More heart, less attack
May. 10th, 2019 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynLong time no...post. I still read through my flist every day, but posting just seems to be an endeavor I have trouble mustering the ability for: I think of things to say in my head, but they never make it on to the screen. It's been mostly stress and fear around here, anyway, and no one wants to read more of that, all things considered out in the world.
The past year has been a bunch of stuff piling up on top of each other and then made even worse by my cat's health issues, and none of this is stuff that I can afford, so I'm already stressed about things but the money woes make it more terrifying.
Thanks to the cancer, I have to go in for blood draws every few months, which my shit insurance won't pay for, and then I haven't had a mammogram for two and a half years or a real physical, because I figured the cancer stuff was more important. An $8,000 deductible is pretty hard to meet unless you have something major, and then they only pay 60/40, so it's still pretty awful. The great insurance I had in 2017, when I got diagnosed, withdrew from the market for people using the ACA, which as a self-employed person I have to use. But this year I knew I couldn't get my meds renewed if I didn't find a provider, and my beloved doctor retired in 2018 and they weren't able to find anyone good to take over her practice. When I fell at VVC last year, I ended up going to a nurse practitioner my doc had recommended, but I didn't know they could practice as MDs, so I've been insanely stressed about finding someone new, because my doc was a hard act to follow.
She's okay, and I was super relieved that they don't need to do pelvic exams for three years when you hit my age. I'm sort of tired of getting my nether parts poked around in. But they wanted a full blood workup on top of the cancer one, and it turns out insurance won't pay for most of it, of course. Then I found out I had something suspicious on the mammogram and they wanted me back for an ultrasound and second mammogram (which insurance won't pay for). All that was happening on top of stressing about my fandom and Endgame, and other concerns, and no one would just give me a freaking ballpark estimate of how much these things cost. I got this one person telling me over and over that "we're all in the same boat, with deductibles and blah blah" and I was like, bitch please, you work a regular well-paying job with benefits at your own freaking clinic, you're not making poverty-level wages with an $8,000 deductible." But you can't say that so I ranted to minim calibre.
Anyways, I had to deal with the other stuff, and money woes, so I didn't make an appointment for a while, also I just wanted to get through Endgame so I would know, at least, what was going to happen. It's just a cyst, I guess, and they believe it'll go away, but once you have the cancer, you start to catastrophize everything--I have something on my cheek that I'm pretty sure is skin cancer, now, too, but I just haven't even wanted to deal with it, though I know I have to go in, and no one even is trying to deal with the arthritis--living in a constant state of undending pain is just...it's tough. So I have to go in again in less than a year for mammogram-update, and let me tell you, I hate those damn things. I know there are people who say they're fine, but I end up with bruises all over my chest, I despise them. At least the ultrasound was just uncomfortable, not super painful.
People keep urging me to do a crowdfunding thing to help pay for all this stuff, but I just...I haven't been able to do that. I keep thinking of the way people jumped on that "asking fan networks to help you out is as sleazy as MLM scams" stuff and how many people hate you for asking, and so I can't quite go there. Throw the bills for Blues's emergency vet care last fall and his own health problems (he needs a dental and extractions so badly, but I just haven't been able to do it), and my house problems I'm still freaking paying for, and I go into a panic spiral.
When I went for drinks after Endgame with minim calibre, I told her I had just decided that I'd go so deep into dept I'd never be able to pull myself out, because honestly, I'm almost there, after the house crap and cat health and my own health, and then I'd just be like paying X hundred dollars a month for permanent large scale loans. I do need to buy a newer car, but at this point that's not going to happen.
Because--there's also dental shit. I haven't been to the dentist in three years, because my teeth are usually pretty good and I haven't been able to afford it (no insurance at all). I knew there were a few issues, but my jaw popped out pretty badly a couple months ago and I couldn't get it back in. Chewing has been a bitch, it hurts all the time, but there was this INSANE weirdness with my dentist a while back where he just up and left the practice with no warning and a whole bunch of other crap, so I decided to try a new one based on a friend rec. They wanted like 18 x-rays (I almost yelled "Eighteen!?" and I cannot do x-rays. I have an incredibly small mouth (they pulled a lot of my teeth when I was young, because of crowding, so I'm down 5 teeth from what most people have), these weird bones in my lower jaw that I guess not everyone has, and a hideous gag reflex. It took over two hours to do them, they had to call in multiple staff, they redid at least ten of them twice...it was just a nightmare, especially since I couldn't open my mouth all the way because of the jaw thing.
So now they want to do all this stuff that's going to cost a couple thousand, and I mean, I knew there'd be stuff, but not that much stuff. They want to give me a real bite guard for sleeping, and while part of me is thinking maybe I should try someone else, I don't want to go through the goddamn x-rays again. And it's not like you know whether this is overkill or just what you need, dentistry has always seemed like a racket to me because so much of it isn't something a regular person can dispute. I'm honestly not sure, beyond the fixing of the obvious issues in a couple weeks, what to do because all I can focus on is the $$.
I feel like my dad would be so disappointed in me, and that weighs on me a lot. But I always figured I'd be gone long before I hit this age so there'd be nothing to worry about, especially after sis_r died. Identical twins often end up with the same health issues, but really, the biggest obstacle is living in a trashfire country with no decent options for health care if you're not traditionally employed with great benefits.
I don't think any of this anxiety was helped by Avengers: Endgame. It's the end of new content in my fandom, one I've been more passionate about than probably anything I've felt since the beginning. I loved a lot of it, even while knowing it was engineered for us to feel that way and those were beats calculated to make us feel so good that we wouldn't mind the bullshit. But the things I hated I hated so much they overshadow everything else, and my subsquent viewings have emphasized that.
I mean, I missed a lot of dialog because I was shouting with glee at so many moments, but...afterward, I definitely was like, yeah, I mean, I know I got suckered. But I didn't care! Then the stuff I hated just seemed to grow and grow, especially when I was reading reaction posts. I've tried to limit my engagement with fandom about it, because otherwise I get massively depressed and angry, but none of it's been helped by the shaming and bullying I see from people who unequivocally loved it or believe fandom fixes everything. Especially some BNFs who have been really insulting about people who can't see all the wondrous possibilities.
I fully intend to see it some more, because it's a few more minutes of Steve, and now I have to live in a world where Chris Evans isn't Steve Rogers, and that was something I never wanted. Who knows what'll happen with Natasha, if that Black Widow movie was even real (and I just...really don't care about a prequel, I kinda hate prequels), and Thor's whole story...the less said, the better. And I will take those tiny little crumbs of Bucky's ten seconds of screen time, while ranting about how everyone in that fucking movie got a reunion EXCEPT Steve and Bucky because NO HOMO. Because he looked hot as fuck even though he's onscreen so little I've seen people say they didn't even realize he was there till he said goodbye to Steve (someone on my flist said their husband commented that "they really didn't want Bucky in that movie" and I have to say, yeah). Also Sam's facial hair in these two movies is awful I hate it.
Anyways. I do try to limit my ranting, and my engagement, but it's really hard because this is my fandom. And it hurts a lot, that this is the ending. Fanfic doesn't fix things for me--95 percent of fanfic is unreadable for me, because of what I do for a living, I can't stand to read crappily written stuff that's just more crappily written stuff like I've spent all day on. It's a busman's holiday: I read badly written stuff all day, but at least that is stuff I can fix; fanfic I can't fix, and it doesn't change canon. I'm a canon girl. Depression doesn't inspire me to create something out of canon; sure, it's easy to write spitefic, but...this is just depression to me.
Most (or least?) important, I DON'T UNDERSTAND A WORD OF TIME TRAVEL. I have never understood it, even though I usually love it. And the fact that this is even worse time travel hooey than normal makes my head ache. Usually, I don't care enough that the headache will stop me from enjoying, but the fucking writers and directors didn't even agree or know what they were talking about, and it just...arg.
I've seen some people I trust not to make me grind my teeth over bad "writing" skills, who I know are good, writing some fix-its, but I am too raw to read them at this point. Maybe later. And a steady diet of fix-its is one of my least fave things, I mean, I love a good fix-it, but when that's all you get because the canon sucks, it's tough out there for a canon girl. I did love a lot, but...with my real life misery and this piled on top, when it could have been my happy escapism, it's just been...unsatisfactory.
Whew! That's a lot and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to read any of this. I'll spare you the sometimes awful and hilarious story about my Cap RBB fic writing adventures. Maybe when it's done I'll tell it. I should probably stop comments, but I guess I'll leave them on just because I'm tired and lazy.
The past year has been a bunch of stuff piling up on top of each other and then made even worse by my cat's health issues, and none of this is stuff that I can afford, so I'm already stressed about things but the money woes make it more terrifying.
Thanks to the cancer, I have to go in for blood draws every few months, which my shit insurance won't pay for, and then I haven't had a mammogram for two and a half years or a real physical, because I figured the cancer stuff was more important. An $8,000 deductible is pretty hard to meet unless you have something major, and then they only pay 60/40, so it's still pretty awful. The great insurance I had in 2017, when I got diagnosed, withdrew from the market for people using the ACA, which as a self-employed person I have to use. But this year I knew I couldn't get my meds renewed if I didn't find a provider, and my beloved doctor retired in 2018 and they weren't able to find anyone good to take over her practice. When I fell at VVC last year, I ended up going to a nurse practitioner my doc had recommended, but I didn't know they could practice as MDs, so I've been insanely stressed about finding someone new, because my doc was a hard act to follow.
She's okay, and I was super relieved that they don't need to do pelvic exams for three years when you hit my age. I'm sort of tired of getting my nether parts poked around in. But they wanted a full blood workup on top of the cancer one, and it turns out insurance won't pay for most of it, of course. Then I found out I had something suspicious on the mammogram and they wanted me back for an ultrasound and second mammogram (which insurance won't pay for). All that was happening on top of stressing about my fandom and Endgame, and other concerns, and no one would just give me a freaking ballpark estimate of how much these things cost. I got this one person telling me over and over that "we're all in the same boat, with deductibles and blah blah" and I was like, bitch please, you work a regular well-paying job with benefits at your own freaking clinic, you're not making poverty-level wages with an $8,000 deductible." But you can't say that so I ranted to minim calibre.
Anyways, I had to deal with the other stuff, and money woes, so I didn't make an appointment for a while, also I just wanted to get through Endgame so I would know, at least, what was going to happen. It's just a cyst, I guess, and they believe it'll go away, but once you have the cancer, you start to catastrophize everything--I have something on my cheek that I'm pretty sure is skin cancer, now, too, but I just haven't even wanted to deal with it, though I know I have to go in, and no one even is trying to deal with the arthritis--living in a constant state of undending pain is just...it's tough. So I have to go in again in less than a year for mammogram-update, and let me tell you, I hate those damn things. I know there are people who say they're fine, but I end up with bruises all over my chest, I despise them. At least the ultrasound was just uncomfortable, not super painful.
People keep urging me to do a crowdfunding thing to help pay for all this stuff, but I just...I haven't been able to do that. I keep thinking of the way people jumped on that "asking fan networks to help you out is as sleazy as MLM scams" stuff and how many people hate you for asking, and so I can't quite go there. Throw the bills for Blues's emergency vet care last fall and his own health problems (he needs a dental and extractions so badly, but I just haven't been able to do it), and my house problems I'm still freaking paying for, and I go into a panic spiral.
When I went for drinks after Endgame with minim calibre, I told her I had just decided that I'd go so deep into dept I'd never be able to pull myself out, because honestly, I'm almost there, after the house crap and cat health and my own health, and then I'd just be like paying X hundred dollars a month for permanent large scale loans. I do need to buy a newer car, but at this point that's not going to happen.
Because--there's also dental shit. I haven't been to the dentist in three years, because my teeth are usually pretty good and I haven't been able to afford it (no insurance at all). I knew there were a few issues, but my jaw popped out pretty badly a couple months ago and I couldn't get it back in. Chewing has been a bitch, it hurts all the time, but there was this INSANE weirdness with my dentist a while back where he just up and left the practice with no warning and a whole bunch of other crap, so I decided to try a new one based on a friend rec. They wanted like 18 x-rays (I almost yelled "Eighteen!?" and I cannot do x-rays. I have an incredibly small mouth (they pulled a lot of my teeth when I was young, because of crowding, so I'm down 5 teeth from what most people have), these weird bones in my lower jaw that I guess not everyone has, and a hideous gag reflex. It took over two hours to do them, they had to call in multiple staff, they redid at least ten of them twice...it was just a nightmare, especially since I couldn't open my mouth all the way because of the jaw thing.
So now they want to do all this stuff that's going to cost a couple thousand, and I mean, I knew there'd be stuff, but not that much stuff. They want to give me a real bite guard for sleeping, and while part of me is thinking maybe I should try someone else, I don't want to go through the goddamn x-rays again. And it's not like you know whether this is overkill or just what you need, dentistry has always seemed like a racket to me because so much of it isn't something a regular person can dispute. I'm honestly not sure, beyond the fixing of the obvious issues in a couple weeks, what to do because all I can focus on is the $$.
I feel like my dad would be so disappointed in me, and that weighs on me a lot. But I always figured I'd be gone long before I hit this age so there'd be nothing to worry about, especially after sis_r died. Identical twins often end up with the same health issues, but really, the biggest obstacle is living in a trashfire country with no decent options for health care if you're not traditionally employed with great benefits.
I don't think any of this anxiety was helped by Avengers: Endgame. It's the end of new content in my fandom, one I've been more passionate about than probably anything I've felt since the beginning. I loved a lot of it, even while knowing it was engineered for us to feel that way and those were beats calculated to make us feel so good that we wouldn't mind the bullshit. But the things I hated I hated so much they overshadow everything else, and my subsquent viewings have emphasized that.
I mean, I missed a lot of dialog because I was shouting with glee at so many moments, but...afterward, I definitely was like, yeah, I mean, I know I got suckered. But I didn't care! Then the stuff I hated just seemed to grow and grow, especially when I was reading reaction posts. I've tried to limit my engagement with fandom about it, because otherwise I get massively depressed and angry, but none of it's been helped by the shaming and bullying I see from people who unequivocally loved it or believe fandom fixes everything. Especially some BNFs who have been really insulting about people who can't see all the wondrous possibilities.
I fully intend to see it some more, because it's a few more minutes of Steve, and now I have to live in a world where Chris Evans isn't Steve Rogers, and that was something I never wanted. Who knows what'll happen with Natasha, if that Black Widow movie was even real (and I just...really don't care about a prequel, I kinda hate prequels), and Thor's whole story...the less said, the better. And I will take those tiny little crumbs of Bucky's ten seconds of screen time, while ranting about how everyone in that fucking movie got a reunion EXCEPT Steve and Bucky because NO HOMO. Because he looked hot as fuck even though he's onscreen so little I've seen people say they didn't even realize he was there till he said goodbye to Steve (someone on my flist said their husband commented that "they really didn't want Bucky in that movie" and I have to say, yeah). Also Sam's facial hair in these two movies is awful I hate it.
Anyways. I do try to limit my ranting, and my engagement, but it's really hard because this is my fandom. And it hurts a lot, that this is the ending. Fanfic doesn't fix things for me--95 percent of fanfic is unreadable for me, because of what I do for a living, I can't stand to read crappily written stuff that's just more crappily written stuff like I've spent all day on. It's a busman's holiday: I read badly written stuff all day, but at least that is stuff I can fix; fanfic I can't fix, and it doesn't change canon. I'm a canon girl. Depression doesn't inspire me to create something out of canon; sure, it's easy to write spitefic, but...this is just depression to me.
Most (or least?) important, I DON'T UNDERSTAND A WORD OF TIME TRAVEL. I have never understood it, even though I usually love it. And the fact that this is even worse time travel hooey than normal makes my head ache. Usually, I don't care enough that the headache will stop me from enjoying, but the fucking writers and directors didn't even agree or know what they were talking about, and it just...arg.
I've seen some people I trust not to make me grind my teeth over bad "writing" skills, who I know are good, writing some fix-its, but I am too raw to read them at this point. Maybe later. And a steady diet of fix-its is one of my least fave things, I mean, I love a good fix-it, but when that's all you get because the canon sucks, it's tough out there for a canon girl. I did love a lot, but...with my real life misery and this piled on top, when it could have been my happy escapism, it's just been...unsatisfactory.
Whew! That's a lot and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to read any of this. I'll spare you the sometimes awful and hilarious story about my Cap RBB fic writing adventures. Maybe when it's done I'll tell it. I should probably stop comments, but I guess I'll leave them on just because I'm tired and lazy.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-11 01:59 am (UTC)