It's Personal...

[Thaluikhain]

Myself, I'd lean towards C, giving you some time to find the best option.

[Mask_De_H]

C is the best option, because you can also start a consulting gig on the side as they pay you.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

My leg pain has increased to the point where I can't function, and I've literally been screaming and crying all day. I can't go to the hospital, because everyone in my family have been labeled as "drug-seekers" and I don't want that on my record (I got 4 pain pills after having oral surgery and my last doctor was bitching about it 2 years later).

[Usamimi]

My leg pain has increased to the point where I can't function, and I've literally been screaming and crying all day. I can't go to the hospital, because everyone in my family have been labeled as "drug-seekers" and I don't want that on my record (I got 4 pain pills after having oral surgery and my last doctor was bitching about it 2 years later).

Advice: The severity of your pain justifies medication.

Suggestion: Your doctor should purchase a barrel, acquire multiple penises to fill it with, and then suck on the complete assembly.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

If I had $5k, they'd let me walk out with all the pain pills I could carry. Drug dealers get all the pills they want around here, I wish I knew one.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

My new doctor is not a dick.

[Maj]

You found a unicorn! Congratulations!

[Count Arioch the 28th]

She looked at my chart and acknowledged I've lost a considerable amount of weight before lecturing me for not losing weight, she didn't push insulin on me, she didn't try to say I have kidney damage (pee proteins are all good). Leg still hurts, she determined it's sciatica but we're still trying to figure out why before we start treatment. I can live with that.

[Maj]

That's awesome! Keep that one. And good luck on finding the source of the problem and getting a solution.

I went in to see mine a few weeks ago because I was having chest pain (and the only reason that people ever have chest pain is because they're having a heart attack).

Intellectually, I knew that I had pulled muscles around my ribcage while mowing my horribly overgrown yard. And because my health isn't the best, and my husband just died unexpectedly of a heart attack, I went full blown panic attack - which I've never had before and didn't know could feel like a heart attack.

So I made an appointment the next day, and we talked about how I was not a candidate for a heart attack. And it was a panic attack brought on by my fear (inspired by sore muscles). But the last thing she mentioned was the fact that I kept holding my rib cage (elbows pressed to my sides, arms wrapped around the front of me), and since I'd lost a lot of weight maybe it would help the ache and muscle strain if I considered a new bra that fit me better.

Those are the doctors you keep. Because they're looking at you instead of for a disease. (And she was right: adjusting my bra to fit me better has totally helped.)

[Maj]

Are there any tips for finding a bankruptcy lawyer?

[deaddmwalking]

Are there any tips for finding a bankruptcy lawyer?

Are you sure you need one? I've never filed myself, but I've heard from others that the process was surprisingly easy. It may have been a result of the judge, but I remember hearing something to the effect of 'he was just happy it was my first time'. Considering the recent upheaval in your life, it would seem to me that if you followed the rules and explained things correctly, it wouldn't be hard to find a relatively sympathetic judge.

In any case, the US Court has a website that explains how to get started if you choose not to have a lawyer. It also has resources for finding a lawyer (bottom of the page).

[Maj]

I do not want to have no lawyer. Right now, I don't have the brain to do it myself, and there are lots of complications that are hopefully no longer in play but I'm not sure about. I also don't know where to start with my husband's accounts.

[Orion]

Are there any tips for finding a bankruptcy lawyer?

Are you sure you need one?

If you have any valuable possessions you'd like to hang onto, if you recently added or removed your name from any property or entered into any contracts, or if you're not 100% what you currently own, it's incredibly helpful to get a lawyer to tell you what you are likely to forfeit in a bankruptcy, to make sure none of your recent behavior looks like an illegal attempt to shelter assets, and to tell you the legal ways to shelter assets. Given that Maj's spouse recently died, I'd say it's incredibly likely that her situation is too complicated for self-service to be a good plan.

[Maj]

Today, I am grateful for living now. I was watching Ugly Delicious, and it just made me think of how small the world has become, and how awesome that can be.

I can go to my pantry and find things like Saigon cinnamon, amchur, Iranian saffron, Mexican vanilla, Szechuan pepper, sumac, and gochugaru. I don't live in the era of the original Joy of Cooking where cilantro was called fresh coriander and it was considered an exotic herb. I grow it in my garden and throw cilantro and a few other things together to make any day salad dressing. Or guacamole. Or garnish a Thai curry. I may not have money enough to travel, but I can find adventure in food - posted by people from all over the world on the internet.

Living now is just amazing.

[tussock]

Cheers, Maj. Internet too. What an amazing thing. I been reading a Canadian woman write about her experiences with ADHD on twitter. @ErynnBrook

She's a writer so it's packed with info, she links medical folk and lots of other people talking about their experience, gets hundreds of people sometimes to just share about a particular common issue. I followed on like a random retweet about something that clicked.

And reading though one of the 'hey, let's share' comment threads, and a bunch of it is, oh, right, that, yep. But it's still not quite there, 18 symptoms and what do they all mean anyway. And then, a woman from eastern Europe somewhere replied to a woman from Brazil who was discussing a thing with a man from Britain and mentioned there's a new understanding that it's all linked to the internal perception of time. So google and a US head of psychiatry somewhere says it can be thought of as a weakness in mentally ordering things into a time series. Because concepts of time just keep feeling like they overlap, so everything is now; past-now, now-now, and future-now, but still now, no fixed order, jumps around, dyslexia but for the feel of events in time.

And suddenly a bunch of my life fell into place. Why bad moments so often feel like they'll be catastrophic and last forever, why future rewards don't feel real because they're not here, why the past does feel so damn real when it comes to mind, why some things can feel like they always happen when, logically, they can't.

And right back though everything, every damn weird difficulty I have with things despite being like a ridiculously high achiever at times. Well, not every, because probably ASD, and depression sucks, and anxiety things, and all that. But even all that, it makes sense, why I think those ways about things and feel those ways when it's obviously not the default for people to do so, as I've been professionally advised on.


And of course, now it feels like I've always known this. Because three days ago is forever and always, it seems. And I don't quite know what to do with it, but yeah, at least life is internally consistent now, and I think I should probably stop being depressed. Because if I can imagine not being depressed in future, well, that's now too, and so I'm not. So it's basically a superpower I didn't even know I had. Cheat mode.

Which feels slightly inane, but, is also hilarious, I'm laughing more than I have in a long ass time (though, also translates to laughing about all that past stuff too, which is easy enough to feel like I did then, and recall that sometimes I really did). So working for now. Hax.

I should probably visit a doctor again. I could imagine being happy about having done that too.

---

And it's strongly genetic, so I have some news for the family at some point and all. Which, honestly, superpowers. How good is that.

[Iduno]

I had to sit through 30 minutes of a presentation on stress at work today (I forgot the meeting for the first half), which was pretty stressful. Starting with the "you can choose what you feel in response to things, so it's your fault if you don't like what's going on." The presenter then told us how much our employer wants to help, which isn't even a reasonable lie. I think I could hear the eye rolling from everyone who has had to deal with HR. My third problem with it was the way the presenter used examples. It was always 6-20 examples exhaustively detailing stuff like parts of your body you can clench and unclench to relieve stress (seriously 5 minutes on that, ending in "I don't know how the science works on that, but it works."). It felt both preachy and like when you had written a 2 page paper that needed to be 5, so you filled the rest with repetitive crap.

On the positive side, they mentioned that 3 things make stress worse: mental illness, abuse/harassment, and a broken system. It was good to see a brief glimpse of self-awareness.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I acquired a Vampire: The Masquerade book and read it. Turns out it looks like a system and setting that I would have liked, it was the White Wolf fanboys that made me dislike it. I'm basically a Nosferatu in real life (I don't go outside, I spend too much time on the internet, I do things for shock value, I make terrible first impressions, etc).

[Count Arioch the 28th]

My bank is pissing me off. They delay transactions from showing up in my ledger, sometimes for as long as a week, then post them so it causes 2-5 overdraft fees at least once a month. I could turn off overdraft protection, but they still charge the fee, they just don't approve the transaction. I'd change banks, but despite getting 10-20 hours of overtime per paycheck I don't have a fucking cent left over. Because of the fucking overdraft fees.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Call them a lot and complain/explain your situation. I used to avoid overdraft fees fairly frequently back in my poor days by just calling and bitching even if I knew I'd fucked up.

Fuck banks, lie if you need to and get your money back.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'm pretty sure manipulating the timing of transactions to cause overdrafts is illegal, but illegal or not, they're deliberately screwing you over. Leave as soon as possible. (I'm not sure how having no balance makes changing banks harder?)

If possible, look into joining a credit union. IME, they're much less committed to gouging their customers.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

The credit union is who's fucking me over. Having no balance makes it hard to open a new account because I have nothing to deposit. I don't know of any institution that will let you open an account with no money.

[Krusk]

If you've got no money in the account close it, and go back to real paychecks. It will be a bitch to not have direct deposit, and auto payments and stuff, but at least you stop paying overdraft fees.

Find a new bank with minimal required balances, Google says there are some where its as low as 25$. https://www.gobankingrates.com/banking/ ... m-balance/

open that, and slowly turn automatic payments and direct deposit on.

I'd also bet if you showed up with a paper paycheck and said "I want to open an account and put this in it" they would count that as your initial deposit after talking to someone there.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I'll have to see if my employer will give me a paper check, that wasn't an option I was given.

[Iduno]

I'm pretty sure manipulating the timing of transactions to cause overdrafts is illegal, but illegal or not, they're deliberately screwing you over. Leave as soon as possible. (I'm not sure how having no balance makes changing banks harder?)

If possible, look into joining a credit union. IME, they're much less committed to gouging their customers.

It's illegal, but normal. Normally larger transactions get let through first, so you incur multiple fees when all of the smaller stuff gets let through. Banks in the US (at least) are very good at lobbying/regulatory capture, so legality is down to what they want to do.

[Maj]

Have you tried looking up credit unions/banks and reading their reviews? Maybe that's how you could find a better one. (I have no idea if that would work.) Regardless, if they're screwing you over with fees, you should get a new establishment. Mine let me open an account with $5.