I live in one of the states in the US that have expanded medical assistance, which has been great. I qualify for an additional mental health program, which makes everything a lot easier. I never really thought about why I always avoided going to the public assistance office. It seems reasonable to have not wanted to go wait in line somewhere that is out of the way. While my state is very generous with the assistance, they're not so great at remembering to pay their Go Daddy bills, so their website with info was down. When I called, I got told that I had to come in person.
It wasn't until I got there that I remembered that I had been kicked out every time I've been there, and I was unconsciously associating it with being embarrassed and bad things happening. I was too anxious to remember my social security number and my stress spiked when I saw the sign warning people that they can be kicked out if they are behaving inappropriately.
In what would only be surprising to me, everything was fine. I went on Friday, so there wasn't even a line. There is no reason to associate the public assistance office with bad things happening, because I'm not going with people that cause bad situations. It turns out that they couldn't actually help me at the office and I needed to call some other number and be on hold some more, but it's always good to go somewhere that I'm avoiding because it is tied to trauma and challenge a fear.
It wasn't until I got there that I remembered that I had been kicked out every time I've been there, and I was unconsciously associating it with being embarrassed and bad things happening. I was too anxious to remember my social security number and my stress spiked when I saw the sign warning people that they can be kicked out if they are behaving inappropriately.
In what would only be surprising to me, everything was fine. I went on Friday, so there wasn't even a line. There is no reason to associate the public assistance office with bad things happening, because I'm not going with people that cause bad situations. It turns out that they couldn't actually help me at the office and I needed to call some other number and be on hold some more, but it's always good to go somewhere that I'm avoiding because it is tied to trauma and challenge a fear.
