Posted by Fallsfall on November 12, 2006, at 11:04:00
In reply to Re: Well, I'm not rejecting you Kerria, » kerria, posted by ClearSkies on November 11, 2006, at 23:28:56
Kerria,
I can hear how upset you are, and I'm so sorry that things are so difficult for you. Can I talk about a couple of things that you mentioned?
SS Disability. There are two kinds - SSDI and SSI.
SSI applies to people who fall below a particular income level (and I believe it is the FAMILY that needs to fall below that income level - so if your husband makes enough money to get your family above that income level, then you wouldn't qualify). The amount of SSI is based on need, not on how much you worked in the past.
SSDI applies to people who have paid into the SS system through their work in the past. You get credit for each $ that you have put in in SS premiums. If you are disabled, then you can draw on this benefit. The amount you get is relative to the amount that you have worked in the past.
It is possible that your family is above the SSI income limits, but that you, yourself, haven't worked much in the past (because you were a housewife). If this is the case, then your SSDI benefit will be low (because it is based on how much you have contributed in premiums, which is based on how much you earned), but you won't qualify for SSI - which supplies living expenses, too.
Medicare. If you are doing therapy on medicare, it helps a lot if you can get a Medi-Gap policy. They pay the other 50%. My Medi-Gap policy costs me $143/month (lots less than my therapy!). Can you apply your $115 to the premium for Medi-Gap? Then you would have your therapy paid for 100%.
Transference. You talk about a poster on the other board thinking that you were like a family member and lashing out at you because of that. These situations are really hard to deal with. On one hand, the person was very hurtful to you. But there may be another side to the story. Often when transference is around, you sort of have to forgive the person, because they were unknowingly taking their anger at someone else out on you. I find this (barely) possible because I try to understand what the other person's motives were.
If someone reminds me of my dad, for instance, I would assume that they would have no tolerance for mistakes. Even if they were the most tolerant person around. Anything they did would be TWISTED in my mind to conform to this idea that they were not tolerant of mistakes. So let's say that you reminded me of my dad... Perhaps you would give me some advice - well meaning, kind, and good advice. Through my transference filters, however, I would hear criticism that I hadn't already done what you were suggesting. I would hear you yelling at me and telling me that I was stupid for not getting it right already. Now, that wouldn't be what you meant at all! But that is what I would hear. So I would get angry at you for criticizing me and not being patient with me. Which would be completely unjustified.
But... Until I could see that I was expecting SO much for you to behave in a certain way that I couldn't possibly see that you WEREN'T behaving that way, I would believe that you were unreasonable. And I would tell you so. Because it would be MY reality that you WERE unreasonable.
I don't know which other forum you were posting on, and I haven't read the exchange. But perhaps it is possible that the other poster was in the middle of this transference thing and attacked you because they PERCEIVED what you had said in a different way than you meant. It is possible that they now recognize what was going on (since they posted that you reminded them of a family member), and recognize that they weren't lashing out at YOU - they were lashing out at their family member, but you got in the middle.
In my experience, when someone says that someone else reminded them of a family member, that is a kind of apology... That they realize that their reaction wasn't towards the person that they hurt. But, unfortunately, lots of times this realization only happens long after the hurt has happened. (Because if they realized it at the time, they never would have hurt the person.) They don't have anything against that person - that person was just in the middle of their own personal struggle.
So maybe the person who hurt you didn't mean to hurt YOU, and realizes that they were hurtful. And maybe the other posters are spending all their effort in comforting the person who hurt you, rather than seeing your side of it. And maybe they should see your side of it. Perhaps they are even trying to see your side of it, but since you are so hurt it is hard for you to see their comments as anything but attacks.
It gets to be quite a mess, doesn't it?
I'm sorry that you were hurt. Truly sorry. Boards like this one (and probably that one) can be important life lines for us. But sometimes life happens on the boards, and the best we can do is try to sort out what people REALLY meant and what they REALLY understood.
Then again, I could be completely off base, and they could be jerks. But I do know that rs is not a jerk, so her comments lead me to think that perhaps there is some misunderstanding going on.
I wish you well.
poster:Fallsfall
thread:701225
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061109/msgs/702803.html