Our Dr. M. Visit

Last night we met with Dr. M.  The first 25 minutes was handling our immediate feelings.  We were angry and dismayed with our peers.   The next 10 minutes was handling new entries made in the journal, then the last 25 minutes was handling our bill paying issues. 

I felt angry because the peers had given us so much grief with a new timer concept.  I had purchased timers for each of them to help establish time awareness with the individuals.  At minimum this would include areas such as discipline, end of a session tasks, and goal setting.  It was important to me that individuals could learn to feel more independent and in control of their actions especially relating to changes in time. 

I'd also been in conversations where it became apparent that my peers were holding "authority" lines over the individuals instead of communicating fairly.  I'd been in conversations where peers were telling me they didn't have time to give individuals 2-3 minutes personal time.  And, I'd been in conversations where peers were acting out against individuals who had requested to talk to me.  In one instant, I had caught a peer lying over punishments she'd been giving confused individuals for "not cooperating."

The discussion of journal entries was a relaxing time period only to exchange information of where the week had taken us, clarifications, and how we were feeling about the events. 

The bill paying issues for some reason, had been handled by a seriously overwhelmed Dear Heart.  We discussed having lost a whole envelope of older bills, being able to get the bills from the mail box, having a work station to process the bills, opening the envelopes, sorting the bills, not understanding bills, and fears over services being cut..  

During the interim of not having seen Dr. M. we'd opened the mailbox once, gone to the bank, opened an online account with the bank, figured out our balance, and we'd established a pre-bill paying budget with Microsoft money software.  Then we needed to figure out things such as what luxury items we would afford ourselves over the necessity to conserve funds.  The luxury items included eating at a restaurant once a week, treating the boys for an occasional meal, and allowing a monthly amount of $100 for miscellaneous and $60 for clothes. 

*Major sigh*