in my account now with a substantial credit card bill coming my way in a few weeks ($320). Let's just see how creative I can get for meals/groceries in the week till payday. Yea - not smart of me, but it's a problem I'm very aware of and I have convinced myself that it's ok because I only gamble like that in vegas and never in the state that I live. PLUS - you should have seen me when I was a dealer making tons o' dough. Losing 1200 was like sneezing. Then again winning 1200 was like sneezing too.

The days are blurring together for the rest of the winter as they tend to do here in the cold northern states. I'm hoping that a cruise maybe Feb/March/April will break up the monotony of it all. I'm also hoping that a tax return will make that cruise possible.

I'm also wondering how in the hell I'm going to manage to make 50K a year by the time I'm 30 when I'm only 3 1/2 years away. pshaw

Wolves Re-Cap

Earlier in the week I took a most un-wanted trip to Boston. My job is basically to hire people to do market research studies. I track progress and troubleshoot problems that arrise - and they always do.

When we have a high profile client such as this - and a high profile project, I usually travel to the first day of fielding the job in order to ensure that the study is starting off on the right foot. I'm also there to respond to any concerns the Client Service person (from our company) might have and remedy any problems that they might have.

This is the normal part - that I was traveling to the first day off field.

The part that wasn't supposed to happen - and SHOULDN'T have happened was that my client service person DID NOT COME! Instead he sent me out by myself to deal with his insanely high maintenance, high profile, and VERY important client.

She slaughtered me. Throughout the day she complained about our companies lack of communication. Explaining that there is a large diconnect happening. She was upset with the materials we had, the stimulus positioning, the interviewers demeanor. So I took the berating - even though I have nothing to do with the set-up and bidding process of a job so I had no background to go on.

On top of all this I finally got my period that hasn't shown up for TWO MONTHS. I had no tampons to speak of. The bathroom was no help - being that the manager was a twenty something dumbass guy and wouldn't think to put that in the bathrooms of his facility. I asked the women in the phone center - of course they were all 60+ ladies who laughed when I asked them if they would know where I could find a tampon.

I asked the dumbass manager where the closest drugstore is - to which he said "What do you need?" AAAAAAAAAAH YOU STUPID FUCK!

So I crudely crumpled up some toilet paper and tried to hit the bathroom every 5-10 minutes. EXCEEDINGLY heavy flow going on people, like I said - first one in like 3 months. Finally one of the little jewish ladies brought me a pad (which I haven't worn since highschool) that she got next door at the Jenny Craig.

My day started at 8:30AM and ended at 7:30pm. I had bled through my underwear and almost my nice gray slacks. It was awful - the next day I was back in the office to re-cap what had occured. The Client Service team jumped to action and my boss was spitting nails at them for abondoning me out there with this insane client.

Hopefully I haven't totally ruined my chances of impressing the higher ups on the Client Service side of the office as I was really hoping that I could start traveling in that direction. I did handle myself, I think. I really did do the best I could with the resources I had. Hopefully it will look more like I overcame adversity and really pulled it out rather than I was smothered under pressure.

**Sorry to the male readers ( I mean singular - reader)about the period talk - but it made the story so much more incredible that I couldn't leave it out.

Absence and All

Day two in Boston.

Finished a bottle and a glass of wine in two nights - it's the way I travel people, don't knock it.

I'm missing my man right now. I always miss my man when I'm away. I miss him even being at work for 8 hours. I know it's pathetic and ushy gushy but it's true. I think about him almost all the time.

Sometimes I startle myself when I've gone an hour without thinking about him. He may just be an old chubby balding guy to some, but I absolutely adore him.

When I'm away from him even if for a few hours I literally yearn for his smell. His kisses are always short and clipped, but on the rare occasion that he indulges in a deeply romantic kiss it's like the first time all over again.

For as much as I complain about the lack of the wedding ring and the proposal, I wouldn't be complaining if I didn't desperately want to spend the rest of my life with this dear man. He fears that he won't be a good dad - but I just know that he wouldn't settle for less than wonderful in that arena. I also know that he would be an amazingly faithful and loving husband. He fears all of this - I've dropped the subject completely.

And so it goes and so it goes.

ps - thanks to all 6 of your for chiming in yesterday - I do appreciate all of you reading. I feel loved. QUALITY people, not quantity.

8 People And Counting

Ok it's de-lurking week and all, so go ahead and de-lurk all 8 of you.

I'm in a Boston hotel room feeling like a trapped rat with no rental car and no public transportation to speak of.

Come on - make me feel special - DELURK ALREADY!

Home Is Where You Leave Your Cardboard

My weekend was extremely productive. Gym on Saturday AND today. Cleaned half the house yesterday. Up and down the steep stairs of our hundred year old house with countless loads of laundry. Scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom surfaces. Cleaned off the cluttered top of our dresser and consolidated all jewelry into the pretty jewelry box my dad got me years ago that just hasn't made it out of the closet. Hung the picture from Uncle's girlfriend on the wall and wow - it almost looks like home.

Today Dad came over and we tackled the cardboard problem that we seem to constantly have. I don't know if it's just because Mr.M has an affliction for online ordering or what but I always feel I'm one box away from the whole place swallowing me alive. We had enough cardboard and crap to fill my Dad's Ford Explorer with the back seats folded down. AND all the cardboard was broken down and lying flat. Now that's a pigsty people.

It's almost starting to look like a real house. I'd like to get the room off of the kitchen fixed up into a real den/office kinda space. Make it into a place where we both can get some work done and feel comfortable rather than smooshed in. We're having a mural painted in the upstairs landing area. I know... you think we're freaks and the re-sale is gonna suck, but we don't give a damn. We love original art and can't think of a better place for it than on our walls.

The mural is a tiki/hawaiian/polynesian themed landscape. It's supposed to feel as if you're in the thick of the jungle looking out over the ocean at about 5:00 so that the sunset hasn't started quite yet but it's still getting a little orangey. THere will be hoola girls and easter island statues - even a volcanoe off in the distance. Can't wait to see the finish product.

I'm off to Boston tomorrow for the launch of a study - be back Wednesday mid-day. I expect to have blogging time tomorrow night though as I'm hoping to done with my work day around 3.

Thrown To The Wolves

Today I was thrown to the wolves. My collegues merely lowered their heads as I went into battle. They didn't jump to my rescue, they didn't oh... I dont' know... DO THEIR JOB... and intervene. No no no.. I was merely a sacrificial lamb that they had hoped wouldn't scream too much during the whole death scene.

What they didn't bargain for is that I'm a tough little muthafucka. That's right people, I fought back and I fought hard. The whole time trying to repeat to myself "no one knows you're faking it." I came out alive and that's all that matters.

Now - let me tell you a few important things before you read on.

First, I am most decidedly drunk right now. Yes, that's for sure. That's why you have no idea what I'm talking about. Isn't it fun? Yes, I think so too. Second, I got a new laptop and PC at work today so it's very important that I break it in by writing a blog post(HI MR. IT MAN!) and download Yahoo Messenger.

I've been running around like a mad woman at work so I haven't had a second to myself to breath let alone post anything. I'll be in Boston till Wednesday this coming week so lets hope I can slap something together each day. That is, unless I get slaughtered again by the CLIENT FROM HELL!! Oooooh yes, there are many stories to tell about "Ms. New York". I shall dish later. But now, I must get to looking sleepy and seductive as my man is to arrive any minute.

Love to all...
Suz