With Your Illness...

I just had to bring this picture back. I met with someone at disability support today. I don't know why, what the point was, but my department head told me to go and you do what she says. So I went. I don't like going to disability support; I find the whole thing pointless. There is never anything they can help me with at all. I keep being sent there for psyc issues that really affect my school performance. So it seems logical that I go right? For a school performance issue. Except that these are issues better handled between me and my shrink. I see the person at disability support once, maybe twice a semester at most (last semester not at all because that's when I realized she's pointless). I've seen my shrink once a week or once every other week for over a year. I think she's got a better read on me. DUH!!!

[image description: a boy wrapped in a blanket with a thermometer in his mouth and an ice-pack on his head]

Not only that, but the person from disability support offends me. After I was diagnosed with BP II my file got switched over to the person that handles all the psyc students. She started here two years ago, is an LCSW (licensed clinical social worker), and her previous job right before this was as an elementary school guidance counselor. She's really nice and really tries to be helpful (even though she never is). It's her use of language that gets to me.

3 or 4 semesters ago right after I was diagnosed I went to her office thinking she could be a big help, and in the course of conversation she said "people like you..." meaning people with BP. I immediately got a pit in my stomach that I couldn't identify until later that day. When I was a baby I was diagnosed with CP and right afterwards in that same appointment the Dr started off on "people like her..." She was trying to convince my mother to institutionalize me. It wasn't 1920, it was 1985. But back to disability support. People like me? Has she had extensive experience with people who have a dual diagnosis of CP and BP? Does she know anyone else with both diagnoses? I'm willing to bet $50,000 that the answer is no. So we can't talk about "people like me," We can only talk about me. We have to work within the framework that sometimes the two diagnoses make life way more difficult then if I was just dealing with just one of them. Sometimes they clash or work in combination to exacerbate each other. She gave me advice that made no sense to me because we were never really talking about me.

That brings me to today. I only went at the request of my dept head, to satisfy her and to appear compliant with fixing the current problem. As I said, I didn't want to go. I don't like to go (I do however like my shrink and feel confidant that tomorrow or Monday when I see my psychiatrist things will get all worked out).

In the course of conversation the lady at disability support said "with your illness..." I don't remember why, I don't remember the context or the rest of the sentence and it was only 2.5hrs ago. I fixated on those three words. "with your illness..."

What illness? Where? Do I look pale? Do I have a fever? Diarrhea? Can someone please clue me in because I never got that memo. I'M NOT SICK NOR IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH ME! I have a chronic condition g-d damn it, and there's a HUGE difference between the two (for almost the same rant, see my earlier post). I feel almost as if she pities me because I struggle so much. That's what those words mean to me. I don't know, maybe I'm reading her wrong... but I just cannot stand her and I needed to rant. So thanks readers.

*rant over now*