It's been a long time but I am back again, here is the story

[Rebecca_Lynn]

I must say that I have missed everyone here and all the uplifting support of the site. It has been almost a year since I've been on and it has been a very hard and troubling year for sure.

It started with me going on disability in February due to anxiety and depression. In May I was hospitalized for 2 weeks because of an extremely severe reaction to an antidepressant. I went through a 12 week course to help understand all the aspects and problems related to depression. I now know more about my illness than ever before. Yes, it is indeed classified as an illness and not just a state of mind, at least for major clinical depression. I still suffer quite a bit from the it and am trying to deal with things on a day to day basis. I now know that I will never be able to return to working in computers again. So I have been trying to get into the local Electrical union in order to become an Electrician. I was working as a Journeyman-in-training for abour 6 weeks before being laid off due to lack of work. I really enjoyed it and was VERY good at it.

I guess the next things are that in early August our house burnt down during a power outage. Thankfully I was the only one home. Mind you I was the one that because of tripping while going upstairs with an oil lamp caused the whole thing. So within 10 minutes of the accident and the fire department arriving the house was fully engulfed and my family lost everything. Thankfully the community and our church have been so helpfull in that my boys and wife have more clothes now than before and most of them are high quality. Myself on the other hand have about 1/4 of my guy clothes and very little of my femme clothes. My wife has been very open to allowing me to pick up a few little things sometimes when we go out. I've been able to pick through the cast offs from the donations that my wife has gotten and so have gotten some things back. It is unbelievable how devastating a fire is and the pain that insurance companies really are when it comes to paying out.

On a plus I have been finally approved for LTD and should start receiving payments any time now. This will be a blessing as we will be able to continue paying our mortgage and van lease.

I will make a recommendation to all of you ladies though. Start now and for maybe 15 minutes a day itemize EVERYTHING in your house into an excel spreadsheet. Once you are done make a copy of it on a flash drive and a hardcopy. Then put them in a safety deposit box or offsite somewhere to be safe. It will make life a whole lot easier in case of a tragedy.

I don't think this has really gone anywhere other than just being able to vent out what has been bothering me for so long now. Feel free to ignore my complaining .

ttfn,

[Absaroka]

Welcome back Rebecca Lynn

I hope things start to improve for you and your family.

You've certainly proved your ability to weather some storms

Absaroka

[Becky]

welcome back my dear. I hope everything gets much brighter now for you and yours

[CJ]

Hi Rebecca Lynn,

Welcome back. Sorry to hear you've been going through such tough times. It's good to know that you're unharmed, though.

As for your emotional health, be sure to tend to it. I know many people who suffer from depression and they do so in silence. In this regard, crossdressing and depression have this much in common, in that they both relegate people to a closet; that of gender variance in one case and of mental illness in the other.

I hope you're well on the road to recovery (and to recovering your lost goods).

Love,
CJ

[DonnaT]

Welcome back Rebecca.

Wow, hard times, eh? Sorry to hear about the depression and fire. At least no one was hurt in the fire.

Good luck on becoming an electrician.

[Bronny]

all the best on your recovery rebecca. with such a terrible thing to happen to you and your family, not to mention your own medical problems it only brings home how small my problems are by comparision.

[Anita]

Hi Rebecca--
At least you're writing about it, and picking up and moving on. That is terrible to lose a whole house to fire, and may you continue to recover from that trauma.

I think electrical work is a great thing, and I hope you can make that work. Of all the trades I see on job sites, electrical is easier on the body than most--you can do it until you retire, without stressing yourself as much.

It takes courage to acknowledge that you have depression, and you want help. CJ is right--it's a different type of closet, and it affects a lot more people than you would think. I fight it constantly, with varying degrees of success. I tried some medication when I was younger, but I decided that the improvement was not enough to justify the downsides.

Welcome back.

[Danielle La Belle]

Rebecca:

None of us are immune from what happened to you. We live our daily lives and for the most part, manage. We like to think that we are some how above all that. In reality, we have little say over the chemical composition of our brain. Mental health always gets a bad rap simply because insurance companies base their entire operation on risk and reward. They prefer physical, observable risks such as a broken arm. We can calculate it, we can determine the average rate at which we will recover etc.

Mental health has no such guarantees so insurance companies that set the pace here, create a feeling of taboo about this area of medicine. I am happy to hear that you are doing better.

The fire could happen to anyone. You flip a mental coin everyday when you get out of bed. The list of possible/probable accidents is too long for this forum thread. We all live very close to financial disaster. Most of us have little if any savings for a rainy day. Pay-check to pay-check is the mantra today. Only a very small portion of society can say that they do well. The rest of us have our nose to the grind stone.

It sounds like you are picking up the pieces and making a forward push to get better. I do not know what has happened for you and computers in general. I am a networking consultant and before that spent 30 years in various levels of electronics repair and engineering. DC – Microwave (26Ghz). Two-way radio, recording equipment, video equipment, and a wide range of in-between technology standards.

If need be, return to school part-time. Find what it is that works for you. I think that if you consider this as an option, you will find that College can be very rewarding and that it to has opportunities inside that you may want to consider with any disability. College’s are often a good place to look for work. The pay is not great but often the environment and opportunities are compensation enough.



Hugs

Danielle Marie

[Jeannie]

Hi Rebecca
You are definately not complaining Hon. What a terrible year. Depression is rough enough but losing your home and everything in it is just awful. Unfortunately bad things happen but bad times don't last forever.
There are many things health professionals can do today to get you back on track and I'm sure you'll be able to manage it. I love to make jokes and laugh and not try to get down but I've been on Paxil for the last few years and it has helped me.
Life is not easy for most but being the type of ladies we are throws another small issue into the mix! What are going to do. That's life.
Today I got up early,glammed up and went about my day! When I came out of the downtown Post Office I got the eye from a cop. I must admit I did look a bit slutty! I don't think it was the 3 inch heels,short tight black skirt and low cut red wrap top. I believe it was my purple nail polish that pushed him over the edge! Gee. I thought I looked quite fetching! Hugs and wish you the best in the coming year.



Love
Jeannie


PS. An Electrician is a great trade. My wife got a great little condo on a lake last summer and I worked a lot on the interior. I told my electician to go over and do what was needed. Yikes! Do you know how many cans I have to collect to pay a $2300 bill! I said"Brian! It's a one bedroom condo not a Trident Submarine!"