Do what your own agency's policy states

Loooooong time readers will remember years ago when I had daily contact with several federal and state government agencies.  Recall how carefully I'd read the policies regarding certain procedures?  Remember how utterly frustrated I would get?  That's very usual, I think, to become exceedingly frustrated with bureaucratic agencies.  I'm not special in that way.

But I was special in that I was able to have multiple others in the health care profession join my support team and take up my battle~cry with me.  And I was able to establish not just my own paper trail, and not just the documentation of this general practitioner's office and that counselor's office and this psychiatrist's office; but I was able to establish all that through the United States' Federal Department of Education's own Ombudsman's office.  And eventually, all was well.

Yea, me.

So, let's fast forward a bit.

My mental health has improved vastly over the past several years, in many ways.  Because I am able to take the breaks I need to, I'm able to do a fair amount of self~monitoring and know when I am unable to do this or that or should probably avoid contact with these offices, those people, or this organization.  I've learned that when I feel this way, I should avoid that situation.  When I feel that way, I should seek this professional's assistance or notify that practitioner, because it's probably time for a med adjustment or even a re~evaluation of all my medications and the schedules they are on.

I'm able to avoid certain triggers altogether, and know that I've good support networks in place for handling other stressors.  And sometimes, I can pull off appearing to be within the range of acceptable or normal behavior.  And at other times, I misstep and it's not that bad to recover.

Then there are other times, when I realize that I have completely misjudged the situation, overestimated my own abilities, and crashed into an unforgiving wall of "Nope".  Sometimes I recover from that pretty well, if not with grace and dignity.  But then there are those times that remind me that I may have come a long way, but I've yet a long way to go.

This morning, I learned that the close to thirty thousand dollars that we payed for my mother~in~law's care for the past year and a half is not going to be considered at all in Medicaid's decision to cover her care at the nursing home from this point forward.  Not only are we going to have to not be reimbursed for any of that well documented and legitimate expense, but we have to pay close to another twenty thousand as well.  So, I'll be again looking at the stated policy of government agencies and perhaps in contact with a different Ombudsman's office.

I literally sat for hours today and stared at walls, trying not to lose my shit altogether.