2024-08-05 (Monday) — Deteriorating

(written on the 5th and 6th)

At this point, as I write this, I’m just pretty much… adreno depleted? if that’s even a word.

It’s been a miserable, awful day.

I struggled to fall asleep last night. Combination of concerns about new recluse spiders given that I just put a whole bunch of bins inside my van that have been sitting outside for the last almost month and a half.

And because the van had been sitting in the hot sun for many hours, and all the bins inside had soaked up so much heat, and they were radiating their heat for a good while.

Fan on, no blanket, sweating (though just on the surfaces touching the bed).

So I was worried about bugs, and it was hot, but the main thing was my nerve issues. Pain and discomfort all night. Tossed and turned. Tried to find a position that gave  relief but was largely unsuccessful.

I don’t know what to do.

I guess the next step is to go see another doctor.

I hate doctors. I hate the medical industry.

Hate hate hate.

I guess I shouldn’t say that I hate doctors. I have several family members who are doctors. I hate my experience with doctors and health providers and health insurance and all that.

Time for a bunch of MRIs, neck to pelvis.

Fun fun fun.

Would really like some answers.

Of course, I’m also afraid of the answers…

Anyway, all that medical talk leads perfectly into the first events of the day. I had missed a couple of calls yesterday from a phone number that I figured was Mercy health financial looking to be paid for everything from April.

I Googled The number, and I was right, so I gave them a call to see what they wanted. Of course, they had called because I have bills of about $650+ that I owe. I asked them why they were calling, since they were told by my insurance company on a phone call a little while ago that the bills were being reprocessed, so I didn’t know why they were pressing and pressing again still but whatever.

So then my next call was to Liberty healthshare because they told me they were resubmitting and reprocessing the bills, and I had heard nothing.

I’m so tired of dealing with that awful awful company. But I’m afraid to leave because I’ve met my pre-existing conditions clause, and I’m having all these back and nerve issues, and… I don’t have the bandwidth to think about what it would take to leave anyway and find another place anyway.

I am so mentally and emotionally full to the brim and overflowing that I can’t function properly. Anything new is just too much. It’s just too much.

Too much.

It’s been 15 plus years of dealing with this issue in my life that is killing me. Every year it gets harder. And this is finally the year that I’ve snapped. I thought it was hard before.

The past has nothing on the present.

I’m in a near perpetual state of desperation with no relief available.

I break down and fall to little pieces again and again, but it of course, does nothing. And the desperation just grows with every breakdown. Because nothing helps. Nothing solves the underlying hell.

I’m not depressed. I’m just tired of living in hell. I’m just tired. So so so tired.

I don’t know that I have the strength to make it through this if it goes on any longer.

Where is God?

We used to have the most amazing relationship. I learned so much. We had beautiful, soul-filling experiences together. It was incredible.

I miss it.

But he disappeared, went dark… and it feels like he lied… deceived… reneged… whatever… and now… I’m just so… hurt, lost… and angry.

So so so angry.

Probably just a result of all the pain.

I feel helpless. I’m desperate for relief.

I live nearly every day at max emotional capacity as a baseline. My system is completely overloaded. And if anything is added or if anything goes sideways. I just… break.

I can’t do this. I can’t think. I can’t make decisions. I can barely function enough to eat and get anything done.

I’m spent.

😞

It’s morning now… on the 6th.

The conversation with Liberty health share went worse than expected. It never really goes well, but today it was just bad bad bad.

As pretty much always, the first person to help seemed mostly clueless. I’m sure they can help with basic things like helping you navigate the website, but for anything more than that, it’s just… Like pulling teeth.

To be fair, i think this young lady figured it out just as she was getting the supervisor on the line with me.

The supervisor I talked to today, I guess you could either say she was the most knowledgeable of all the ones or the first one to have the guts to actually hold fast to the ridiculous policy and say that there was nothing that they could do about it. The reprocessing requests had been denied. The claims denied, and no one had bothered to call and let me know.

So I wait and wait and wait, worrying about collections and credit scores and all that junk because of all the warnings from the billing offices and because of how long it takes for Liberty Healthshare to do anything at all., but no, they never get back to me.

I’m tired, and I have a migraine. Woke up with the migraine.

Not looking forward to today. Not that I look forward to any day anymore. But today is going to be almost 100°.

Joy.

Anyway, the lady let me know that the reprocessing efforts had failed. They never were going to succeed because policy is the policy is the policy.

The first supervisors either didn’t know, or didn’t have the guts to tell me that their awful policy has no exceptions.

Disgusting. Absolutely money grubbing disgusting.

Christian organization my eye.

I was frustrated, angry, and went a little too far, I think, in how I spoke with the lady. 😕

She was impatient, talked over me, showed pretty much zero understanding for my frustrations, and defended an absolutely awful/evil policy, and I finally just told her that both the policy makers and she should be ashamed of themselves, that the policy was clearly un Christian, clearly meant to just get more money on the sly, and that her defense of that kind of a policy was disgusting.

Following that phone call, I paid my bill with Mercy, and then I started about the day’s work.

One of the first things that happened was that I couldn’t find a record of an equipment rental for last year’s rental to my neighbor. I wasn’t even sure if it was last year. I was sure that I had reported it with the state and put it on my income list and everything, but… nothing.

I went through months and months of sales tax statements with the state. I went through multiple years worth of business income lists, with every single customer on them, and nothing. The record was nowhere.

I just don’t understand. Things like that don’t slide with me. I remember them. I take care of them. I just don’t get it. I even have memories about it, but apparently they’re false memories? Or unfinished memories? But no… I always at least write it down To take care of it.

But nothing. Anywhere.

I don’t know how long I spent trying to figure it out, But between the medical stuff first thing in the morning and however long I spent looking and looking and looking for that record, I had already cracked for the day.

Little did I know that crack was going to explode open like a bomb went off.

😞

In as bad as the place as I was, I called my mom to see if she could come just hang out.

Of course, she did, being the angel that she is.

Unfortunately, after she got here, as we started talking, I got more and more and more angry. Not at her, at God.

And I finally just went off, exploded, spewing out hate and rage at a God I used to love, and I ended up asking my mom to leave.

I left my poor mother in tears.

😞

I was so loud, and it was so prolonged, that Liz heard and drove down from her house down to the field where we were. She thought that maybe I was hurt again or something.

No, not physically hurt. So full of emotional anguish that I just can’t function properly anymore.

I’m so tired of this life.

Liz tried to help. She’s absolutely wonderful. Brought her to tears to see where I was at.

😞

I think only my mom has really seen where I’m actually at.

Though Liz tried to help, there’s not really anything anybody can do.

People want me to see therapists and/or go on meds.

As far as therapists are concerned, I’ve never had any luck with them before. And with all the experiences that I’ve had over the last many years with supposed experts in their various fields, so much crap work done, I just… don’t trust anybody anymore.

And what can anybody do about the hell that’s underlying all of this for me? The daily torment isn’t something anyone else can resolve for me. I can’t walk away from that powerful spiritual experience that I had so many years ago, I can’t walk away from the path that it sent me down. That path was confirmed over and over and over again by additional spiritual experiences.

But then it all fell apart.

But the message from God was to keep following the path.

By nature, I fear and I doubt. That’s my nature. So I’ve always struggled to hold real faith in those experiences.

I worry and worry and worry some more. Was I somehow wrong? 

And the more that time goes by, and the more the things that I had faith in don’t come to pass, and seem to grow further and further away, the more and more I doubt.

But I can’t walk away. How do you walk away from something like that?

I can’t. I won’t.

But by nature I’m terrified. I’m terrified I was wrong. I’m terrified I’m losing what I wanted most for my life because I’m following this path that means that it’s a guarantee that I won’t get it unless the path is correct.

And time goes by. And life goes by. And I get more and more and more afraid. Afraid I’m losing what I was most afraid I would never have. My deepest fears being realized. That’s what’s happening in my life. All because I’m trusting in god.

But now the heavens are silent and have been for a long long time.

What therapist can resolve that for you? No therapist can tell me where my integrity should be. I don’t allow that to be decided by someone else. That’s my responsibility. I’m not going to offload that to someone else for convenience, for relief. It wouldn’t work anyway. I’m responsible for my integrity. No one else is. I know that to the depth of my soul.

No therapist can tell me what was or wasn’t a real spiritual experience.

If I’m true to the best guess that I have, then I keep walking the road that I’ve been on. I keep trusting in god. The last clear messages that I got from him before the heavens went silent were to keep following that path.

It would be so much easier to actually, truly not believe. Then I would be free. Free to go do whatever I wanted. Free to let go and move on.

But there’s a part of me that still believes. And as long as that part is alive in me, I can’t walk away.

But as long as I am what I am, fearful and full of doubt, as I watch what I longed for most in this life fade away… It’s torment. Daily torment.

I don’t know what is real or true anymore.

I know that my peace and happiness has always come by turning to god and staying close to god. I know I’ve always been happiest when I’ve believed in and followed the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints. I know that’s when my relationship with God has been the deepest.

But god… and church… It’s PTSD for me right now. Do I believe I’d be happier going back?

Yes.

But I can’t ever hold on. I can’t ever keep the faith. I watch time go by in my life. I watch what I want most fade away, and I fear, and I doubt, and I lose faith again.

And that crash…

I don’t know if I can handle trying again only to fail again. It’s like trying to overcome my pornography addiction: I’ve tried so many times over the course of decades.

I’ve never succeeded. I’ve always relapsed. I’ve never been able to finally forever be free of it.

Lately, I had even stopped trying. Why? Because to try and fail so many times just destroys me. Fail. Fail. Fail.

I don’t have enough resilience left in me to put forth a huge effort again only to fail. If I slip when I’m not trying, sure it’s not what I want, but it’s not the same as trying so hard and failing.

I recently started trying again…

I don’t want to fail. But I’ve never succeeded before, so…

I’m so tired. Tired of failure. Tired of fear. Tired of following a path that I don’t have the capacity to follow in faith.

I don’t have what it takes.

I keep asking god, can’t you see? Don’t you see that I’m not capable of this? Don’t you see that I’m miserable just about all the time and unable to walk this path that you directed me to follow and have any sort of happiness anymore?

My unbreakable faith, broke. It’s shattered. Will it ever be completely gone? No. But neither am I capable anymore of of the faith needed to go forward with peace.

Is that what all this is about? Are you just showing me that I’m not who I hoped I was and never will be?

I’m so tired. I’m spent.

I talked to Liz for probably 10 or 15 minutes. Then I talked to my mom a little bit more, gave her a hug, and she headed on her way.

I spend some time sanding the rust off of ET to try and get it at least halfway decent. I spent some time trying to grease the excavator, only to realize that the zerks aren’t going to work. They are a different kind of thread. The first one I tried work just fine, but all the other ones… It’s a different thread pitch.

Ugh.

😞

Nothing is straightforward. No task just gets to get done without roadblocks and complications.

I just need to grease the excavator.

I have a Grease gun. I have grease. Why can’t it just be that I get to grease the excavator? Why does it require multiple trips into town? Everything is like this. Everything on my to-do list. If I had a vacuum with a belt, surely, the vacuum would throw a belt. I can’t just go vacuum. Something has to go wrong and require one, two, five more things to my to-do list just to be able to get that little project done.

So tired.

After that meltdown that was probably the worst I’ve had in a Long time, if not the worst ever, I was left just sort of numb. Just about no more emotion.

Mike came down… I forget exactly what he wanted, but we ended up talking for a while about all sorts of things, from excavators to my meltdowns and where I am emotionally.

Eventually, with some help from YouTube and some help from mike, I was able to get the excavator greased. I used working zerks in places where I had broken zerks, screwing in the working one at least long enough to grease it before removing it to put it somewhere else.

After he left, I did a little More greasing. A little more sanding on ET.

I called my mom to see how she was doing and to again apologize for my complete, awful, ugly, vocally violent breakdown.

I don’t want to hurt people. But just the nature of where I’m at right now is bringing people pain because they’re hurting for my hurt.

😞

She brought dinner over, and we talked a little bit.

Then she headed out, and I went to bed. It was tired. I worked on writing this journal entry, but I was just worn out and wanted to sleep.

~ stephen