So, here’s my update on disability, and tips and things to watch for.

When you apply there are actually TWO forms that you have to fill out and they have different confirmation numbers.

I had filled out the first one and sent it in and had been wondering why they were just asking me about financial things and not medical things, and figured perhaps that all came in the interview. Then I got a phone call from a nice lady at the disability office (they are SO much more together than Medicaid!) saying that she needed this other part of the form and I told her I wondered why they hadn’t wanted anything medical, and well, they did. Then I spent two days freaking out because apparently someone had thrown out the paper that had the confirmation number on so I couldn’t log back in, and of course, the disability office doesn’t have access to that, but then I found out that the second form, which is called the Adult Disability and Work History Report actually generates it’s own confirmation number and so I could actually fill it out, phew!

That took a while. I had to list all the various times I’ve been to the doctor, been to the hospital, even breathed near a doctor and for how long and when and if I still see them and put in all their contact information, and then also list every job I’ve ever had, and I realize now I forgot one (whoops) but it only lasted a week!, oh, damn it I forgot two…urgh, I forgot the summer I worked at my Mum’s office too. Go me. Anyway….yeah, any job I’ve ever had, not just like a resume where you put your most recent couple…and what the duties were at those jobs and how long I stood, sat, crouched, fetched, carried…that took forever, and some of them I don’t even remember so I kinda had to guess.

They do at least give you a text box where you can kinda plead your case, so I talked about the fact that I can keep up with things to a point but alters don’t always read the notebooks on how to do things, and how some times if I go into little mode I don’t even know how to drive, and that the fibro is aggravated by stress which causes issues, and then I had to print and sign NINE medical release forms, and mail them to the office.

The next day I got a call from the woman at the local office again and she reminded me (because I hadn’t written it down) that she needed copies of my birth certificate and my naturalization paperwork, now this is the tricky part, because they need originals and to make copies themselves, so in my case I had the option where I could mail those in with a return envelope and hope that they got back to me promptly OR take them to her in person and have her make the copies and give them right back, which is the option I went for.

So, now I’m just waiting to see. I had filled out paperwork for both SSI and SSDI because I wasn’t sure which one was which, as it turns out SSI is basically welfare, and we don’t qualify for that because my husband makes quite a bit of money monthly, about a grand over what qualifies you for SSI, but I can potentially get SSDI because I worked and am no longer working.

So, now it’s just wait and see.

I think I was right. I won’t say I know I was right because I can’t endeavor to say with certainty what’s going on in other people’s brains, but I seriously feel disconnected from a lot of people and there’s a block there preventing me from reaching out all the time. It’s draining. I get sick of it.

Socialization is something that is hard to get in the situations that I’m in, with the lack of money, the illness which makes me so fucking tired at times that I can barely stay awake to make food for the munchkin, add to that the munchkin that a lot of people we know really can’t relate to, and I don’t want to pawn him off on my Mum just so I can go driving.

I’m grateful that I have a few friends who still talk to me and will come and visit or that my husband can make arrangements so I can go and see some people…but still it seems like things are way different now, and talking with K whose been visiting kinda affirms to me that there has been some uncertainty with how to approach me, and some fear on people’s parts that I’m going to up and decide it was all wrong.

True I haven’t been getting much input lately, but I know things have been so overwhelming for me on many quarters that it’s been enough just to get through one day to the next, and there have been dreams I just haven’t been able to hold on to them properly.

I’m not discounting any of the experiences I had or have had over the past few years just because I’ve been diagnosed as having multiple personalities, in fact it’s made things a bit more clear for me in a lot of respects. The reason why it was so easy for me to flip and channel change for example, because the alters and the other lives meshed together, it made the alters stronger, it made me stronger, I’m grateful to it and for it, because if it wasn’t for discovering the other lives and the alters I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the fractures so well, I wouldn’t have had the tools to find out and research and work through things on my own, to gain a semblance of co-consciousness or anything else like that. I would have wound up in situations that I see having happened with other DID diagnoses where they’ve been in and out of hospital or in and out of jail because they have no communication with certain alters who just do whatever the fuck they feel like doing.

I don’t even want to think of the trouble that Terri or maybe even Sanzo type personality could have gotten me in to if they weren’t keenly aware that X or Y was in their life time and this wasn’t it.

I feel I have to say it partially for myself too, that we’re still here and we’re still us, that even our therapist doesn’t poo-poo the reincarnation aspect of things. She just admits that she doesn’t know everything and that it could well be the reason for X, Y and Z. In fact dealing with the therapist has pretty much validated things over doubts that I had. She read the entry that Max wrote which talked about suicide attempts and self-harm and said that it seriously read like he had done those things, even though physically in this life I’ve never actually put the knife to flesh only thought about it and then had Ami stop us. She said the writing was very kinesthetic that it was clearly something that he had done, and I said that the only time I knew he had done those things was in the life time that was similar not in this time.

Enough ramble from me right now…I need to make some food now that I’ve woken up a bit better.

I’ve finally stopped hedging and imported the posts from Centuries Old and Still a Work in Progress into this one, and am preparing to shut it down. If you know anyone interested in purchasing miriel.org or eryssa.net for that matter you can contact Ami through ami-chan.net DESIGNS and negotiate things there. We’d just like to see the domains put to good use.

This means that also we’re hoping to be able to start work on other things to do with this blog that we’ve been hoping to write about, such as reviewing the “Field Guide to Otherkin,” although we really have to finish that first, and also working on the “Otherkin Aware” portion of the site that we’ve been knocking around for quite some time.

We still need to redo the layout here.

We’ve been having some issues because it’s become really stifling to write on our other blog…the personal blog which actually posts pictures and does most of our review work and all the rest of it. There’s a good chunk of us who want to be able to explain about the multiplicity there it would be easier to write about things then…but it’s a big step. There’s the possibility that relatives of ours and our significant other read that blog and they haven’t been told about my diagnosis…and that could make things awkward and I don’t want to do that…

I’ve been feeling so tired lately and it’s annoying me. Last night was the first time in a while I actually slept almost all the way through. I went to bed before 11 p.m. and I was woken up by my husband getting ready for work at 4 a.m. BUT I managed to get back to sleep pretty quickly and then it was almost seven before my sun woke me up, but still I feel groggy and tired, and I’m really displeased with that feeling.

We have a friend staying with us this week so that’s nice. She’ll help us out with things and we’ll take a couple of “field trips” out and about in the area, if the car behaves. While we were driving yesterday it decided to put the brake light on for a while, but the brakes *seem* to be working properly at the moment…I’m not sure what the problem is.

There’s been some flip-flopping around internally, that probably has some thing to do with the issues going on. We have two littles that we can tell now and that makes things a bit different. We don’t hear very much from them, but we’re trying to encourage them to talk. One did write a brief message on AO the other day I see when I check my inbox…talking about Debbi also, one of our quiet alters, so we’re wondering if she’s been taking care of them internally and we just haven’t realized. She became most vocal and active externally during the time after my son was injured…so that may well be why, if she takes care of the littles she’s got that deep maternally caring baby is injured mindset, I would think. I’m going to write her a message in our notebook journal and see what comes up.

I’ve been feeling SO stifled in the other blogs I write because I can’t talk about a huge chunk of my life right now, or I feel I can’t. There’s a big debate going on in here about that because it’s doing us a disservice to not be open about what’s going on, but at the same time, it would open a huge can of worms that I’m not sure that we’re ready to deal with, given I don’t know if any family actually reads the blog because if they do, other than Mum, they NEVER comment or let me know that they’re keeping up with us through it. URGH. There’s a good chunk of me lead by Max, going fuck them. If they don’t understand fuck them. It’s not like we like most of them anyway, but it’s hard for Ami and myself, in particular to get passed that “but we mustn’t upset the status quo” mentality.

In good news the disability application is finished and in we’ll see what happens with that.

I would like to say that I’m in awe that the disability office is more on the ball than the Medicaid one. I got a call from them within a day of submitting my application to let me know of additional information that they needed, and when I sent an email to someone else I got an answer ON A SATURDAY. I could never get a hold of anyone at Medicaid by phone, email was no hope, and any written communications were often too little too late, or involved staying on hold for hours at a time.

For some reason the electronic system missed a chunk of my form. Now the problem is that I can’t find my log-in code to go in and fix it. I hope I find it before Wednesday because that’s my deadline and the people at the office have no access to it, of course.

I’ve been having a bit of a weird time lately. We’ve discovered another little over the course of the past week. I went to see “Prince Caspian” with my SO, and afterwards I was very disjointed. I remember what happened though, the last few times she’s been out I haven’t remembered anything, this time I did.

I remember being scared and confused, and thinking the Mall was the strangest place I’d ever been, being bewildered by the palm trees, wondering what was going on with the heat, why it was so hot. I got car sick…after a long moment of deduction I decided Regan was the president. Very scary…to me.

Eventually the little was dissuaded out by being offered “Mountain Dew”.

My therapist and I were able to talk to her again at my last session during hypnosis, but not much was gleaned. I have remembered some things since then…but I’m still more than a little weirded out. Things from childhood are really fragmented and unclear.