Talking about feeling better and making progress is more difficult for me than bitching about being miserable, which makes a little bit of sense considering I don’t trust not feeling gloomy and on edge. It just isn’t normal. Hopefully this is something I will have the opportunity to get over.
From the above, astute readers may guess that I have been feeling a bit better. Why? Who f@#*ing knows. Again, this is my frustration with brains. There is really no way to determine why they do anything. I can come up with a dozen plausible theories but there isn’t any way to find out which, if any, are even remotely related to what is going on. That said, my baseline mood has been better this month and, over the last few days, I would even say I’m approaching what I think “normal” might be.
One of the contributing factor to this improved mood is almost certainly that we finally got some assistance from the social safety net in the form of SNAP1 benefits. They’re giving us kind of a ridiculous amount of money for food every month, for a household with only two people2. It does carry over month to month, which is nice, and having a dedicated (and more than adequate) food budget has expanded our options somewhat. I’m certainly not going to complain.
Getting SNAP money does not cure all the financial uncertainty going on right now. It has, however, been enough of a relief that if I ever manage to get disability benefits, I’m actually pretty optimistic about what that would do for my mental state. I’m not holding my breath.
- Supplemental nutrition assistance program? I think? Something like that. It’s the new and improved version of food stamps. ↩︎
- SNAP does not cover pet food which is an understandable but unfortunate gap. With two animals on special diets, the amount per month we spend on their food gets pretty close to what we spend for human food. ↩︎
I’m in a similar position as you when it comes to these sorts of feelings. Like, it’s not enough to have some inkling of why you might think or feel what you do; you also have to know how. You’re a technical boy. Not in the sense of being particularly skilled with technology, although you certainly are well above the average in that department. But you want to know how things work, how they fit together. Nothing wrong with that. Doubtless part of what makes you a good medical professional. But when it comes to your own mind, and your situation, maybe don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Man. Good on ya. (^_^)