Battles

[Peaceful Warrior]

Hi everyone

Retired police officer here of 7yrs. Diagnosed with pts and mdd due to work related trauma.

My question is this. When you have to stand up for yourself (example: dealing with medical facilities, billing, etc. then realize they overcharged you and having to work hard to get your money back), do things like this sap your energy? I'm beginning to believe I don't have a lot of "fight" left in me. Thanks for any help you could provide.

 

[Lost in the Woods]

Yes, I never learned to choose my battles. In recent years I usually just let things go and I like it much better. The classic example a couple years ago is I had a new engine installed in my jeep. They totally screwed up the wiring so I took it back. Then they charged me $700 to “fix” the problem. I just paid it and never went back. I could have spent months fighting them.

 

[arfie]

empathy, my fellow peaceful warrior. somewhere in my first parenting career, i adopted the policy of "pick your battles small enough to win and big enough to matter." in the case of the insurance/medical/pharmaceutical complex, i no longer believe ANY of the battles are small enough to win, nor big enough to matter. when i MUST **go there**, i pay out-of-pocket for the sake of eliminating the insurance portion of those on-going battles. prayers in progress that i will be able to meet my end without condemning my loved ones to sorting any of that blood sucking mess on my behalf. just praying.

 

[Friday]

), do things like this sap your energy?

Damn straight. Unless I’m in a particular kind of mood. Assuming I’m not in that mood? The TRICK = PREP & FOLLOW THROUGH.

IE Both baseline stress management (see The ptsd cup explanation ) & then adding on extras. When I know in advance? Both before & after. When I catch something on the fly? Blowing off stress afterwards. X10.

 

[DogTired]

Judging by the way I burn through therapists, my anger management therapy isn't working very well. Over the years I've gone though 5 (with number 6 pending).
Only two worked well with me, the first pair.

They gave me 36 years of control over the extremes, until it didn't work anymore.
Today it seems it's a tick list procedure, and a set sequence of 'tuition', for a fixed number of sessions after which, guess what, YOU'RE CURED!

Sod that and resistance to their methodology, to them, is futile.
As a result I don't choose my battles, so I just battle anyway and they don't seem to like that much.

Over the years only the first two had military time, and the rest have been snowflakes or worse. Now I know there are good "modern" therapists out there BUT, not working for the NHS. Only when you haven't got a lot of money . . . . .
Ho hum, you get what is offered I suppose (and my war rages on).

 

[Freida]

It's exhausting.

Other people's incompetence is the last thing I want to deal with in this long, horrible fight to get my brain under control. I mean, I'm trying to get my shit together and get my life back - I have zero energy left to fight with someone over their screw up. Just fix it and send me my money.

And yep, sometimes I waste far too much energy on these "little" battles as a way to distract myself from the bigger ones.

 

[Peaceful Warrior]

It's exhausting.

Other people's incompetence is the last thing I want to deal with in this long, horrible fight to get my brain under control. I mean, I'm trying to get my shit together and get my life back - I have zero energy left to fight with someone over their screw up. Just fix it and send me my money.

And yep, sometimes I waste far too much energy on these "little" battles as a way to distract myself from the bigger ones.

I could not have said this any better. I didn't know how to say it really, but you hit the nail on the head!!!

 

[Freida]

happy to help!