Tag Archives: bitchy bitchy

May 1 2013

The stress is killing me…

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Despite my love for my blog therapy, I have been completely unable to get beyond a sentence or two for a few weeks.  I have been so completely overwhelmed with stress with the baby and with school that I often feel like a broken record.  Not even my blog has helped relieve that.

Baby News

I was supposed to have my amnio on this past Monday, which would have meant answers by Friday.  Well, that didn't happen so I have had a non-stop series of mini-breakdowns since Friday afternoon.  The OB's office called me mid-afternoon Friday and told me that Obstetrix (the high risk pregnancy center out of Tuscon) had not received the Tricare referral number they needed.  Tricare has been a mess since they switche carriers from TriWest.  Things are backlogged, records screwed up.  I have spent a good portion of my time on th phone with them, trying to get my referrals straight.  It hasn't helped matters that, in the midst of this, I switched OBs, too.  So I called Tricare.  It was still pending but they told me that if I had Obstetrix call the Medical Management office, they would immediately set it straight and everything would be okay.  So I called Obstetrix, but they weren't the referring office; the OB was.  I called the OB office back, told them this, and the receptionist refused to call because she thought it would take too long.  I had already had one attempt at the amnio so she had me call Obstetrix back ang get that referral number because it should be the same.  Turns out I never should have had the attempt because it was never in the system for referral.  They had called my old OB that day and she submitted the referral for the retry appointment, the one that is pending.  When I switched OBs, all the referrals in place with her switched one for one to my new doctor, so there was no issue there.  I called the OB once again and the receptionist absolutely refused to even attempt it.  Now I understand not being able to spend hours on the phone, waiting for an answer, but she could have at least tried.  I talked to those people about 4 times in this process and had no problem getting through.  By this time, I was in tears.  Nothing I said made a difference, despite the fact that my stress and angst was very obvious.  So no appointment.  I have an OB appointment tomorrow and something better change with this.

I realize that many probably think I am making too big a deal out of this, but it is what it is for me.  I recognize that part of my problem is the horrific experience I had with the first OB, but some of it is because I know just how high risk I am.  My gestational diabetes, while borderline, still isn't always where they want it to be, no matter how I eat.  My glyberide doses have changed so maybe that will help.  But the fact remains that there a lot of things that can go wrong.  And as my original OB has repeatedly told me, there is still a good chance that my baby will have issues that are incompatible with life.  The longer this amnio, and my answers, get put off, the more my options and choices diminish.  The bottom line is that I need answers.  The stress is not doing me any good.  I cry a ton and I spend a whole lot of time not sleeping.

School News

I love my school; I truly do.  My issues are simply with this one professor.  Nothing seems to be getting any better on the school front.  No matter what I or my mentor do, my professor seems to be completely unmotivated to do anything at all.  The semester is over on Friday and I am no closer to a resolution of it than I was before the semester began.  My mentor has tried to get results; I have tried to get results.  Nothing.  It is truly irritating.  

SUNY Empire State is the biggest in the SUNY system, with campuses all over the place, including overseas and on military posts.  I go to the Center of Distance Learning portion of it.  They offer classes in a bunch of different formats.  Most of mine are regular CDL online classes, taken through the Angel bulletin board system.  I also take a lot of independent study, thanks to my creative writing major.  Those are either through the CDL itself or considered to be "college-wide," where the instructors are assigned to specific campuses with my university.  Both of my classes in crisis are with the same professor, CW independent studies with her assigned to the Central New York zone.

Because she is not CDL, my mentor has had to go through her local boss, upon whom I am waiting for a phone call to discuss my issue.  With the semester two days from the end, a resolution would be nice.  Fortunately for me, I am a email hoarder and have proof up the wazoo. A bunch of resolutions have been suggested by my mentor, so I guess I will see,  

  • Resolution 1:  Withdraw without penalty, but then I would have to pay back my tuition.
  • Resolution 2:  Have her get her act together and spend my summer "off" finally doing the courses.
  • Resolution 3:  Find another teacher teach these classes, but they are obscure subject.
  • Resolution 4:  Find another teacher to teach me other classes that fulfill the same requirements.

Frankly, I need answers and resolutions here, too.  GRRR!

Apr 9 2013

Tryin’ to get my learnin’ on…

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I have never in my life tried so hard to learn something in my life and it is frustrating as hell.  Before this semester, I was so looking forward to my two independent study classes, Women of Faerie and The Faerie Realm in Folklore and Literature, both taught by the same professor.  I registered for them last November and, as is the rule for IS classes, I immediately emailed the professor for reading lists and learning contracts.  Nothing.  We are supposed to receive these things no later than 10 days prior to the start of the semester, which began the 22nd of January.  I finally got a tentative learning contract with a tentative reading list four days before classes started.  No real guidance on the assignments for the class and nothing at all for the second class.  I tried to get a hold of her again and never got an answer until mid-February.  Still no guidance on the assignments and nothing for the other class.  I had to get my mentor involved and the woman finally got in contact with me at the beginning of March.  I got a half-assed excuse as to why she dissed her responsibilities for half the semester.  By the end of the conversation, I had little more guidance than before it.  I basically had to make up my own assignments for the Folklore class and her input was a bunch of wishy washy “you could do this” and ” you could do that” and not much else.  Still nothing on the other class other than saying that some of it could overlap with the Folklore class.  What the effing hell?  Who is the teacher here?  I finally took the bull by the horns and told her I would email her a list of ideas for assignments, which I did a couple days later.  It was another week and a half before she got back to me, mid-March, with zero guidance and telling me my ideas looked good.  Mind you, at this point we were in the middle of week 9 of 15, more than half the semester gone.  And I still have no learning contract for the Women class.  There is no possible way I can get this all done by the end of the semester, not without trashing my 3.97 GPA.  So I asked for an extension.  It’s been over a week and I have still heard nothing.  I went to my mentor and she is having to hook me up today.  We are in week 11 and I have 4 weeks to go.  This is unacceptable.  This is a high-level college class.  I am trying to do the work, to learn something.  And I can’t get anywhere with it.  It sure as hell isn’t because I am trying to get out of anything.  I bust my ass for school.  Just ask my kids and my husband.  I work hard.  There is no excuse for a professor to act like this.  And I sure as hell don’t need the stress!

Jan 11 2013

Why have I been so quiet?

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For days, I have wanted to blog.  I have opened it up almost daily and I have written.  And pretty much of it has been unfit for public consumption.  So I have deleted it, stared at it, and eventually given it up.  But the truth is, my blog has always been my therapy and sometimes it is my only outlet when things get rough.  Lately, it hasn’t even been that.  Unfortunately, a good portion of my issues lately have been with people.  Some of it is with people in general, but a lot of it is with specific people, people that could see/read my words.  And while I typically use no names when I blog, sometimes the details of the situation and totally identifying in and of itself.  Yes, I still could have blogged my angst out, but 99% of the time I would have then had to hide my posts from the public.  That’s all well and good but there is some part of me is sick of having to hold back and hiding my posts seems sort to me to be more of the same thing.  It’s still bottling it up and not letting it go.

Lately, I have essentially living in a cave of my own making, with a ban on much of social media outside of the occasional post, playing games, and doing the book blog thing.  I am ridiculously tired of the hate and fear mongering, the judgments, and the sheer amount of assorted BS that seems to be running uncontrollably rampant these days.  So much of it seems so petty, with no real goal other than to either hurt others or to make oneself feel superior.  Neither of those goals are good justifications for the slinging of crap. It drives me nuts and I have, and always have had, a major difficulty with keeping my mouth shut when I see the BS.  Even now, writing this blog, there is so much I want to say, so much I want to call out, but I’m not, once again holding back.

My patience with it is pretty much nonexistent and what is left is dwindling at an alarming rate.  It’s changing me and I know it.  And I don’t altogether like it.  I like to think that I have never been one to take a lot of crap from people, but I am realizing that that really isn’t true, and hasn’t been for a long time.  At least in some areas of my life.  The sad truth is that I have taken well more than my fair share of BS from people.  Why?  Why I have I allowed that to happen?  The last several years have really worn me down and somewhere along the line I truly lost myself.  Sad, but totally true.  It is made avoiding confrontation a habit, one that has filled me with all kinds of resentment and anger.  I don’t like that.  Sometimes I have held back out of fear, fear of losing people in my life.  Sometimes, more often, it is because I just haven’t need the added stress of dealing with fallout from standing up to the crap.  It’s bad enough to be treated like crap, but the resulting BS you get for daring to stand up to it?  Sometimes it is worse than the initial crap itself.  It’s made me a doormat.  Again.

But the biggest change has been over the last few months, since I began my quest to eliminate the BS.  It has made me hyper aware of the negative BS, and has most definitely heightened my reaction to it.  Somehow, living more positively for myself has made BS stand out that much more.  It has also made me a hell of a lot more self-aware of how badly I have been treated by people, friends and family alike.  But that hyper awareness isn’t the biggest change.  It is what it has led to… a lot less patience for dealing with the BS and a whole lot less patience/compassion for people slinging the crap.  It used to be that I would usually try to avoid blogging obviously about people and situations in a specific way because I didn’t want to hurt them, despite the fact that they clearly didn’t care how they were treating me.  If I am being honest, that reason really isn’t my primary reason anymore.  Now it is just because I don’t feel like dealing with more of the BS that I would get by calling them out.  The fact is that I am not sure I really give a damn about their feelings anymore, not when my own are so easily dismissed.  I want to care, but I honestly just don’t.  I have been pushed to the edge too much lately to have the time or energy to care about people who really care about nothing more than themselves and how they feel about themselves.  I don’t need that in my life.  I don’t want or need the petty BS in my life any more.  I am NOT a doormat.  I do NOT exist to be used and dismissed.  End of story.

Nov 1 2012

One of those days…

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One of my goals for November was to let go of the resentment and anger I have been dragging around to make room for some more positive, healthier things.  Sounds so much easier than it actually is.  The reality is… the line between "letting go" and "I'm a doormat" is a fine one.  How do you balance the need for positivity with the right to be treated with consideration, compassion, and openmindedness?  I don't know and that is where my struggle lies.

For so long, I came last.  Last with others in my life, and last with myself.  There are a lot of reasons why, a lot of experiences, that led to it.  Sometimes it is an individual experience that affects you.  Sometimes it something that happens over and over.  Sometimes it is just the combination of all kinds of negative crap that happens too often that drains you and wears you down.  That is essentially what has happened to me.  Some things were worse and more powerfully bad than others.  But, more than that, it was the feeling that I could never break free from the crap.  One thing after another.  Barely able to catch my breath before something else happened.  It wasn't as simple as getting out of a bad relationship or changing jobs.  It was love, family, friendships, betrayal, death, rape… and so on.  It wore me down and left me a virtual shell of myself.  

I have come to the point in my life that I am done with that.  I am done with feeling "less than".  It's not okay to treat me like I don't exist except for your use.  It's not okay to treat me as if I have no feelings.  It's not okay to judge me without knowing the facts, or even then.  It is okay to not understand, to not know things about me, to not agree, to think I am nuts for whatever reason.  It's not okay to treat me with disrespect because of any of those things.  But the fact is that I have set a bit of a precedent with my life.  I spent so much time feeling like I was nothing that I let people walk all over me.  I look back now and it is kind of shocking to see how much I let that happen.  A lot of how I am treated is my own fault.  So changing that is a struggle.  It is happening, but it isn't always easy.  I have had to cut some people out of my life because of it, which was something I never anticipated but which was necessary.

Today is a struggle.  Today what I want is to scream and yell.  I want to be acknowledged for my hurt, my feelings, and my point.  I don't want to be the bad guy for sticking up for myself.  I don't want to read things that rant against the very things I fought for myself about.  Why didn't those concepts matter when they were being pointed at others?  That's the thing about life.  We have all had our good times and our bad times.  People need to remember that.  It doesn't give anyone the right to trash another.  If anything, it should increase that consideration, compassion, and openmindedness.  Instead, today is one of those days when I want to drop my contact with the outside world to just about nothing.