The Status Quo: March 2013

1.) Long dark winter: Germany experiences an average of 160 hours of sunshine in the period defined as the meteorological winter – December, January, February. This year, we stayed well below the statistical mean with only 96 hours of sunshine in those three months, and I certainly felt it. Day after day of dreary grey; snow and rain and drizzle and sleet. I can cope with periods of bad weather, but this winter does not seem to end.
All of a sudden, there was a spring intermezzo last week. The sun came out and we had a few nice days in a row – only to go back to freezing temperatures and snow.

2.) The welfare process still makes no progress: The only thing missing is my therapist’s statement, so I could go back and officially apply. The psychologist couldn’t tell how long it’s going to take; when I asked her, she said, “it’s difficult”. I feel awful for even having to bother him (and her) about this, but unless someone’s going to donate me money to tide over the months until he can work again, what am I supposed to do? I wish I didn’t have to ask for that and could just let him recover…

3.) I still miss having a car: The supermarket closest to home is about ten minutes away by foot, but is too expensive for me to shop there regularly. The one I used to like best and frequented the most is about 30 – 40 minutes away by foot – one trip. So just the physical act of getting there and back takes at least an hour. Not to mention the physical limitations of how much I can carry; a few times I had to call my husband to meet me halfway because I had underestimated the combined weight of all articles. Sometimes I take the shopping trolley, but that is tedious and brings its own problems, like when the tram was so full that I couldn’t enter it with the trolley, leaving me with no choice but to wait for the next tram in the cold.
Last week, I borrowed my sister’s old bike for shopping (I don’t have one of my own anymore since selling it for making some money), but discovered that while I could get to my destination in about half the time, it really did not make much of a difference regarding how much I could bring home. Also, for at least ten years prior to this, I had ridden a bike exclusively when on vacations at the North Sea – in a car-free environment. I got so scared on my way to the supermarket that I rode on the sidewalk for about half the distance… On top of everything else, the bike is actually too small for me, so that I cannot stretch my legs properly, and I found the whole process actually more exhausting than walking the distance.

4.) The insomnia is under control: I still have problems falling asleep, but at least it’s restful slumber once I dozed off. No more waking up every hour.

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Welfare & No Therapy

Yesterday I mentioned going on welfare, and that I had been in the process of writing a blog post about it when the news of my therapist’s illness made some of that draft obsolete. Here follows the part which still is relevant:

Financial troubles have been a steady companion for a long time: I cannot work a job on top of uni, and my husband wants to work, but is currently handicapped by a lack of language skills (even though he is making a lot of progress since he started integration class). We have been living off my husband’s savings, support from family members, and once we also had to borrow money from a friend. Our life is rather frugal: 80% of what I buy is on offer or from the “reduced box” – groceries which are about to expire soon and hence reduced in price. We do not go out or buy anything that is not absolutely necessary.
A while ago, my therapist came up with the idea of me going on social welfare, which would roughly equal the salary of a student job. I could not object based on pride as I am not in the position to turn up my nose at any kind of support available. But I kept putting off visiting the department of social services because frankly I was afraid of doing so. For starters, I have a bit of bad history with administration and it is a very anxiety-laden topic for me. But also, the idea of having a place to turn to in even harder times was so comforting that it was difficult letting go the promise of relief at the expense of possible rejection. It is a pretty stupid concept and I would advise everyone to just get it over with as quickly as possibly if being told this story. Inside my own head, however, things are not always straightforward.
Fortunately, I finally managed to drag myself there, with the result that the state support my therapist suggested is not even available for me. As a student, I fall into a different category of welfare which I have to apply for at the employment agency instead, so the journey continues for a while.

To repeat from yesterday’s post, I need a statement from my therapist that I am not capable of working a job; usually, it would be the employment agency’s own doctors who have to come to this conclusion as a result of their examinations, but with mental health problems, that is hardly possible.
Going on state support was not a decision I made easily, or even voluntarily, but it’s the only practical solution left. It would be great if someone gave my husband a job instead with which he made enough so that we could exist from that income, but that’s unlikely in the current situation. All I know is, if I have to work, that is the certain end of my university career – I tried before, and the result was that I prioritized my job over classes, because “without the money I can’t stay enrolled in uni either”, and I had not enough energy for both. And I do not have it in me to make a third start from scratch, should this second attempt fail. It is all or nothing in regards to uni now.

Life goes on, with or without me. With or without therapy. No matter how unfortunate it is that my therapist got ill just now, when I would have liked to be able to write to him about the whole welfare business, I need to try without him the best I can.
My last therapy session was in early December; the one scheduled for January didn’t happen, and it was a bit of a warning sign already when it took three weeks before my therapist could tell me when he’d have the next opening – we were supposed to meet at the end of March again. He’s been chronically overworked for at least a year: last spring / summer it was pretty much the same, when I’d have a session in April, then an emergency appointment in June, and then nothing until September. My blog is full with comments on staff shortage at the hospital. What’s sad is that on the last day we emailed, he told me he was currently working in a new colleague and that he hoped that we could have “at least one session per month” from April on.

I guess this post is rather all over the place, but all of this has become one huge “cluster” to me anyway.