Where am I going to be?

Hello, everyone. For my avid followers and those that occasionally stop by I would to ask for forgiveness for my absence from the blog world. I just didn’t feel like blogging. I’ve been sleeping a lot. First it was because my thyroid levels were off and it was making me sleepy. Then I got into this pattern of sleeping away my day. This brings me to my topic. I am going to be moving out of my parents’ house so I will have way more to do and I won’t be sleeping my day away.

It started because I had a fight with my Mom over getting something to drink out of the kitchen. She thought I had wanted water, juice, or milk and didn’t want me to have any of those. I was trying to explain to her I wanted the soda. Her reasons were the water was still filtering and there wasn’t much juice or milk. However, my therapist says I shouldn’t have to ask for food. I give all my food stamps which pays for two out of four weeks of groceries and there is three of us in the household so I pay more than my share of the food. To me, it freaked me out because after we started yelling, I sat on the kitchen floor crying. My therapist and psychiatrist just said that I had a strong reaction to my Mom’s reaction. However, I have noticed a pattern that my symptoms, about eighty percent of the time, are triggered by fights with my Mom that are often useless.

Well, I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I had been waiting for an apartment in the highest level of a program for my county of New York State that teaches mentally ill people how to live on their own. The highest level is for the most functioning, can take care of themselves people! It’s the permanent step and for this reason has a very long waiting list. I was at the bottom level of the apartment program from 2005 – 2006 and felt I was being too supervised. Well, there is an in between level, lower than what I have been waiting for, but higher than what I was in. I have chosen to sign up for this level and wait for the higher one there because I can’t wait at my parents’ home any longer.

I will have a regular apartment, whereas the lowest level I lived in a building that this program owned. All the apartments where together and it had an office where I had to go and they watched me take my pills. I also had to check in with them as to my whereabouts during the day. Also they would come into my apartment tell me what needed to be cleaned. The level I signed up for, it much similar to HUD in which the progam would make a deal with landlord that they pay my rent. So no one would know, it would just be a regular apartment. I take my pills on my own, I go where I want, and I clean when I want. However, I will still have an apartment counselor come once a week and count my pills (which they don’t do at the highest level). At all levels the apartment counselor will do therapy on living on ones for an hour and at the same time be in the apartment so if it is overly messing she will say something. The other difference between the highest and this level is I will have a roommate which in the highest level I would have a very own, by myself. I will still get into the highest level as soon as it’s available, but it could be another year or more. This middle level has openings as it is temporary because the point is to get to the highest level. Some people go from this middle level straight to HUD, I will decide later if that’s what I want to do.

The reason it will give me more freedom is because I will be in the larger town. I told my Grandma Flossie for those of us living outside of New York City, in New York State, it seems like its own city. However, growing up in Chicago I know it’s not a real big city it just seems that way. Anyway, there is more stuff I can walk to because I don’t have a car right now. Most important is I can start my volunteer work. I want to work in the hospital ER. At the hospital near my home, which will actually be in the same town as my apartment and in very close walking distance, there are many volunteer positions. However, because of my many medical problems I would like to give back to the ER. What I would do is visit patients in their room ask them if I could get them stuff like an extra blanket or water. I would also ask their families (if they had them there) if they would like soda, food, extra chairs to sit, etc. I am planning to do this three days a week so no more sleeping all day! Also I could walk to things like my doctors, group therapies, grocery store, library (which is about four times bigger than the one that’s near my parents’ home), some neat restaurants, and the pharmacy. So you I wouldn’t be trapped in my home all day.

I am really looking forward to this move. I can deal with people counting my pills once a week because I always take my pills and I have many people praying I will get a Christian roommate. And eventually, I will move to the top of the list of the highest level of the apartment program. Tomorrow I have an in take appointment for the middle level. I am very nervous because my Mom’s going to come with me. I don’t know what’s going to happen with her there. Pray for me everyone. And I am back to the blogging world. Yea!