I am being interviewed tonight for Open Source Radio in conjunction with their show on "Talking Turkishness". They pulled me along for this ride based on my work for Global Voices.
You can listen online here, and I believe that they are archiving the stories, or if you are in Utah, KCPW will be airing the show at 7pm.
I only hope that I can pump my system with enough cold medicine to make myself sound decent.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Enlightenment Update
I talked to Mr.3 this morning. Yes, he was trying to start a new life...and the only way that he could completely get rid of all of the horrors of the first life was to start new, and that included a new name.
Never fear however....he is in the process of legally changing his name....which for men is a process that takes 2-3 years to go completely through. This leaves me the ability to still refer to Mike as Mike and not having to go through the strange process of having to learn to call him Scott.
Although I am being ravaged by a stress cold from let-down....I feel really good about all that has happened. When I talked to Mr.3 this morning, he told me that he has been trying to tell me the truth for months....but honestly....how do you really start a conversation like this?
I feel at peace today....which is good. Because I really need to be able to focus some of my attention on to school matters.
Never fear however....he is in the process of legally changing his name....which for men is a process that takes 2-3 years to go completely through. This leaves me the ability to still refer to Mike as Mike and not having to go through the strange process of having to learn to call him Scott.
Although I am being ravaged by a stress cold from let-down....I feel really good about all that has happened. When I talked to Mr.3 this morning, he told me that he has been trying to tell me the truth for months....but honestly....how do you really start a conversation like this?
I feel at peace today....which is good. Because I really need to be able to focus some of my attention on to school matters.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Enlightenment
Today has been an enlightening day to say the least. I heard from Mr.3. He is safe, which is good. However there is so much to this story....and I need to resolve alot of things. This will be a long road.
My husband suffers from PTSD, apparently when he came to Utah, he was running from something and was trying to start a new life that ran away from him.
Mr.3, or Mike...is not my husband's real name. It is Scott. He is not an orphan, but has a very loving family that has been searching for him for two years now.
Not everything he has said has been a lie...in fact just about everything he has said is true. His mother and father he told me was his Aunt and Uncle, but the histories are the same. His personality is still the same...his wants, his hopes, his loves....there are all still the same. Just a new name. I may have lost the name of my husband, but I will stand by the man. It is the man I love, not his name. And if we are meant to be, then we will be able to work this out.
I am not sure when I will see him next. He has some "obligations" to fulfill in the East. There might be a trip to Florida for me in the near future to meet the new extended family that I have gained today. His mother is a wonderful woman, and it is a shame that I had to meet her under these circumstances.
I went to a therapy appointment today, my first ever...and I really didn't like the lady. She wanted to boil the situation down to Mr.3 lied and get rid of him. Which is outrageous. PTSD is not a case of "simple lying", PTSD is a sickness. If someone who should have been taking medication for 2 plus years and hasn't...you don't just abandon him. You get him help. You also don't really control who you end up falling in love with...and I love him. And there is something to say for loving the way I feel when I am with him....how we can be in the same room not speaking and feel completely content and happy. Giving all of that up because he has a problem, doesn't help him, or me. I have gotten the impression from his mom, that many people have just left him when he has a problem. How can someone ever expect to get better if they are constantly abandoned? How can a person learn to find their self-worth if they don't have someone there to love and support them?
I choose to stand by my husband. I choose to give him a second chance.
Through this whole ordeal I have been told that often unhelpful phrase "Everything happens for a reason." Maybe this is happening not to help me out. Maybe this is happening to prove to Scott that he can depend on someone, and that it can be ok. That he can find love and support and learn to be happy with himself and his life.
My husband suffers from PTSD, apparently when he came to Utah, he was running from something and was trying to start a new life that ran away from him.
Mr.3, or Mike...is not my husband's real name. It is Scott. He is not an orphan, but has a very loving family that has been searching for him for two years now.
Not everything he has said has been a lie...in fact just about everything he has said is true. His mother and father he told me was his Aunt and Uncle, but the histories are the same. His personality is still the same...his wants, his hopes, his loves....there are all still the same. Just a new name. I may have lost the name of my husband, but I will stand by the man. It is the man I love, not his name. And if we are meant to be, then we will be able to work this out.
I am not sure when I will see him next. He has some "obligations" to fulfill in the East. There might be a trip to Florida for me in the near future to meet the new extended family that I have gained today. His mother is a wonderful woman, and it is a shame that I had to meet her under these circumstances.
I went to a therapy appointment today, my first ever...and I really didn't like the lady. She wanted to boil the situation down to Mr.3 lied and get rid of him. Which is outrageous. PTSD is not a case of "simple lying", PTSD is a sickness. If someone who should have been taking medication for 2 plus years and hasn't...you don't just abandon him. You get him help. You also don't really control who you end up falling in love with...and I love him. And there is something to say for loving the way I feel when I am with him....how we can be in the same room not speaking and feel completely content and happy. Giving all of that up because he has a problem, doesn't help him, or me. I have gotten the impression from his mom, that many people have just left him when he has a problem. How can someone ever expect to get better if they are constantly abandoned? How can a person learn to find their self-worth if they don't have someone there to love and support them?
I choose to stand by my husband. I choose to give him a second chance.
Through this whole ordeal I have been told that often unhelpful phrase "Everything happens for a reason." Maybe this is happening not to help me out. Maybe this is happening to prove to Scott that he can depend on someone, and that it can be ok. That he can find love and support and learn to be happy with himself and his life.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Silence
My silence is linked to my husband's. It has been 88 hours since I last heard from my husband. I was helpless to find him before and I find myself equally helpless now. Except now I am filled with dread...something bad has happened to him and I am left without being able to help.
I have not been able to verify this entire time if my husband is really seeking help at the VA. The local VA denies that he is a patient, and the regional VA will only tell me that they do have a record of him in their system but that they cannot tell me anymore. And basically the only information that I have had about Mr.3 has come from Mr. 3 himself.
This week has been especially disturbing. According to Mr.3, in response to an email that he sent out to a congressman , there was a meeting with all of his doctors, etc., to discuss Mr.3's issues. They apparently hadn't been paying attention to him when he said that he wanted to go home, because they hear that from their patients all of the time. Tuesday he was told that he was going to be released on Friday morning. I got to talk to him for 10 minutes on Wednesday evening; in which he told me that he was to be able to get a 30 minute call on Thursday to arrange the details of his release on Friday. He didn't call on Thursday. I have received no contact whatsoever from him.
Worried is an understatement, as well as distraught.
I have been grateful that people have stopped asking about him because it saves me from crying in front of them. I cry at the oddest of things. Libby said the word "children" the other day and I completely lost it.
I don't want to envision a future without Mr.3 but I feel that I have to be prepared for it as well. Life will have to go on even though I feel as my heart has stopped.
I have not been able to verify this entire time if my husband is really seeking help at the VA. The local VA denies that he is a patient, and the regional VA will only tell me that they do have a record of him in their system but that they cannot tell me anymore. And basically the only information that I have had about Mr.3 has come from Mr. 3 himself.
This week has been especially disturbing. According to Mr.3, in response to an email that he sent out to a congressman , there was a meeting with all of his doctors, etc., to discuss Mr.3's issues. They apparently hadn't been paying attention to him when he said that he wanted to go home, because they hear that from their patients all of the time. Tuesday he was told that he was going to be released on Friday morning. I got to talk to him for 10 minutes on Wednesday evening; in which he told me that he was to be able to get a 30 minute call on Thursday to arrange the details of his release on Friday. He didn't call on Thursday. I have received no contact whatsoever from him.
Worried is an understatement, as well as distraught.
I have been grateful that people have stopped asking about him because it saves me from crying in front of them. I cry at the oddest of things. Libby said the word "children" the other day and I completely lost it.
I don't want to envision a future without Mr.3 but I feel that I have to be prepared for it as well. Life will have to go on even though I feel as my heart has stopped.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
rude collection call
so with all of the problems that have been happening the past few months I have been behind in my credit card payments....really far behind, and most people in my position would have declared bankrupcty by now...but I refuse. I want to pay my bills, I just can't at the moment, not until I can get a steady second income coming into the house. This entails me getting a second job, which I am working on.
With all of my creditors save one, I have been dealing with their hardship departments and they have been fairly nice and reasonable to work with. The exception is First Financial Bank.
Never deal with First Financial Bank.
Most of the time the first person you talk to is rather nice. You can explain the problem to them, they will look through your account history----because they note down everything you say to them and your history of conversation with them is there-----DON'T LET A COLLECTIONS AGENCY TELL YOU OTHERWISE! I know, because I used to work for one. So after you build up a good relationship with the first person, talk about options, and set up arrangements then they have to send you over to the "verifier".
The "verifer" job is to be an ass.
This is the person who wants you to explain everything that you talked to the first person for 20 minutes about again....and verify what you have said to the last 5000 other people. They always refuse to read through your history, and I sincerely believe that they are told to beat the person into the ground. I hang up on most of the verifers after I tell them that they are incredibly rude and have ruined any positive feelings that I had with working with their company. Maybe they are told to be rude, or they are just so hardened from doing collection work that they have forgotten how to be human.
Anyway, the cell rings today and it says "private call"....I have been answering those because when Mr.3 calls me that is what it shows up as. Unfortuately, it wasn't Mr.3....but it was First Financial Bank and I am almost positive that I have spoken to the same person before as a verifer. He had a distinctive voice. In less that 30 seconds he told me that my "behavior was unacceptable" and that "all of my income should be sent to them to pay my bill" and there was some other things that he added.....either way I told him that he had been incredibly rude and that I wasn't going to deal with him. I hung up at him as he was starting to yell at me....and I mean "yell" at me. There was no reason for him to yell at me, in fact I had hardly said anything to him besides, yes that is who I am and that I have no new information for him as I was in the process of getting a second job.
The thing about collections is that you need to collect money. I understand that, and I realize that I am a horrible debtor who hasn't made payments in a while. (Well I did make a payment to everyone last month, but was told that since it wasn't the minimum payment that it was worthless-yeah.....that felt great let me tell you.) However you can only really be "mean" in collections in the earlier stages, not the later stages that I am in. The later a person is in the collections process the higher the likelihood that they will declare bankruptcy and the company would have to write off all of that debt. When I worked for Discover card in 1997 they wrote off 2 billion dollars a year in debt from people declaring bankruptcy.
2 billion a year.
In the later collection stages it isn't a case where someone forgot a payment, there is a serious problem....you want to work with them so that you actually do get paid.
Every other company that I have credit with has been willing to work with me, except First Financial Bank, who makes me want to declare bankruptcy just to spite them.
And I want to spite them so badly.
With all of my creditors save one, I have been dealing with their hardship departments and they have been fairly nice and reasonable to work with. The exception is First Financial Bank.
Never deal with First Financial Bank.
Most of the time the first person you talk to is rather nice. You can explain the problem to them, they will look through your account history----because they note down everything you say to them and your history of conversation with them is there-----DON'T LET A COLLECTIONS AGENCY TELL YOU OTHERWISE! I know, because I used to work for one. So after you build up a good relationship with the first person, talk about options, and set up arrangements then they have to send you over to the "verifier".
The "verifer" job is to be an ass.
This is the person who wants you to explain everything that you talked to the first person for 20 minutes about again....and verify what you have said to the last 5000 other people. They always refuse to read through your history, and I sincerely believe that they are told to beat the person into the ground. I hang up on most of the verifers after I tell them that they are incredibly rude and have ruined any positive feelings that I had with working with their company. Maybe they are told to be rude, or they are just so hardened from doing collection work that they have forgotten how to be human.
Anyway, the cell rings today and it says "private call"....I have been answering those because when Mr.3 calls me that is what it shows up as. Unfortuately, it wasn't Mr.3....but it was First Financial Bank and I am almost positive that I have spoken to the same person before as a verifer. He had a distinctive voice. In less that 30 seconds he told me that my "behavior was unacceptable" and that "all of my income should be sent to them to pay my bill" and there was some other things that he added.....either way I told him that he had been incredibly rude and that I wasn't going to deal with him. I hung up at him as he was starting to yell at me....and I mean "yell" at me. There was no reason for him to yell at me, in fact I had hardly said anything to him besides, yes that is who I am and that I have no new information for him as I was in the process of getting a second job.
The thing about collections is that you need to collect money. I understand that, and I realize that I am a horrible debtor who hasn't made payments in a while. (Well I did make a payment to everyone last month, but was told that since it wasn't the minimum payment that it was worthless-yeah.....that felt great let me tell you.) However you can only really be "mean" in collections in the earlier stages, not the later stages that I am in. The later a person is in the collections process the higher the likelihood that they will declare bankruptcy and the company would have to write off all of that debt. When I worked for Discover card in 1997 they wrote off 2 billion dollars a year in debt from people declaring bankruptcy.
2 billion a year.
In the later collection stages it isn't a case where someone forgot a payment, there is a serious problem....you want to work with them so that you actually do get paid.
Every other company that I have credit with has been willing to work with me, except First Financial Bank, who makes me want to declare bankruptcy just to spite them.
And I want to spite them so badly.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
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