I ran out of my prescription this past week for my anti-anxiety meds. The best part of that story? I ran out on the day I suddenly found out I was being laid off from work.
So, here's the scoop. Because of trying to function for 40 years with severe ADHD, my mind - and, therefore, my body chemistry - was always going at at a pace of 10,000 rpm. For you non-car folks, rpm is "revolutions per minute" or how fast the engine cycles. This can have no bearing, in the physics of an engine, in how much work is being done, how fast a car is going, or how much ground is covered. However, it should. If an engine is cycling that high, there should be a great deal of movement. If the car is at that kind of rpm level and is not moving, the engine is sure to burn out completely.
With ADHD, a person doesn't actually move anywhere very fast. It is like being stuck between gears. When one knows they have ADHD, they can take medicine, change diet, and learn new behavioral coping mechanisms to keep the "motor" from burning out and to have more of that energy transferred into real movement. They can function fairly "normally" (though that word can be a real problem) in society with job, family, and other daily, routine stuff.
In learning of my ADHD as an old man (40), a lot of the damage had already been done, without the aid of anything to curb the force of nature that is my brain. So, I have severe dental issues because of grinding my teeth as I sleep for 41 years. I struggle with weight because of nervous eating to keep my blood sugars up to compete with my frantic mind. I have high blood pressure because of how hard my heart has to work to pump blood that fast. I have struggled with migraines, arthritis, and chronic fatigue because of sleep apnea resulting from the overweight issues, blood pressure, and other stress factors.
Now I am taking magic pills that give my brain what it needs to not overheat. The medicine acts almost as a lubricant, freeing up my brain to not overtax the rest of my body. The heat goes down, and I feel better. However, the wear and tear is still present because of years of abuse. Not only that, but I have to keep my stress level down, so I take an anti-anxiety pill. It works great. I am sleeping better, eating better, and exercising more. I waste less time worrying, and I am not as overwhelmed by the problems the average person faces. That is, unless I miss a couple of days
It only happened once before. I had forgotten the happy pill upon leaving for a trip. I was only a couple hours away, thank God, because I was fragmenting. Teresa (my wife) met me half way to give me my pills, and I was able to finish my trip. This week, she sent me my prescription, but it was late getting here. Getting laid off and the stress of "what the heck are we going to do now?" was suddenly too overwhelming.
Then, on top of it, I got my first bill in the mail from PSE (Puget Sound Energy). The bill, for my dinky apartment, was more than $350! I use very little heat (maybe 5-10 minutes an evening), and I have all CFL bulbs. I always turn off lights in rooms that are unoccupied. I take short showers, because I have no hair to wash. Plus, my power was out for a few days this month because of the snowstorm!
Upon investigation, I discovered that they had included a $235 security deposit in my bill, because I was new to the area. They said my credit was fine, but I had not built up credit with them as of yet. Out of the kindness of their overly-large hearts, and in service to me in order to help me build credit with PSE (which, I gather, is somehow different than regular, everybody-else-credit) (I think it's something like "Magic Space Bucks"), they would safely and happily hold onto my money for a minimum of a year, but for as long as they deemed necessary, and they would return it to me one day, provided I am never a single day late with a payment or cause any other difficulties. These are very broad terms that pretty much guarantee I would never see my $235 again. I was unmedicatedly furious! In my unmedicated state, I sent them the following unmedicated letter:
Greetings!
I just moved into the area in order to pursue work. I had to rent an apartment here, and the rest of my family is still back in Wisconsin. I am hoping to move them here in the spring, and we will get a house in the Bellevue area. I have a decent job that pays fairly well (a bit of an exaggeration), but we are managing rent here and a mortgage back home, until we can sell our house there
I received my first PSE bill this week for my dinky apartment, and I was shocked to see that the amount owed was $376.49. I use all CFL bulbs and keep the heat fairly low. I am, after all, used to the cold of Wisconsin! Brrr! So, you can understand my shock and dismay at the lack of welcome I received by PSE.
I get it. You are a big company and a monopoly. I can't go down the street to get my energy from the "next guy". You can treat people as unruly children, long before you even have any idea about them. Now, good companies would choose not to do that. They would not take advantage of the fact that they have no competition, by holding a person's money for at least a year, especially in this economy. They would do the ethical thing (a bit of an exaggeration), and make energy as accessible as possible to people who are already overtaxed and over-burdened .
Here's the bottom line. I will pay the initial setup fee of $6.10. I will also pay for my usage to the total of $141.49. I think both of those amounts are fair and just. I will not, however, under any circumstances, pay you a deposit of $235, as a punishment to me for having trouble finding work and feeding my family for the last 2 years and being forced to move here and be separated from them for at least six months, while I work hard to make our reunification possible (a bit of a run-on sentence). You have neither the ability, nor the right, to treat me or anyone else like that.
So, to sum up for you: I will pay for my usage, but I will not pay a deposit for a necessity like energy. You are going to be ok with that, and you will make sure it never appears on my bill again. If it does, I am a blogger with, literally, thousands of followers (a bit of an exaggeration). I will become evangelistic about your business practices and how you treat people in a recession.
All this being said, for the most part I am really enjoying the Seattle area! It's very lovely here! As soon as you take this little...misunderstanding...lapse in judgment on your part...whatever you want to call it...off of my bill, I will be pleased as punch to know all of you as well! I might even bring you a fruit basket.
Thank you, and have a great day.
Sincerely,
William Sergott
They have not responded as of this writing. There are times that I really like "Unmedicated Me". It's fun, sometimes, to indulge anger, frustration, and anxiety. In this case, it was justified. I used to be the public housing manager for Green Bay and the whole county. I had to be familiar with fair housing practices and laws. It is illegal to require a deposit for a necessity like energy. They are permitted to be a monopoly, provided that they do not use that status as leverage to extort money from people.
I learned two major things from this incident:
1) I was a little disheartened to see how badly I need my meds. There are lots of times I am feeling really good, and I think that maybe I can start weening off of them. A lot of people think that way. Then, when they go off of the meds, they start getting into painful, dysfunctional modes of thinking and interacting. But, on the other hand, there is a lot of shame and discomfort with taking meds for mood or other disorders. God did not design us to be on meds, after all. He did not provide a Prozac, Xanex, or Citalopram tree in the middle of the Garden. "Original Design" purists talk a lot about their assumptions of what, they are sure, God's intentions were in the original design of human beings and the existence we should have. However, it seems that all of that goes right out the window just a few verses after we take our first breath.
I do not say this flippantly. I battled with this for the last twenty-some years. As a youth pastor, I saw many children with active, dynamic imaginations having the life drugged out of them, because their behavior, thinking, moods, or approach to organization and learning were inconvenient for the adult world. Please hear me. I am not saying that all kids who are on meds for ADHD or other disorders are the victims of bad parenting. There are a lot of kids that need something to help them get healthy, even if the drugs just keep them going long enough to survive adolescence, it is worth it. I just believe the system is very knee-jerk in its diagnosing and prescribing for children. I have a friend who is a brilliant heart surgeon. He has saved thousands of lives. He has shown me pictures of chest cavities that he has rebuilt after massive trauma. Gross, but really cool. He is so ADHD, that he simply cannot shut his mind off. He does surgery close to 20 out of every 24 hours every day. The adrenaline and concentration that marathon heart and reconstructive surgeries require fit perfectly to hyper-focus his mind. Surgery uses ADHD wonderfully. I would almost say that a surgery schedule like that requires ADHD. Imagine if he had been discovered as a child and had been drugged to oblivion. How many lives would have been lost, just because this doctor was "normal", rather than slightly "crazy", as God seems to have originally intentioned for his life?
Who are we to ever presume to know the mind of God? Even with my ADHD, I graduated Magna cum Laude for my undergrad. I drove some of my professors crazy, because I sat in the very back of the room. I never took notes. In high school, I felt like I needed to toe the line. This time, I gave myself permission to do it my way. The back of the room thing wasn't for the purpose of rebellion. I didn't want the professors to see me as disrespectful, because my notebooks were full of doodles and geometric scribbles, rather than writing verbatim everything that came from their mouths. I could not produce a single organizational binder if asked. My legs were always bouncing and shaking. I never stopped moving. In this, I discovered that I have an almost photographic audible memory. When I am doodling while listening (now I do jigsaw puzzles on my iPad during lectures and meetings), with each line I draw, there is a link to my memory, linking to what was said. By looking at my doodle (now my puzzles), I could write down an almost perfect transcript of the lecture a full day later. For many of the exams, we were able to bring notes in with us. I would bring in my drawings or nothing at all, and I would write the exam, often times using multiple exam books (I'm long winded, if you haven't noticed).
However, I finally got to the point, when I was in a job without predictability and order, where my ability to sort, my memory, and my focus started to be disrupted. It became a detriment, rather than a tool. I refused to go on anything for a long time, though I knew something was off in the way I think. Then, I felt like God was urging me to let go and surrender control. To trust Jesus to lead me through this, because it was an act of faith for me. Whether this was God's original intention, I don't know. I also don't care. It's none of my business. It is hard, though, to realize how anxious and disrupted I was before the meds, and that it only takes two days without them to have me lose all ground I have made in the anxiety, anger area of my life.
2) The second thing I learned was that there are a lot of subtle, "common sense" systemic evils in our government and culture. They are evils that we readily accept, because they do, at first blush, appear to be really sensible. I mean, if we have a bunch of deadbeats getting energy, then not paying, everyone else's energy bill goes up to cover the deadbeats. It's good to have that cushion, a simple deposit, so that we don't all feel the pinch. Bill, just pay the damn deposit! The problem is, PSE just includes the deposit in the total bill. It wasn't until page two that I found the buried explanation of the deposit. Then, I had to go to their website and really dig through tons of content to find a more adequate description. Most people, especially if they are poor or struggling right now, do not have an extra $235 laying around to give to the power company. They are counting on people seeing them as an authority, and just paying the deposit.
Most people wouldn't know what I know about the illegality of such a requirement. They would just pay it and cut something else out of their budget, like food or healthcare for their children. PSE is a privately-owned company. We no longer have public utilities, because we are very afraid of socialism. So, this company counts on the public perception of authority. They are an institution, like the US Government. If they demand money, there is no fighting them. They will garnish your wages or something, right? Wrong. They would have to take you to court, just like anyone else. Because of the fact that they are a legal monopoly, they cannot require such deposits. They have to suck it up. If I don't pay, I don't pay. I am not, by the way, advocating refusing to pay your energy bill. I believe that we are all responsible to pay a fair price for what we use and consume. But these deposits are simply cash in the bank for them. They are not a charity. They are a publicly traded, for-profit company. They make lots of money.
It is a lot like those signs you see at a restaurant, parking lot, or store that say something like: "Not responsible for any lost or stolen items." Or at a sporting event, you might see another: "Not responsible for any spectator injuries that might occur." The fact is, they are 100% responsible for lost items, stolen items, and injuries. That is why they pay a fortune at pro sporting events for security, first aid staff, and other protections. People see the sign as some kind of binding contract, however. Well, I saw the sign, so I have no right to seek compensation from them to help repair my face from the puck that flew into the stands and hit me. That sign is pretty clear. I guess I'll have to pay for it myself. So, they don't pursue the compensation that it is their legal right to receive. They see signs as authoritative. By putting up a sign, they reduce greatly the number of claims every year, because people are discouraged by the sign from pursuing it. The company is responsible for every single thing that happens on their property, and these signs would not even be mentioned in a court. They are silly.
Hundreds of thousands of homes have been illegally repossessed by Bank of America in the last couple of years. They just went in and took homes that they had no right to take. They didn't even hold the mortgage on many of them! But they walked in with a document. Documents are authoritative. This must be real, they have a document, there was a sign, or they are a utility. People who are used to being told what to do will just do it. They have no idea that there might be an alternative.
All of this to say, how does a follower of Jesus navigate a world that is actually out to take advantage of all of us, without becoming overly paranoid, pessimistic, or disillusioned? Yes, I know my letter to them was overly sarcastic, but when Jesus told us to be gentle as doves and clever as snakes, how should we present ourselves? If all of this was originally intended by God, how were we originally intended to respond? Or, just share your favorite psychotropic drug story!
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