Humor
March 24, 2005 – 2:59 pmThis guy is right on the mark.
I know it can’t be easy having to regularly fill in insurance forms for people. When it comes to insurers’ questions, they ask a lot of crap - sometimes they literally ask about crap.
Insurance bureaucracy may be intractable in the lives of people with disabilities and transsexuals.
The answer? Humor. A skill I’m learning about. Mine only run the gamut from run the gamut from rage to beating my head against the wall.
Others of you have coping skills you’d care to share?
3 Responses to “Humor”
I completely agree: laughter is the glue that has held my marriage of 7+ years together; it is the shared language I’ve spoken with people whom I would otherwise have trouble finding commonality. It is a remarkable tool that I feel more people should become comfortable exploring for its power to heal the bumps and scrapes we endure going through our days.
On a more sober note, I find it also helps me to practice “awareness”, as written about in the book by Anthony DiMello. As you probably know, one of his basic premises is that one’s frustrations arise from the fact that one simply cannot control how another person acts, now matter how much one may wish to enlighten that other person through means of education, discussion, activism or the like. he advises us to simply let go and accept that other person/situation/other factor for who/what they/it are/is, and realize that the only possible actionable change is within ourselves.
I have deep admiration for your ability to have navigated the system successfully enough to obtain the care you needed and deserved. I wish that all people in your situation had a “mentor” like you, to help them traverse the hostile terrain of health-care-for-profit. The insurance industry poses unique challenges for all segments of the LGBT population, and I think we need to lean on each other for support, and to network to share information regarding health care practitioners who have been supportive or whose practices are inclusive. When my partner went in for a hysteroscopy last summer, the medical team all but pushed me out of the room in favor of speaking to her mother about the surgery and what recovery would entail - this was a very public humiliation for me, played out at a Big 10-associated teaching hospital, where I’d blithely assumed I would be respected. The little hurts add up over time, too.
By Jennifer Gee on Mar 25, 2005
The little hurts…..
It is frustrating to revisit with every healthcare provider the issue of who one’s partner is or the fact of one’s body.
These little hurts add up over time and can bend us in unimaginable ways. Plus piss us off! Then institutions wonder why we get so angry.
Thanks for posting.
By Jay on Mar 30, 2005
Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for the link to one of my posts. Bureaucracy of any kind just drives me crazy. I’m now going to spend some time meandering around your blog. Thanks again, have a great weekend! x
By Andy on Apr 1, 2005