Weeks 2 and 3

I have been keeping myself busy looking for a part time job, running to appointments, and filling out myriads of paperwork: for the Medicaid people, for the SSDI people, for the unemployment office, and for MCAD--Mass Commission Against Discrimination. I visited MCAD last Friday and told my story to a worker there. She gave me paperwork to fill out, and an advocate to call. I have been playing phone tag with the advocate. The story of what happened to me makes me want to cry. I dream about work every night. Last night I dreamt that my old supervisor yelled at me in front of a classroom full of people and I called her on it. Most nights, however the dreams are about the kids and young adults I left behind. Today I got my pictures of my last day at work. I looked at them once, quickly and put them away. They are painful to look at.
I feel as though I will be swallowed by my depression and grief at times. This is a huge change for me--to be unemployed and to be applying for disability benefits. The jobs I have been applying for, some of them, anyway, are way beneath my skill level but I have to tell myself it is OK. It has to be--whatever I can do or get hired to do I can't make a lot of money at it because of the SSDI application. Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance. That is what 12 Step Programs teach. For me it is key to maintaining sobriety. Accepting myself and my disability. But sometimes I hate that I have to work so hard at accepting my life, and what I have been asked by life to accept. Some days it sucks.