Yesterday I had an appointment with the Unemployment Office. I now have a code that identifies me as disabled actually I have 2 codes one for ADD and one for psychological problems. What does that mean? It means that I am eligible to receive extra help. Also apparently I will get some money from the government but I do not know how much or when that starts. Some time in January I will begin job training. I will begin with two hours a day and work my way up to four, which is effectively half-time. Half-time is my goal as I want to keep going with my writing. My caseworker will accompany me to the training site in the beginning. When I am finished with training the next step is to find a job placement. They will contact any prospective employers in my stead and if I should get accepted, accompany me to work as well. For how long I don’t really know maybe only the first day?
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Asking for help is not easy. Aside from the self-loathing aspect that insists I do not deserve help/compassion/generosity there is the pride aspect that says nothing counts if you don’t do it by yourself. I try to reason with myself that no one lives in a vacuum and that everyone needs support at times (in fact we work together all the time in life) but my big fat ego refuses to accept common sense. I have tremendous issue with pride. Pride denies the need for outside help in treatment. Pride says you have to earn the payment and self-loathing says you never can because you aren’t worth anything. It is a vicious cycle and honestly this insane thinking has prevented me from going through unemployment before. It has also left me sitting around in my room with uncashed checks because I didn’t feel worthy. The money I earned from my first book, I only recently spent to support a poetry magazine but literally it had been siting in my account untouched. There is nothing logical about this issue and I hope I can shift my thinking. I am hoping training and working will improve my confidence (what confidence?).
mindlovemisery 
Stay strong and try to keep finding yourself. The first step of seeking help is perhaps the most important one.
Thank you for your encouragement =)
We all need help at times, Yves. There is no shame in that. Every day is a little step, and you will get there. You really will. As for money, you are deserving. If you can’t get your head around that concept initially, then do it for Isadora & Sam.
Also, try to cast your mind back a couple of years and congratulate yourself on how far you’ve come. You deserve the rewards. You deserve the assistance. You are deserving.
Hugs. Lots of hugs to you. ❤️❤️❤️
Awww thank you Bianca =) I am slowly coming to terms with it and even feeling a bit excited about the extra income knowing that I can help out more. We have some car maintenance that needs to be done and a furnace that needs to be replaced and hopefully this will speed up the process. I really love this house and I want to be sure we have emergency funds instead of living paycheck to paycheck. Progress is slow and sometimes it seems like I haven’t gotten anywhere but this is the first time I have really been capable of talking to the Unemployment Office even if I freak out each time I am still going through with it so that is something
You know Yves they say that being aware of the issues in your life is the first step towards doing something about it……I hope you are able to come to accept the help you receive and as a friend of mine would say sit down with your pride and accept it as part of who you are….my thoughts are with you….
Awww thank you Michael for your lovely sentiments
You’re a lovely person and I’ve always thought so. You deserve support, love, respect, acceptance and warm friendship. It might melt you a bit to have it at first, but just wrap yourself in it for a while and see what it feels like. xo
Awww that is so incredibly sweet of you. Well I probably could use a little melting.
💙💗💞💜💖💛
I hate needing any kind of help, too. But lately, after many surgeries and many times needing help, I realize that others are happy to help. It makes them feel good. It’s what gets THEM through the day. So I needed help, and they needed to help me. It opened my eyes. I’m so happy you were able to take these steps.
Thank you Brenda for your kindness and best wishes to you in your recovery. I understand perfectly what you mean, my husband also has issues accepting help and I so much want to be there for him.
I very much understand how awful it feels even asking for help, much less accepting it! This is a huge step forward! Isn’t it odd that those who feel so unworthy and lack confidence at all still struggle with pride? I am very similar about such things. I not only feel unworthy of help, but I also feel shame at the very fact that I sometimes need help! Pride? Or shame? Are they intertwined perhaps?
…anyway, what a terrific and huge first step in accepting yourself as worthy and worthwhile! I hope this step leads you down a path to even more concepts that might encourage your confidence and start repairing and building upon the fragile esteem inside your spirit!
xo ❤
Thank you immensely for your kind words. I think you are on to something with the shame. I do feel shame that I am not more independent, shame for the abuse I endured though I was only a child, shame for all the things I can’t, don’t, or won’t do. Shame eats me up. I do think this will do a long way in building my confidence.
pride always stops us to do many things and like you say, everyone needs support once in a while. i’m really glad you’re moving forward and wishing you all the best xx
Thank you so much for your kind wishes!
Yves, you strike me as very self aware, so it’s encouraging that you can identify what some of your issues may be. It isn’t easy moving past self talk, especially when it’s so destructive. It’s something I find I’m having to work on too. I keep wondering when I’ll ever make progress. Good luck with everything, my friend. You ARE worthy. Really!
Progress is hard to see, because it never happens as rapidly as you hope it will but I have learned from experience that trying to force change or to change too much at once sets you up for failure. Little steps. I am an extremist so my mind says “Leap bitch leap” but I am fighting to take little steps. Goodluck to you as well Tony =)
Yes, you’re absolutely right, Yves. I need to take little steps too. It’s so tempting to go all out though. Ha ha! 😛
It is Tony!
There isn’t much that I can add to the warm and wise words of encouragement from your friends just above. It might help you to know that I am encouraged by your openness and that you are embracing help. My own struggles are remarkably similar to yours – ADD, depression, pride – and I’m early in my own journey. It helps to know that others, those whom I think of as brilliantly talented and ‘together’, know some of the same troubles.
Wishing you strength and resolve as you move forward. ~k
Awww thank you Karen that is so incredibly sweet of you. It does help, I don’t even know what to say, except thank you from the bottom of my heart. Best wishes to you on your journey as well XD
Your travails are very familiar to me and your words make me feel less lonely in them. I know things will get better by the pure fact that you are arising to meet the day! God bless!
Awww thank you for your encouragements
Superwoman, that is what you are to me. You are a winner over and over again, dear friend. And you will make it again. Hugs! 🙂 🙂
This pride thing gets many of us down. Every day when I left home to go to school, my mother always said, “Make us prooud.” As a child, what I heard was, “Don’t you dare ask for anything or draw attention to yourself.” It wasn’t until I’d graduated collage and working my way up the ladder of success that everything in life was a team effort and sometimes we fall down and it takes others to help us back up.
Now that I’m a 24/7 caregiver for my husband, once again it’s hard to ask for help. I’m suppossed to be superwoman – or so I tell myself. However, I know if I keep going at the pace I’m headed, I’ll be the one that dies first. It is indeed a viscious path.
The programs in place are there to help you. Please take advantage of them and I applaud you for trying and achieving. More than likely, depending on the particular plan you’ll be on, the employer lucky enough to get you, will receive a generous allowance from the government for hiring you (they will be compensated for at least 1/2 of your salary and given a sum of money to purchase extra equipment that might help you do your job more effenciently or something like that). You will be a bonus to your new employer. All of the programs are a bit different but you deserve the program you are going into and I wish you the best of luck. Sheri
Sheri please do be kind to yourself. There is something to the idiom that in order to help others we have to take care of ourselves. Hearing your sentiments I relate so much to them and I know my husband does as well. You are an amazing woman never forget that!
Thank you. While Tom sleeps today, I’m trying to figure out the latests update to WP and how to get my own pictures to stay in my post before I publish. I miss the old version – something familiar I hung onto.
I’m working hard to obtain a few hours of respite care [free] from a licensed and bonded agency but still have hoops to jump through. Thank you for reminding me to be kind to myself. I’m trying to do a bit more of that, even if it’s only getting 10 minutes of fresh air as I stand in our doorway and take in air. I can still hear Tom if he needs me. Happy holidays and a joyous Christmas to you and yours.
Thank you so much =) I hope you enjoy your holidays as well. I do hope all goes well and you will be able to get the respite care so you will be able to have more time for yourself. You deserve it!
Thank you.
You are an extraordinary person, in the very best possible way. I am amazed you would feel so unworthy of your money from your writing because frankly you are one of the best writers I’ve ever come across. Own your talent, and understand that asking for help is ok for the day to day stuff. Life is hard, and just think – when you got money for your book you used it to help others. That’s how humanity works at its best, so be gentle on yourself in any need you have to ask for help also. 🙂
Thank you so much for your faith in me Helen! You are a treasure =)
🙂
We’re all on a journey and you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. So many of us need your reminder! 🙂
Thank you so much Bette for your lovely sentiments =)
I know you are going through therapy and it is a long (lifetime) process. The advantage you have is your ability to see and study your own thinking finding the distortions and working on changing them. I am glad to see you are breaking that cycle and accepting help, one step at a time, one step at a time.
Thank you Hector, I do get impatient but it is a process. The truth is I will never be rid of the trauma, I have to live with it and learn to forgive myself and not let my abusers define me
I rarely read other’s remarks. So if it’s already been said, my vote for it doubles or more. Having wrote that..I would remind you that “…pride comes before the fall.” It wasn’t an easy lesson for me, but the more it happens the stronger I get.
So true booguloo and thank you so much =)