The Catastrophe Mode By Linda Stowe
I subscribe to a lot of automated emails – news, books, substacks, etc. Every day I get more than a dozen of these automatic emails. I try to keep up but if I miss a day or two, they amass at a pace faster than the national debt. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly my inbox fills up. That’s why I spend most Sunday mornings weeding through my backlog of emails. Some people might just delete the whole lot, but that’s not me. I might miss something.
This Sunday I didn’t read every email, but I did go through them one by one to make sure I knew what I was deleting. And it’s a good thing I did. One of the emails was from Kettering Health telling me that I owed $173.50 for my last doctor’s visit, which took place in March. This was a routine visit, one of four per year. I must see the doctor every three months as a requirement to continue with one of my meds. These visits usually take little more than a minute. I never have to pay for the visits because I am on Medicare and have medigap insurance. I felt alarm bells go off when I saw this unexpected charge.
Since it was Sunday, I did not contact the customer service line to see if this was a mistake or a change in policy. In fact, I put off contacting them until today. In the interim I agonized over the issue. Even though I could easily afford the $173.50, what if it was a harbinger of other health care costs? What if I had to start paying for my eye appointment procedures? They cost more than $1,000 a visit. Maybe I should stop seeing doctors altogether. Certainly, I didn’t have to see my GP every three months. I have been taking that medication for more than twenty years, so I have quite a backlog of pills. I could ration them and only see the GP once a year. Maybe I didn’t really need the medication. I could wean myself off them and then take a holistic approach.
I had two nights of bad sleep and two days of fretting over this. I was spinning out of control worrying about what might happen. Finally, I called the customer service number to arrange payment and found that the billing was a mistake. Just disregard it and sorry for the confusion, they said.
I do this to myself more often than I’d like to admit. Every time a change presents itself, rather than immediately addressing the issue I take a step back and go into catastrophe mode. That’s why I’ve been taking that medication for the past twenty years.
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Polly here.
This is quite a powerful piece. Linda’s honesty about the matter is admirable. (I should add that this was written some time ago as part of our Wordle Words exchanges.)
The reason I was struck by this is because I think a lot of people go through this same thing. Sometimes, we might react defensively in an attempt to ward off any potential harm. Most of the time, situations like this cause us unneeded anxiety. I have a tendency to be reactive in this manner, especially when I’m asked to do something I don’t want to do.
I try to process things logically, always. But oftentimes, the walls of emotion stand in the way.
We do the best we can, though. Don’t we?
We should always remember, too, that we are humans, after all.
The Catastrophe Mode By Linda Stowe
