Car Hunting

I took my client to mass on Saturday evening, as usual, and then she wanted to go to In and Out Burger. (Yeah, they do have the best burgers in town.) On our way to get food, my clutch died. Instantly. Hadn't been slipping or anything. I love that car. '93 Acura Integra. Heck of fun to drive. So, tow to shop, call my buddy to pick me up in the crapmobile (Ford Taurus filled with assorted scary bric-a-brac and used food wrappers.) and got a cab home from the repair shop for my client. Immediate crisis managed. Took Sunday off. Waited Monday to hear the verdict from the Earl.

Bad news - the poor little Acura needs $3000. in repairs. Poor baby always needs repairs - $300 here, $800 there. I work to support my car so I can work so I can support my car. I paid $2200 for it, then my mechanic blew up the engine - put in a new one at her expense. I thought I was lucky and good to go. I've been trying to keep the girl running for 3 years. Not bad, either. A part here, a part there, new seatbelt (what the hell). But the car kicks ass. But the advice is to replace it. I know it is the right thing, even though it is a rough decision.

Now begins the dual tasks of managing anxiety and finding a replacement. So I start looking at Craigslist cheap. I go to strange places to meet poor guys from the Canal who are selling 20 year old Honda Civics for like $1000 to $2000 dollars that look rode hard and put away wet. And the poor guys who are selling them because they had to get a truck because they are working construction or whatever just look crestfallen when I say no. They are these cute little guys who take care of business and work hard, young immigrants, and cute as puppies. I feel like saying "yeah, hey, I'll take over your tired car and dump money into keeping in running because I want you to look happy". Somebody else will buy their car.

Meanwhile, I am going around on the bus and asking everybody for help and so on and so forth. And not sleeping. And stressing. And worrying about work. And thinking I will NEVER be able to get anywhere again because I don't have a car. So everybody says go to St. Vincent's. I look on line, there is a'90 Volvo for $1500 and an '88 Chevy Nova for $1200. Volvo is a station wagon and I don't want to feed anything that much gas. The Nova is a manual (my preference) with a straight, clean body and good tread. Cute as hell. So far so good. (But this guy is always way over blue book value, and I hadn't checked. But this is a hell of old car.) I'm in line behind a guy looking at a newer Saturn for $4000. so I get to spend some quality time with the Nova. Starts up like a champ, shifts gears well. So now I look under the hood.

Yikes. Hoses taped together. Radiator looks rough with dings, but no sign of immediate leakage. Oil spray on a do-gadget McThingy from the engine. Gasket? Something spraying oil out of the engine. I can see sinking a few thousand into it again to keep it going. I like the car - anxiety and ambivilance. I like it. I'm desperate. I'm standing there waiting for the guy looking at the Saturn, but when has a moment I'm asking him what he thinks. He thinks there is spray from the engine. Saturn looks nice, he buys it. While the transaction is going through, I ask if his checked the blue book - nope. Didn't have access. His friend checks. Sho 'nough, dang thing is beautiful, but about $800 over blue book value. I decide to catch the bus home in the rain. Had a day. Call a zillion places, use up my cell minutes, and then panic again.

Now mind you, anxiety is not one of my more basic emotions. I don't tend to do fear. So I don't know what to do. I ask everybody I see to tell me that this will end and that I will be okay. I know this in my head, but I just can't feel it. So I ask them to tell me - ten times. (Most of them make it to time three before they get bored, but since I get told about a total of 15 times a day it works. I whine and wheedle and tell everybody my problems. It helps. A lot.

So, I did look at the cars on the little used lot three blocks to my house. (Love going out to you, Norm at PeteStuff.) There are a couple of decent enough looking cars just above my price range. (No Dear, you can't do the Porsche just because it looks like fun. - I hate being an adult!) There is a Nissan Altima for $4200. Definitely over my limit, but manual, in good shape. I go back and look again. Finally I take the kid with me. She thinks I should get it. We go back again the next day and Norm's there. She wants to know if she can get excited yet. No, you can not get excited yet. I sit in it. Clean inside and out. I drive it. A little difficult getting into first gear but quiet ride, smooth shifting, handles neat. Engine clean, no leaks, all fluids filled, hoses solid. I offer $3800. cash. (I actually did it - I got the car for $3800. cash. Wheeeee!) Okay, Athena you can now be excited. I am happy. I give the guy my Visa card. It doesn't go through - got to talk to the bank blah blah you know the drill. (Okay, I actually got mixed up and gave him my ATM card instead, so no wonder it wouldn't go through.) I pay the next day. I ended paying half cash and putting $2000 on the credit card. Manageable debt, especially since I should not have repair bills for quite a while.
I'm happy. I'm excited. I go to clean out my little Acura, and I am crestfallen. My heart aches. I start it up one last time, wishing I could make it better. I throw my body on it's warm hood as if somehow the contact can make it come back to life. I'd give it mouth to tailpipe resuscitation if I though it might help. I want MY car.

So now, I am glad. I made a good deal. The Nissan will serve me well. I have made a responsible and prudent choice. But, I am having a poor bonding experience. The attachment is just not there. My neighbor says it looks "nice". It does. I want it to look cool, or rad, or something. I want to look at it and think - "this car soooo rocks!" I look at it and wonder if I'm respectable. It worries me. I need to find it a good name - open to suggestions, and bling it out! Maybe put a few dents in it. I dunno. I hope we have a bonding experience soon.

inertia

Inertia is the tendency of a moving body to remain in motion or a resting body to remain at rest unless acted on by an outside force. This must be the reason living on disability sucks - I have seroconverted into the tendency of a resting body to remain at rest.
Monday - I am on the computer playing stupid games. I go eat. I play stupid games on the computer. I go eat. I check my face book. I look for jobs on Craigslist. I take a nap. I wake up. I go volunteer for a couple of hours. I come home. I watch t.v. I sleep.
Tuesday - I play stupid games on the computer. I go eat. I watch Harry Potter and the (fill in the blank). I go eat. I screw around on the computer. I take a nap.
Wednesday - I would describe it but I have just become too lazy to care. Not only that but I am imagining your eyes glazing over in boredom, wishing I would stop repeating my days. Yup, I wish I could stop repeating my daze, too! Oh wait - I meant to say days. Oh well, thought Eeyore. Nobody cares.

Almost two and a half years since I was able to go to grad school. I have forgotten most of what I learned 6 years ago when I started the three year program. The realization that your ability to remember what you know has been eaten up by lack of opportunity... well, I reckon that just bites. I dunno, maybe I'll play a stupid game on the computer. It won't change anything, except my Farmville crops will be fertilized.

I always wanted to be a therapist. I have the touch to reach into places where people are stuck and help them move through the pain. I can assess a situation and manage a crisis. I am calm in the turmoil of another person's hell. I can do the work. But then, why am I playing computer games. Hamster brain... let's just run in the wheel.

I have come up against the prejudice of the mental health system. They want the people who serve clients to never have been a serious client themselves. I have been asked on interviews if I have ever attempted suicidal, what my personal support system is like, and whether my belly button is an innie or an outie. (I think an outie was a job requirement - not sure. Oh wait, I just made that one up, but the other ones are true.)

I have a sucky voice and sometimes breathe like Julie Child. People sometimes mistake this for slow-wittedness. It is not. The absolute worst interview I ever went on was at Novato Youth Center. I rocked on the interview. They called me back for a second interview. I wash my hair and put on the requisite white shirt. We make starting interview chit-chat. Then the program director starts in with some crap about how there is no easy way to say this (blah blah blah) so I'll just jump in (blah blah blah) "what's wrong with you're voice?" In retrospect, I wish I would have just asked her if she could understand everything I said. If she can, there is nothing wrong with my voice which interferes with my job. Period.
But, we are talking about an interview, so I answer what is asked of me (while staring into the headlights of the oncoming truck). Yeah, my voice sucks. Akathesia. Got sick, got better, end of story. (I think). What's akathesia. Huh, Ms. Mental Health Director? You don't know the side effects of psych meds, and you're on THAT side of the desk. Okay, med side effect, got sick, got better, end of story. Now I am really freaking out here, boys and girls. So, that little interlude over, why don't we do a full interview. I don't think I did so well.
Here's the fun part - akathesia effects my voice. No doubt about it. And yeah, it sucks. But really, this is not the biggest part of things. I have slight brain damage. A little bit of cerebral palsy. Just enough to make my voice thick and my movements slow, but not enough to make me look like I have a real disability. So, people mistake me for stupid. And, my voice sucks. And I HATE it! It distresses me. Now I ask you - would you really want to go there on a job interview? I mean, really. We interviewed you and liked you. Now, we are singling you out because, hey, lets ask you something intimate and shameful and painful and then see how you do on an interview.

Now, I got turned down a lot of places. I've taken a lot of crap in my day. I've got my issues, don't play well with others. But this one incident, well, it hurt me too bad to ever go back. This is the worst pain I've ever felt around a job interview. There is a point in a fight where you should stay down, and there is a point where you are too hurt to stand. I was just past the point where I should have stayed down. This was the point where I became too hurt to stand. And for what?

S0, for now, Thursday I will play some stupid computer game. Then I will go and eat oatmeal. Then I will check my e-mail. Then I will go eat. I will take a nap, watch t.v., and go to bed.
Friday, I will go eat. Then I will.....
Stay busy doing stupid silly things to block out the pain of a time where someone took away my right to have private and personal issues on an interview, and I let them.

Volunteer work

I actually really like working. It makes me feel good. I am good at what I do, so I volunteer. Volunteering is yes, a pleasure in and of itself, yet sometimes I hope that the experience will also be a means to another end. Of course, I am not totally selfless.
So, usually after a bunch of training and whatever hoops I need to jump through, I become a bonafied dyed in the wool volunteer, and am then left to do important things like deal with rape survivors or prevent suicides or some such thing. Yeah, I can do that. I like it and I do good work.

Last year, after like six months of working for Suicide Prevention, I was turned down for a traineeship. Now, okay, you pick who you want. I get that part. But the agency obviously, after leaving me alone to handle shifts for months, knew I could do the work. They told me that they didn't think I could work 20 hour weeks (I was doing 16 hour work weeks at the time.) and also - are we ready for this - that they didn't think I could provide therapy because I had no experience and had been a case manager. Huh? Case managers do nothing but provide direct services to clients. I mean, come on a get real. So of course, I ended up working the line with partners who had no experience, were arrogant, and got traineeships.

I've had many prospective placements tell me I have no experience - duh! That's why you go to grad school and then get a placement - because you have no experience. Of course, there must be real reasons. I can make some educated guesses at what they are. Maybe the movement disorder that makes it impossible to sit still during an interview. Maybe may slow, thick voice that initially makes people think I am a slow-witted child. Maybe the lack of working for 5 years due to I dunno, maybe the lack of ability to sit in a chair.
And over and over the same comment - you haven't done any really work - just volunteer. I bite back so much pain and anger, and the feeling there is nothing I can do. (Well, I can take drugs to manage the symptoms caused by bad interviews.)
Sometimes I watch the young adults I volunteer with when they get frustrated with job hunting or school. They are so young, and of course I give them the "this is just one place, it will get better, don't give up you're a good person" speech. All the while I am thinking, if you think this is fun at 23 just wait until 50. It gets worse!

another "thank you for playing" letter

Yeah, I guess. Another "thank you for playing" letter in my mail box. To all of you who send out the human resources rejection letter, really, I appreciate it. At least I know not to wait on you. Then again, interview on Wednesday, letter received on Saturday = you didn't ever really consider me. Not that I mind so much on a case my case basis. But the overall effects of two years of this are grinding me down to nothing.
Okay, I realize I was not well two years ago. I was too sick to do anything for a year. But then I was well enough to return to school, but as long as I only took one class on any given day I was fine. Oh yeah - I'm also crazy as hell. On the other hand, I do good work, not that anybody knows this.

An hour later: I called hr where I was turned down and asked for feedback - waiting for a call back. I wonder what will happen. This hurts. Really hurts. I sometimes wonder if I am too frail to work. I work now, but somehow since my job requires little more than the ability to sit, drive, and tolerate watching the Hallmark Channel with a client, it barely seems to count.

Well, that is all for this moment in time. Talk to you all soon. (Okay, I know nobody is following this, at least as far as now. Maybe I should say I'll talk to myself again soon, but I'm not quite at that point yet. So, dear and unknown friend, if you read this, please show me a little love and let me know.

Might as well start here

After 42 units of a fine graduate education (MFT program) and at the age of damn near 50, I am now ready to begin my practicum placement. Unfortunately, the world does not seem ready for me. In the past two and a half years, I have been turned down from approximately twenty (yes, my friends, that's a big 20) prospective placements. I now work a slightly more than minimum wage job 8 hours a week, which is fine because it doesn't interfere with my SSDI. I am now interviewing for other jobs, because my current one requires all the intelligence of a well trained and properly mannered goose. I am far better trained than a goose. However, it seems, I am not as well mannered. Perhaps an issue.
So, why would I want to be a therapist? (Other than to better understand my own personal drama that, after all, is infinitely entertaining!) It's what I am supposed to do. And frankly, despite all the nonsense now, I am good at it. Seriously good, not bragging. Just stating a fact.
I can get people to tell me anything. I can help you find housing and understand why you lost it the last time. I can calm the paranoid or motivate the apathetic. I can assess for suicidality or case manage bi-polar meth users. What I can't do is look like I am sane on a job interview.
Well, okay, my sanity can be called into question. Truly, I am that damaged. I am 50, have spent years trying to finish school while washing dishes and selling coffee. I have scraped and struggled and fallen any number of times. And like the boxer who has been hit in the head a few too many times, I don't know when it's time to just lie on the floor and stay down for the count. So here I am, pounding nails into the pavement with my forehead.