I'm getting help: underearning.

[oak]

Hey!

Things are looking much better!

In a little while, when things are clearer, I'll be sure to update. I have reason for encouragement.

In the meantime, I am very grateful for the encouragement I got on this forum. I am very grateful for each and every post in this thread; it was all I had to keep going.

Much love, and updates to follow.

(But they may take awhile.)

[oak]

While my situation works itself out, may I indulge myself and update how effectively I used the tools I said I'd use?

I will also offer little updates from other random stuff I see throughout this thread. Thanks for listening!

First up, my car battery turned out to be a corroded negative contact point, fixed by my brother in law. Believe me, I will remember his kindness.

The Tools:

1. Parents: they've continued to be kind and supportive. They want to see me on my own and successful, as do I. I hope to repay their kindness through good living.

2. I could and did walk to apply for work, but that provided limited results. Of course most jobs are online today, and that has been fruitful.

3. My smartphone was great, until they shut it off a month ago. Google Voice is now my voicemail system, and it is free, ergo awesome.

Also, I was really enjoying the Debtors Anonymous and Underearners Anonymous phone meetings until the phone got shut off. I'll resume once my phone is back on.

Rant: we've always talked about a "digital divide", and that is now coming down IME to include smartphones. A job seeker with a smartphone can of course take calls, but also reply to emails. Sometimes the rapidity of an email response can be the difference between success and failure. Plus smartphones have GPS, and the success or failure of an interview can depend on getting un-lost on your way there.

4. Time tracking: this was great and a lot of fun!

If I may get a little detail-y:

* Each morning I'd take a notebook and write 1 through 10.

(Each was something to do, and over 10 would often (but not always) be too many things, which would overwhelm me, thus getting nothing done, as I'd do in the bad old days.)

* Items 1 through 3 were non-negotiable: journal, stretch/yoga/hiking, and listening to music. Things that brought me joy!

* Items 4 through 10 would be "musts" and "shoulds". A "must" item got a star next to it, and always got done, and accomplished first if possible.

* If I accomplished one half or a third of the shoulds, I'd be happy and leave it at that.

* At 5 pm I forgot all about the list and spent time on activities that brought me joy: family, friends, movies, books, video games, music.

In the bad old days I'd worry all night because some of the "musts" and most of the "shoulds" never got done during the day.

Now, since the "musts" are done by noon, and whatever "shoulds" were wrapped up by 3 or 4 pm, I could shut that side of my brain off til the next morning.

5. Advice from job search books.

My gosh was this a precious resource! Extremely valuable! Much love for those authors.

When paired with time on task, things really started to happen for me. Example: on any day one of my ten to-do items might be "Spend two hours reading What Color is your Parachute". This would be a strong "should", a de facto must.

When I focused, I quickly made strides.

6. Notecards.

I ended up not needing them much, but will use them in the future.

7. My inner qualities.

This was my most important asset.

8. Support from this forum

Support here, along with encouragement from my parents, was my only source of encouragement. There were many times I kept going, even for five minutes, because of encouragement from this forum.

9. God

The question for me right now is not so much if God exists, but what can I do today? I have found my voice. For now I want to stay away from organized religion, that is people who will hit me over the head with shaming. I have no energy or emotional resources available for shaming. A job search will shame a person plenty!

Random stuff as I read through the rest of the thread:

I vaguely remember that phone interview I fucked up.

Interestingly, a job seeker is History's Greatest Monster for not sending personalized thank you emails within 24 hours, but phone interviewers are de facto not obligated to send a "we don't want you" email. lol.

The tension headaches were agonizing. A friend on this forum suggested yoga stretches and [snaps fingers] much better!

Oh my "three selves"! They helped each other, and re-morphed into one me. That was a really useful way for me to look at myself.

Re: music. Through my local public library website I can download five songs free a week. Rather than get too emotionally ingrown, I like to try new things. This summer I've been exposed to Daft Punk, The Civil Wars, and The Pistol Annies. Fun.

I tend to go in cycles, both daily and weekly. I am most likely to get emotionally exhausted around 4 pm, and most of Fridays and Saturdays. Now, thank goodness, I don't have to deal with the tension headaches.

During my job search, I have met some amazing women (professionally). This has been my greatest motivation to do better: women see the man inside me. I just need to keep chiseling the years of bad habits and bad luck off me. Or maybe I need to love that me who made those choices: he did the best he could, and the lessons have something incredibly valuable to teach me.

I started applying insect repellant to the back of my head when hiking, and since then no insects have careened into my head. Lesson: taking action fixes things.

Summary

So I still have a lot of problems, and alot is still eligible to go wrong.

But I am taking action: structured, Good Orderly Direction action.

[oak]

Update!

I have a contingency job, and I am very grateful.

I am still far from where I should be and want to be. Underearning has taken so much from me, mostly expensively: time. And it may still destroy me yet. (Or it may be a wonderful friend, bringing spiritual growth.)

But if I may offer some thoughts from the positive viewpoint. And I get cheesy and sentimental.

True to my thread title, I did get help for my underearning. Everyone I asked for help IRL was kind and helpful. In fact, the most help I got was in this forum, this very thread. There were many times when nothing was going right, and the only encouragement I'd get were the words so kindly written in this thread. I consider this forum and thread IRL. You are very real to me.

How I feel tonight:

The most opposite of how I feel is "entitled", "permanent", and "perfect".

I am grateful and humbled to be working. I hope I am never entitled. I deeply hope that I am never too good to scrub a toilet at work.

I am also happy with being satisfied in this moment. In the next moment I could lose my health or even life. But for now, right this minute, I am satisfied.

I can't really describe how I feel. Here are some words that are tangentially explainful:

Happy, calm, grateful, satisfied. Proud.

There is a time where I am appropriate to feel these feelings as fiery reds and organes.

Tonight I feel them as a calm blue. Much like the blue of the heading of this MIHH forum page.

I wouldn't want to go through this again, but it is almost as if I can observe my summer 2013 as "he" underearns.

And maybe underearning is not a demon sent to destroy me, but a close friend that made me make a demand on my talent.

I don't know what my life will look like. I do know that I value community.

Much love.

[manuel_moe_g]

Oak, you rule! Please know we enjoy your updates and all your contributions to the forum. I love the structured and capable way you are handling underearning. It is an awesome example to copy and model!

[kitkat]

Oak, I am so happy for you!! You are an inspiration!

[oak]

Much forum love!

I didn't want to write this post, because that silent-but-loud/imaginary-but-real voice, or Voice, in my head said I was too tired to write it.

Well, here goes. That Voice says I will die if I share this, but if I die at least I'll go out in a blaze of honesty.

Due to my physical, emotional, and dating/heartache exhaustion, I won't/can't get into the larger picture of the ACA.

All I know is that the ACA (indelicately called "Obamacare" by some) is such a well timed thing for me.

I am taking steps out of underearning, and getting health care is part of it.

A healthy and usually vigorous 37 year old, I have not been to the doctor since 2004, when I was in graduate school. In reality, I really only needed to go once since then, in late 2011, when my back was in agony.

Well, somehow this last week I sprained or strained my wrist. It is a-okay until I try to rotate it, as in shaving or turning an car key. Then: aahhhhh!

On Saturday night I got through to the national exchange (my state is all "You're poor? Whatevs. Screw you. We won't help you.") and enrolled in a bronze plan.

Meanwhile, I decided to get three months of short term health insurance.

After a week of not really living, due to my wrist agony, I have resolved that I am worthy of health care.

Ergo, I've decided two things:

1. I am going to go to a support group on Thursday for people who struggle with debt and underearning. (Please hold me kindly accountable for this, forum friends!)

2. I am going to use my tools, and use my voice, to get health care for my aching wrist.

I grew up middle class, and I took health care for granted. Until I was working poor in my early to mid 30s.

Here is what is so hard for me to admit, which is why I didn't want to post here:

I am worthy of health care.
My wrist pain is real.
I am as worthy of health care as anyone else.
I have the financial means to address this thanks to my current contingent employment.
My wrist pain is not only physical, it is psychic and emotional.
I don't want to be invisible anymore, writhing in pain, alone. Not anymore. I did that when my back hurt two years ago.
I am worthy of health care.

If I am only as sick as my secrets, then I am a little less sick than when I started this post.

[manuel_moe_g]

I am going to go to a support group on Thursday for people who struggle with debt and underearning.

I admire you so much. I am terrified of going to a support group. It is really holding me back.

I hope your wrist feels better. I am so proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself - I would have used the hurt wrist as an excuse to give up on my goals.

[oak]

Thanks Manuel Moe!

In fact, the only reason I am going to the meeting tonight is because of you.

Getting off of work, I was HLT (hungry, lonely, tired).

I thought to myself "Well, I promised Manuel Moe that I'd check out that meeting."

Other people can have great feats of courage and bravery.

Dumb as it sounds, a big act of faith for me tonight will be to get the meeting address from the internet, putting the directions into my phone, and pouring myself back into my car.

I should be okay once I am on the road. In the meantime, I am so exhausted and lonely.

All I've got is faith.

Which sounds overly dramatic to just drive to a meeting, but that's where I am.

Forum love.

[manuel_moe_g]

Dumb as it sounds, a big act of faith for me tonight will be to get the meeting address from the internet, putting the directions into my phone, and pouring myself back into my car.

I should be okay once I am on the road. In the meantime, I am so exhausted and lonely.

All I've got is faith.

Which sounds overly dramatic to just drive to a meeting, but that's where I am.

Not overly dramatic at all. I had to manage the anxiety just to write a 20 dollar check to the state gov. If it was easy, you would have done it already. You had to work to get to this point, and you had the courage to push through to the next higher level.

I am proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself. You are in a place you would not have dreamed of 6 months ago. That is real success. All the best, you rock!

[oak]

Thanks Manuel MOe! The support from this forum turns out to be the only positive takeaway from the experience.

It turns out that I went, no one at the meeting site had ever heard of that meeting, I got lost, I had zero phone reception, and I aggravated my wrist pain when I almost slid off the road due to construction and rain.

While I usually enjoy driving, this trip was filled with triggers, triggers that I'd rather not get into right now.

This supposed meeting was listed at a church, which is a whole bunch of triggers for me. The kind pastor happened by, and helped my confused ass find the ostensible meeting room. It turns out he was a really cool guy, and the church was up to date and clean, an inviting place. He and I got to talking, and I explained that I've been abused alot by the church, but praised him that he and his facility were less-triggery. He seemed ashamed, and apologized for the abuse others in the church gave me, as if he had heard this story before.

So that was the good part of the whole experience.

I was mildly annoyed at there being no meeting, but mostly overwhelmed from the trigger-filled trip out there. The trip home would be its own kind of hellish:

All I ask of my phone provider is that they give me a signal. That is all. Well, I get lost, since this town I went to is the middle of nowhere.

Despite the fact that the only reason I pay them is to give me a signal, I could get no signal or gps tracking for my phone. Ergo, I was driving around in the dark, in the middle of nowhere.

At the risk of being overly dramatic, it was as if the phone company was saying: "We'll take your money, but we really don't care that we won't provide a signal. In fact, we won't/can't be bothered to tell you this. So if you get lost, with no signal, then screw you. If you are dumb enough to purchase our shitty product, then you deserve our shitty service. btw, you get to pay for this. Pay up, sucker. Go fuck yourself."

Meanwhile, the actions of the support group clearly told me, as if they were speaking these words to me: "Well, we listed this meeting as active and confirmed as of March 2013. We will offer help, but then pull back when you reach for it."

While driving I remember being lost, in the dark, not knowing where I was or where I was heading. I didn't have information, or connection.

The very reasons/experiences I had in the bad old days. Triggers.

-----

It turns out that I stumbled across a liquor store, and the kind proprietor gave me clear directions. There were some more triggers and negative experiences after that, but I made it home.

I learned to plan ahead: I coulda/shoulda brought my 2007 era Garmin gps, which does not rely on a phone signal. But why do I have a smartphone, that I pay for, if it will not work?

I sent the support group hq a semi-snotty email, and they promptly and kindly replied. They removed the meeting from their online listing, pending checking into if the meeting exists. Meanwhile, I will buy a new phone from a better provider at my earliest convenience.

The pastor was nice, the liquor store proprietor was generous in his helpfulness, and his wife even flirted a little bit with my anxious self.

Maybe, in the end, it was that I tried, I sought help. I work in a helping profession, and I tell my consumers "Keep telling people you are hurt until someone listens". It is harder to live that advice than to give it.

I have alot of deep love for the fellowship of the support group I was seeking. This particular group proved unworthy. Hopefully another meeting of the same support group will prove worthy. But what if I doubt, and therefore don't go, because I learned from this experience that I will only experience more hurt when I am ostensibly seeking healing?