met with the case worker

finally got to meet with the case worker today. turned out to be a very deep conversation, and possibly the most in-depth counseling/psych intake session i’ve ever been part of. she took highly detailed notes, got my entire family history, dates, education, year by year, what i’ve been doing my entire life. which is a lot to review, and a lot to account for. was in her office for an hour and a half.

one disconcerting thing was near the start of the interview. i’d said that i’d been on medication for bipolar disorder something in 2000/2001. but had bad experiences, and have been off medication the past 8 years. the disconcerting part was her looking at me suspiciously, saying, ‘i’m trying to understand how someone who is bipolar would be off medication for that long.” i.e., suspicious that i’m making it up now. thing is, there are many, many bipolar people who spend years and years off medication; i am not an isolated incident.

another disconcerting thing was being asked to narrative, in detail, the ways in which i was abused as a kid, family dysfunction, violence. she also spent what i felt to be an inordinate amount of time asking me to, in exquisite, painstaking detail, relive, recount every sordid detail about my having been sexually abused. reliving it, right there in her office, recounting it all. i don’t understand why that was important.

she also asked if i ever indulged in risky behavior. i couldn’t quite understand the question. did i ever go on shopping sprees, have sex with multiple partners? you mean, multiple partners at the same time? i asked. we both laughed. i said, yes, either way that question is meant. but i don’t understand the question, if having sex with multiple partners, being profligate, is a sign of mental instability, then the entire college population should be put on psychiatric medication to control their dangerous, unnatural behavior. and certainly porn stars, and polyamorous people, and sex workers, by her theory, all these people are deviant and unstable.

she came up with a theory, that the difficulty i have keeping jobs, the fact that i keep moving from city to city, lead a transient lifestyle, can’t keep friendships/relationships, it’s because of the trauma i suffered as a kid, and the reason i live such a transient lifestyle is because i’m running in fear. she turned to me, as if she were a therapist, asked pointedly, “what is it that you’re running away from? what are you scared of?”

i almost said, i’m sorry, is this going to be a therapy session? but didn’t, and i sat there, trying to at least do her question justice, but i’m sitting there, mulling it over, and yes, i’m living with a huge amount of fear…

i finally, after several long moments, say, “what i’m actually afraid of is that this instability i’m dealing with, these out of control mood swings that keep destroying jobs, my life, that i’m not going to get my moods under control, taht i’m going to continue to lose jobs, i’ll continue to be homeless. what i am scared of is that it doesn’t matter how hard i try, i continue to run into problems at jobs, despite how intelligent and a good worker i am, because i simply don’t fit in, am too weird for people, am not good with the small talk, office politics. i’m scared that i won’t be able to find a job that i can keep, that i’ll never be able to make it work.”

she stopped with the whole “running away from fear” questioning tangent when i said this.

i also said that i’ve lost jobs, repeatedly, and i described instances, where my inability to get a diagnosis for asperger’s syndrome means i can’t get the protection i need. that my insurance wouldn’t pay for it, back when i had a job and had insurance, and the cheapest option i can find is $1200 minimum, goes past $2000. did she know of any low-cost options for getting a diagnosis, so i could get legal protection at jobs? she said she didn’t know of any, but she’d ask her colleagues.

she also said that she couldn’t offer any help with finding work or housing, but that the place you apply for food stamps from, they should have some sort of job search resources. she also gave me a list of local places i could possibly get free therapy, suggested it’d be a good thing, to be placed into long-term theory, to learn social skills, how to set goals, manage my affairs, etc. and she made me an appointment with their in-house psychiatrist for friday. which is good timing, as my medication runs out on friday. and she said that this week, before our followup appointment next week, i needed to’ve called a local medical care program for indigent people, find a clinic that’s taking new patients, so i can get set up with a GP. And to qualify for that, i have to prove i’m broke, have no job, no money. which shouldn’t be hard to do.

i’ve got so much i need to do, and i’m not feeling hopeful about my chances of finding a job. i need to make something happen.

i’m a little worried about what the consequences will be, with regards to her having made me recount my sexual abuse history, in salient detail. things tend to hit in waves, goes thru my subconscious first, and i’m a little scared about how my subconscious might react to that.