I haven’t really been online a lot this weekend. That’s mainly due to heightened anxiety/stress. I think that’s due to the beginning of football season. Around the time my father woke up on Saturday morning, I started giving myself my headache medicine. It kept me asleep for around 12-13 hours. I ended up waking up during Auburn’s halftime, which meant I got to experience rants full-on. I had missed the rants about the teams that he didn’t even care about, which was good. I had wished I could make it through the Auburn ones, too, but they would have been harder to miss. Auburn ended up winning, which was good. If they had lost, then I probably would’ve started dosing myself into unconsciousness again. (I’ve often used medicines to induce sleep. It’s how I managed to sleep while I was having major sleep issues during middle and high school.)

I started crying sometime in the early morning hours on Sunday. I just felt like I was ready to scream, throw things, etc. I started composing a very long letter to my parents about how I felt like I needed to be taken more seriously. (This was what I used to do when I was a little kid–if I needed something or if I felt like I needed to apologize, I’d write a letter.) Well, the ink ran out of the pen and I got upset and threw it across the room. It barely made a sound when it hit Willow’s chair, but it was loud enough that my mom woke up. We ended up talking, and I complained about the thing on my stomach, which she checked out a little closer this time. She was surprised because it was burning up, and I told her that that was normal. (It is hot most of the time, but it gets worse in the middle of the night [around 3:30-5:00 AM] and it starts hurting worse.) I have an appointment to get it checked out with my family medicine doctor, but I have honestly lost faith in most doctors lately. Yeah, they send me for the tests, but the longer this whole saga goes on, the more dismissive they get. (Half the time, the results are never relayed to me.) And with the cardiologist refusing to even suggest anything that could help the extra beats and tachycardia, it just seems to be stupid to go through massive amounts of tests.

Speaking of tests and medical records, I think that is unfair that if I want to access my medical records, I have to pay fees. (Where is Files & Records when you need her?) If I want a copy of my blood work, I have to pay per page of the test, which can be 20-or-so pages. The doctors, who have a lot more money, don’t have to pay anything. They can get paper copies or faxes or computer access without paying anything. All that they really need is a signature from me to share the records. (If they’re in the Huntsville Hospital system and the record is on my hospital file, they don’t even need my signature.) All these people can see whatever they want about me, but I don’t get to see my own file. (At the Mental Health Center, I don’t even get the opportunity to pay for the records to see what’s been said. I can have my therapist or doctor or one of the nurses read it to me, though.)

I’m a little frustrated with the Social Security Administration. When I started on SSI and SSDI, I was told that if I started paying $200+ a month in household expenses, then my SSI check would be increased by that much. After I got the first check, I began doing just that. I’ve told the SSA about this twice. I filled out lots of paperwork the first time–nothing happened. I called again in May or June (or possibly early July)–I haven’t even gotten paperwork or anything that says that anything will happen. I get that the government doesn’t really have lots of money right now, but it seems like they could at least hold up their end of the 1/3 reduction rule.

Anyway, right now I’m dealing with an earache and headache that my mom told me was probably just TMJ. I agreed at first, but after a while, my throat began hurting. I would say it was allergies, but I know that’s not likely.