Meeting

     Remember the issue with the classmate who pestered me about my service dog? I explained what happened to The Professor (my goal in that was him knowing the background of the issue and why I'm uncomfortable explaining my rape-caused PTSD to someone who tried to hook up with me at 14 so he would be aware if something happened again), and he wanted to transfer me to his other history class. It conflicts with a one-unit class I take on Tuesdays, but he wanted us to meet with the chair to try to arrange something else for the one unit class (hence the awkward, nameless emails yesterday). Needless to say, the three of us met yesterday; what should have been a 15-minute get-together turned into a 2 hour long, panic-attack filled saga.

     Ironically, the chair completely supports me transferring classes and is talking to the guidance counselor on Monday to see what we can do. She then started making comments about how I needed to be more clear with my professors when asking for accommodations and making sure they're cleared with the University's disability resources (DRES), which had me completely lost. I have all my accommodations automatically submitted and approved at the start of the semester. I talked to the professors who teach the classes I needed those accommodations in. Apparently, her issue is that I have a gentleman's agreement with The Professor and her husband (she and her husband co-teach one of my classes this semester; I had him as a professor last semester) that, for their two classes, I can listen to music because the silence triggers auditory flashbacks. Neither The Professor or her husband had issues with it, even though I never went through DRES to approve that accommodation (I'm unable to register with them for PTSD because I don't have a shrink to fill out their paperwork with my diagnosis; I refuse to go to a shrink because I've had nothing but bad experiences and am too emotionally busy to delve into it until after graduation). I explained all this to the chair, at which point she pretty much chewed me out for not approving all my accommodations with her. I apologized profusely, explaining that I assumed if there were problems, she would either have asked her co-teacher, who knew what was going on, or approached me directly about it, rather than waiting until we were in a meeting with a different professor about a completely different issue. She tried to force me into counseling with someone for the sole purpose of filling out the DRES paperwork to ask for this accommodation; she refused to accept the fact that not only is this not accommodation that DRES can grant, it's solely one that I need for two classes that had already been approved by the professors involved. After I had a massive panic attack in her office and The Professor stuck up for me, she made a huge deal about being willing to grant me an "exception," even though she was breaking policy to do it.

     Two-and-a-half-hour-long story short, I ended up in The Professor's office for a while, trying to calm down while explaining way too much to him. He agreed with me that the chair, though she agreed to the music, wasn't pleased with how things went, and he said he understood why I wasn't happy just leaving it like that. He understood why I wasn't able to explain things like that to the chair (both The Professor and the chair's husband know nearly everything, but that's because I have that kind of relationship with them. I've only met with the chair three times, none positive, and gone to three classes under her. To me, she's still the boss, not a friend.), but he couldn't get why I didn't just go to DRES and see what they said. Needless to say, he ended up dragging me to DRES and setting up an appointment for Monday, that he agreed to go to with me, to see if they're willing to grant the accommodation without me relating it to PTSD. He and I talked ourselves in circles for a while figuring out if he would go with me to DRES on Monday; his autism and my litany of issues don't work well together sometimes. He was trying to make clear that he was totally okay with going to support me and didn't think it was a waste of his time, but that he didn't want me to become dependent on him doing it for me. I was taking it as him doing the hearing thing where people try to say no without actually using "no" to avoid hurt feelings while still not becoming committed, and I didn't want to process it wrong and either end up going without him for no reason or forcing him to do something he didn't want to do. After a rather snarky response on his part when I told him I see things black or white, he finally just asked what time I'd be available to go on Monday and invited himself along.

     Now I get to spend all this time dreading Monday, all because I just wanted to keep my professor informed as to what is happening in class. So frustrating.