Warring Worlds Within

I wrote in my last blog about the interaction that I had with my insurance carrier that manages my disability claim regarding being suspended, pending the submission of  some requested reports from my physician.  In the end, the reports were submitted, and for the time being, all is good.

It was an experience.  The irony of this ongoing process of evaluation by the insurance company (Liberty Mutual) to determine if I remain eligible for the disability benefits is that the process alone aggravates the disease.  Every time the evaluative process comes up I experience a spike in symptoms.  I imagine my physician telling the case manager, "He might be able to work, except every time you ask the question, the stress makes it impossible for him to work."

One of the symptoms that I experience is partial complex seizures, epileptic activity, which causes involuntary tremors centered in my right arm.  These tremors may last a few minutes, a few hours, or be off and on for a few days.  Stress factors apparently cause them to break through, in spite of being on anti-seizure medication.  I first experienced them early on as I was concluding my time in the ministry.  It was actually the seizure activity that was a major factor in my being hospitalized for a week and placed on disability to begin with.  Then, it was being in church that provoked them, that lasted for three months or so.  Now, they return when I get highly stressed.

Saturday, following the news that my benefits had been suspended, I experienced slight tremors.  On Monday, after I received the news that my doctor had submitted the reports and that my benefits were no longer suspended, the seizure activity intensified and peaked that evening.  But that wasn't the most interesting aspect of my experience.

What started to unfold during those days I would describe as a warring madness between the manic thoughts and depressed thoughts.  It was like simultaneously both trains of thought were racing wildly, and my stream of consciousness would randomly shift back and forth between the two.

They focused our house, and whether we'd be able to keep this as our home if the disability benefits were terminated.

I could sell my CNC router to a leasing company, lease it back, and in so doing raise enough capital to make the house payment for a few years.  No, maybe a home equity loan could sustain us for a while.  We could move into a less costly rental, and rent out the house until we retired and have the income to afford the payments.  I'll double down my efforts on the business, expand, and raise my income level.  If I'm denied disability I'll return to the ministry, regardless of whether that would be a wise decision.  I'll buy a lottery ticket.  One way or another, my manic brain was scheming to figure out a way to leverage what I have to preserve what I have.  (For the record, my rational brain recognizes that as a whole these thoughts do not represent sound and realistic financial decisions.)

And then breaking up this thought pattern was the depressed side of my thought pattern.  Bankruptcy is inevitable.  Loosing the house and the equity we have in it is just a matter of time.  I'm just fooling myself to think anything will work.  I lay down in a fetal position and try to go to sleep.  And in spite of the exhaustion that all this causes, I cannot sleep -- and then another wave of scheming or despair would set in.  "I know, the Bishop will retire in the next few years, I could do that!"  (I'm still debating whether that was a depressed thought or a manic thought.)

Eventually, some calm returns.  The warring worlds within are silenced, if for no other reason, shear exhaustion.  This takes a lot of energy.