freak-ING unbelievable

One of the last times I saw Laurel in person, I told her that it didn't matter how long a bipolar sufferer had experienced symptoms, the one thing any of them could pinpoint was The Big One. That is, there is that critical incident when the symptoms overpowered any and all attempts to keep them suppressed. For awhile, I was unable to track my own timeline. I had to go backwards and associate linked events. I'm still not sure I have it all straight in my head. Nothing is all that straight in my head.

I've always been very organized and detail oriented, except for when I was in the midst of The Big One. Then I couldn't even remember if it was a workday or a weekend day. The anger and frustration of being so muddled made me determined to not let stupidity run my life.

Sometimes, I regress. I missed a loan payment and found out about it today. Immediately following The Big One, the cost of treatment sent us into very rocky financial territory. Part of that was because we had to change insurance companies three times in one year (not by choice--it was an employer snafu), and that meant shoveling huge sums of cash into the deductible monster.

In order to calm the financial storm, I borrowed against my 401K. I've been at this repayment for well over two years--going on three. I missed a payment once before, and that was in the midst of another Great West billing disaster. Paying bills is something I take very seriously and I do diligently. My many meds have wreaked havoc on my ability to keep details straight, so all of my money happens without me. My pay goes into the bank via direct deposit, and the next day, all of my bills are paid by way of electronic bill pay. It's a near-foolproof system. I only have to check my statements when they come in the mail so that I verify my account is set up to pull the right amount of money for each payment.

Except. The wrinkle in my brow, the fly in the ointment, the pain in my ass. It's name is ING. I cannot use automated bill pay to send $257 each month to ING. My little credit union can handle it no problem. The issue is on the other end. ING, according to their customer service people, "is not set up to take electronic payments." Say what?

Here's what ING has to say about itself: ING provides services to over 85 million private, corporate and institutional clients in more than 50 countries. With a diverse workforce of over 130,000 people... they still can't set up electronic money transfers. I ask every six months. I asked today. This must be a bajillion-trillion dollar company with computers and calculators and email and everything. Apparently not. A customer like me can't even make an online transfer via the ING Website. Nope. Checks only. The phone rep today said that my bank can send them a check, as long as it includes a payment coupon. Gee, I'm sure they'll be happy to take care of that for me every month.

Why does everything have to be so hard? These details, dates, times, appointments, bills, medications, adult life--they just swim in my head and I use carefully constructed scaffolds to keep me functioning like a normal person. BP killed off some brain cells, I think, and then the meds scrambled everything else. People who deal with me on a daily basis have no idea; that means my systems are working well enough that nobody knows I am secretly stupid.

ING is giving me a headache. I have the damn coupons. I write it in my calendar. Argh! The phone girl told me there's no harm done yet, but if I'm late again, they can dump the account and I'll have to pay all of the taxes and penalties on it as if it were a distribution. I told her that if it weren't for this neurological problem, I wouldn't need this loan at all. I said that as long as my brain tumor doesn't grow, I should be able to remember to make the payments. I said that the tumor makes it hard for me to remember things sometimes, and why, exactly, can't ING accept automated payments? She had no answer.

So, yeah, I lied and said I have a brain tumor. It sounds better than "BP medication has transformed me into a moron." Pesky tumor. Maybe it will eat my brain once and for all.