AutiBlah

My financial status has a way of causing serious anxiety, as Im sure many can relate. I need to know exactly where everything is going, have everything ready in time, any last minute changes or emergencies will send me into a hella meltdown. Up until the past decade or so, my life was, at best, utterly chaotic and nothing was ever secure or safe. So now that Im away from all that caused such distress Im very particular about things and any small changes send my autistic ass into sheer panic. It could be a C-PTSD thing, which I suspect I have but dont have a dx. Anyhoo, this past Sunday it happened. A surprise that sent me spiralling and Im now dealing with the after affects of said panic.

First, I received an email reminding me of an upcoming payment due for anti virus software. I decided to cancel said subscription in favor of another. So I click the link, go unsubscribe, and move on with my day. A few hours later I check my bank account as I normally do and find a nearly two thousand dollar charge to my credit card. So naturally, I fucking panic (as anyone would). I frantically search through my emails, through paypal, through all my bills and my bank account looking for the culprit. My first thought was FUCK Ive been scammed and so I check the email that I unsubscribed through to make sure it was legit, and it was. So what the hell was it? Somehow someone got into my shit…. right?!? Hours of pouring through my paypal looking for charges that werent there and my bank account, back and forth trying to find something, anything. So in a state of absolute panic I email my bank like wtf is this? but in a more professional tone, of course. Sending the email calmed me down a bit. Progress, at least. I sat at my computer just looking back at all the stuff I went through to come up with a plan, calm myself, and find a logical way out of this. The charge on my card said paypal, which is why I was combing through my paypal, but in my state of distress I didnt read the entire thing. It said paypal spotify. So I found said charge on my paypal that said the usual price. It converts to icelandic krona during the payment. So Im converting euro to isk online and found that when I put in the amount it converted to nearly two thousand dollars worth of isk… from a copy pasted amount on spotify. Interesting, okay… so I change the comma in the amount to a period and the correct amount was then converted and THAT must have been the problem. The mistake was on the credit cards end, it automatically converted probably. Knowing that, instead of 11.99 euro i was being charged 1,199 euro. That meant I could work this out with the bank. Somehow. Right?!? Holy forking shirtballs.

So the next day rolled around and I anxiously awaited an email response while being busy with other things. I tell my dad about the mix-up and he just shrugged and said “call the number on the back of the card, they can fix it.” I was flabbergasted, I didn’t even fucking think of that because of the state I was in. So I called the number on the back of the credit card, explained, they said they’d call me back in a moment. So I hang up, and within two minutes they call back and said, “okay, it’s fixed.” And that was that. Easy peasy. Pretty anti climactic I guess, just an abrupt end to the problem. I cannot tell you how relieved I was. Unfortunately, all the panic from the day before is something that I now have had to recover from. It’s Tuesday, and I’m still having slight bouts of anxiety throughout the day. Awesome. Not to mention, I have fibromyalgia so that is a whole other thing. Anyway. Crisis averted, all is well. Now time to go wrap myself up like a burrito and eat some snacks while binging a show Ive already seen before.