Anger and Bureaucracy

[stargazer]

Thanks, Halo and ladybug. I've since tightened a couple of the loose screws. I realized that it's pretty pointless to go to County Mental Health before I have my MediCal card, because I won't have the money to cover the services without it. Also, this gives me some time to chill and figure out if that's the right (or necessary) way to receive therapy in this County. In other words, I wonder if there are other therapists and psychiatrists who will accept MediCal (or MediCare) -- why do I need to go to a State-run agency? This is something I need to look into.

The attitude I was perceiving from the clinicians might be explicable by the idea that no one would be turning to County Mental Health for help (as opposed to some other counseling resource) unless they were destitute, desperate, down-and-out, etc. So they assumed I was a person who needed to get in there right away, who might be in crisis, and so forth. We were talking in two different dimensions, and it became very frustrating very quickly.

And looking back, when I first approached County Mental Health in the old County, I was living in a homeless shelter with very little resources for food and clothing, and I had had to go thru Crisis in Berkeley in order to obtain an emergency supply of meds to get me started. I lucked out by getting in to see the local doctor quickly due to a cancellation, so I got refills on the meds, and a therapist shortly later.

And things never did get better for me financially, even though I eventually left the shelter for a residence hotel. I was usually totally broke mid-way thru the month and still eating dinners at the Salvation Army. So, when I continued to receive help thru the County, I was among many who were in a similarly tight spot.

In any case, I officially live in this County now. No reason to go back, really. It seems I was always chronically unemployed there, and frankly miserable, often homeless, and usually very hungry. My problems now are "luxury problems" in comparison, and I really don't have a whole lot to gripe about. I can go the extra mile and put up with a few more bureaucrats. Eventually I'll find the right path.

 

[stargazer]

About four days ago, two very interesting items arrived in the same day's mail:

(1) My MediCare card. "Yes!" I hollered, before opening the envelope and realizing that, since they'd put my sister's address on it by mistake, I am still ineligible for health benefits in this County. (She lives in yet a third County.) I contacted my sister, who agreed to re-inaugurate the bureaucratic process of changing my address with the SSA for purposes of MediCal and MediCare.

As you recall, I am not permitted to change the address myself, as I have been declared "legally incompetent." Somewhere in the depths of the system, there is a bureaucrat who fully believes that Stargazer cannot be counted on to fill out a change-of-address form.

(2) My Voter Registration Card.

Of course there is no connection between the two. Still, the thought couldn't help but cross my mind that, although the government considers me too incompetent to fill out a change-of-address form; that same government believes I am competent enough to fill in all those countless little bubbles I will encounter at the voting poll; not to mention I am suspected of being able to understand the issues as well.

Perhaps the government agent who decided that it's okay for Stargazer to vote leans a little to the left, and the agent who doesn't want Stargazer to fill out a change-of-address form leans a little to the right. In any case, as usual, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.