Amazing what no longer being in financial stress can do for one’s mood. I feel WAY better now that I have cashed my monthly chequen and NOT had three hundred dollars of it immediately vanish.

That’s what happened last month, and it was a cruel and bitter shock. I think that contributed heavily to my bouts of depression this last month. I am the sort of person for whom financial security and emotion security go hand and hand, and having $300 vanish right before a five week month was a terrible, terrible blow to me.

And then it happened again when I cashed my GST cheque! The very GST cheque I was counting on to pay for my fifth week! Somehow, I had racked up another $70 in overdraft, and so boom, now my $110 GST cheque was $40 cash.

This shit is VERY bad for my health. No wonder I felt so bad.

The fact that this whole thing decimated my savings only made it still worse. Those savings were my bulwark against reality. And I had plans for them, more or less.

I know I said I had no idea what to do with the money. And that’s sort of true. But that doesn’t mean plans were not slowly forming in my mind that would have eventually lead to my having a clear idea what I wanted to do with it.

In fact, when I think of when I said, in this space, that it doesn’t matter because I had no idea what I wanted to do with it anyway, I kind of hate that guy for saying it.

Of course it matters, because oit’s my goddamned money!

DO NOT GET BETWEEN A TAURUS AND HIS MONEY.

Or bad thing can happen.

The good news is that I know it won’t happen again because I have completed the form for cessation of payments and this morning I got conformation that my application was successful and that I won’t have to worry about payments till the end of April.

So I have breathing space. Phew.

Ironically, I also got a phone call from the people working for the student loan people this morning who had apparently not heard about the cessation of payments thing.

No big deal. These things happen.

But when I was on the line with the student loan people, I asked about maybe getting that money back, and the person on the line told me that because the payment had been flagged as NSF, insufficient funds, it never happened and there was no need to return the payment.

But later, as I am waiting in line to cashez la cheque, it dawn on me that this made no fucking sense. If the transation had not gone through, I would not have been overdrawn, and that money wou;ld not have vanished when I cashed my check.

The transaction definitely went through. The student loan people got their money. Vancity (my bank) paid them the money. That’s why I was overdrawn.

And that’s where my goddamned money went.

Now I have no idea if it is possible for my to get my money back. I suspect it is not. I imagine that the student loan people are like Ferengi and never, ever, EVER give the money back, period.

But I will do what I can. It would do me a world of good to have the cash back and therefore not carry that guilt of having broken open the piggybank and let myself be financially violated any more.

Had a good session today. A lot of ground covered. I think I have found the right mode for me for therapy, which is intellectual but vulnerable. I was diving directly for the dirt today, but still within the comfort zone of intellectual type discourse.

As a result, I came away with the realization that if I need a model for the inner parent I want to be for my poor abused inner child, I need only look at the two people who were able to handle me : my babysitter Betty, and my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Rogers.

My babysitter Betty was a tough girl from the other side of the tracks, but also very sweet and caring, and she was not inclined to put up with any crap from me.

I mean, the very first thing I remember of her was her telling me that if I wanted my honey sandwiches with the crusts cut off, I could cut them off myself.

I obviously didn’t appreciate that at the time, but looking back, I am so glad I had someone like that in my life. Someone who pushed back. Someone who was not overwhelmed by me. Someone who, when necessary, put me in my place.

Someone who kept paying attention to me even when it wasn’t easy.

I got the same thing from Mrs. Rogers, although from an entirely different angle. She was an old-fashioned schoolmarm type who was the exact opposite of the 70’s ideal of the happy sunshine teacher who is every kids’ friend.

Those people were not what I needed. Those were the people who were baffled, confused, and overwhelmed by me, and therefore chose not to deal with me at all if they could help it.

And they could help it. Why? Because all it took was a little rejection and I went away.

I wouldn’t even complain.

Mrs. Rogers never tried to be your friend. She was your teacher, period, and you knew it. She was strict in tone and manner – I don’t think I ever saw her smile. And it was clear with her that if you wanted to relax in class, you had to earn it by behaving yourself.

Most kids hated her. I loved her. She knew how bright I was and she was not impressed. She doggedly dealt with me no matter how cluelessly obnoxious I was, and never gave up on me even though I could be quite trying at times.

I never got that at home.

And so now I have some idea of how to parent myself. What I need is an inner parent who is tough and strong-willed enough to push through all that fog in my mind and reach me in the funny little world I call home. Someone who sticks with me no matter what, and doesn’t let me get away with any bullshit.

But not because they hate me.

Because they love me and want me to thrive.

I never got that in my choldhood and it’s a tad late to get it from anyone else at the age of 44. So I will have to do it myself.

At least now, I have a place to start.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.