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Well, I’m still here. Barely.
Jul. 23rd, 2014 04:05 amIt’s been a while. I really should be writing in this journal more than I am, but that’s been difficult. My mind has been everywhere. Right now it’s on several things, but in particular, it’s this:
The last thing that I need to do—the absolute last thing—is miss therapy today, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I don’t trust myself to drive for so many reasons. At first, it was just because I’ve been feeling so depressed of late that I have no business being on the road for any reason. It isn’t worth someone else getting hurt if those thoughts take over.
The gas was disconnected last Friday. Being stuck in a rut in the first place, it’s now been a full week since I’ve been able to take a shower. Now, there’s a difference between feeling so down, depressed, and utterly useless that you just can’t be bothered taking a shower…and being deprived of a shower.
In some ways, it’s my choice not to shower when I’m down and out; it doesn’t matter whether I’m clean or not because who am I even bothering to get clean for? Yes, it means wallowing in my own funk for a time. Yes, it means sometimes waiting until I can literally smell myself before I get so disgusted with myself that I finally go ahead and shower. Usually this is a mood that lasts only a few days—two, maybe three tops.
But being deprived of a shower, that just makes the depression and frustration worse. You can heat up water if you have an electric kettle and/or a hot plate and wash up, yes, but you’re not getting completely clean and before you know it, you have to do it again and again and again and kettles and hot plates simply weren’t made for that kind of use. They weren’t made for heating up water so that you can wash dishes or wash your ass, let alone for two people to be doing it.
Bottom line, our gas was disconnected even though I called myself being the responsible adult attempting to take over for her mother because her mother simply does not care. I used the account number from an old disconnection notice from last year, paid the bill, and was led to believe that it was successful.
Then, July 18th, everything went to shit. Again.
They waited fifteen days to reverse the payment on their end and it seems as if the gas was shut off minutes after that happened, all without my knowledge, without leaving a notice, without giving us a chance to do anything to remedy the situation.
Now we’re expected to pay $386 to get the gas back on. We’re already behind on too much; the bank accounts are almost perpetually in the red beginning on the fifth of the month, almost like clockwork. That means that maybe half of that amount will be paid when her checks come in in August, the other half in September…which means that, one way or another, we will still be without gas for the next almost two months.
Add to that, my left foot screams if anything—anything at all—touches the sole/heel; sometimes it even starts up for no reason while I’m sitting or lying down. I’m now having dizzy spells and hand tremors. And it seems that my ovarian cysts have returned with a vengeance.
But that’s just the physical pain.
A lot of it is mental anguish. People that I thought of as friends turning around and saying things like, “You’re always saying that your mother is eating all the food, but she’s losing weight and you’re gaining it,” which implies that I’m lying about my situation. That isn’t taking into consideration that the only food that I can keep upstairs is junk food or the level of stress that I’ve been under.
That same person is also severely offended by the joke/specification that I make when I find myself sitting at hospitals. I refer to this as taxiing. WHY do I refer to it as taxiing? Because it tells people not to worry about me; it tells them that I am not the one in a hospital bed or an emergency room. It is a clarification for those that are not sitting in the car or waiting room with me at any given time. It also tells them that I’m out and about for the moment, if not the entire day.
They’re also offended by me considering food as currency when they don’t have money to give for fuel. With gas prices (and my finances) the way they are right now, food being currency should be a non-issue; I’m still giving my time and my fuel to take you where you need to be, but I’m doing it for something that your husband is pulling up out of the lake for pennies. I can’t fill my tank on it, obviously, and I can’t pay my car insurance with it (that’s another issue at the moment; my insurance expires shortly even though I tried my damnedest to make sure that it would get paid), but when I am driving six and a half miles to your house, ten-plus miles to a doctor’s appointment or something, ten-plus miles back to your house, and then another six and a half miles to get back home, I would think that some food for all of that is an acceptable trade.
She was upset when she wanted a ride somewhere, but my prescribed sleep aid was still in my system (it kicks in after an hour and then lingers for eight; I was maybe five in when she called), so I didn’t feel safe driving…yet she guilt tripped me into doing it anyway. My driving wasn’t up to par that day. I had no business driving in that state, no caffeine to put in my system to fight it, but I did it anyway because she needed to get her water back on.
She now no longer wants to ride with me to do much of anything. She thinks that I am lying to her and intentionally being cruel.
Now my gas is off and I’m afraid to even think of asking her if I can borrow her shower because she might take that as me using her; she might take it as me trying to make some sort of trade and apparently making trades is a problem.
I’m also constantly being told by a friend of hers that I sleep too much. I think anyone in my situation, with everything bearing down on them at any given time—pain, depression, constant financial problems, people lecturing you all the time, people yelling that you should go back to school when you can’t pay on the loans that you already have, insomnia—would sleep “too much.” Yes, I sleep a lot when I can. I do it so that I don’t collapse, so that I don’t drive into a wall or oncoming traffic, so that I don’t break my neck attempting to go downstairs to the bathroom.
No, you do not have the right to tell me how much I can or cannot sleep. You do not have the right to tell me when I can sleep. I have been under stress since childhood. I have had insomnia since childhood.
It’s all affecting my memory. I’ll have a thought that I should do something and then, seconds later, I forget what that was. I’ll have stood up, left the room, opened a new browser tab or window…and just completely forgotten what it is that I meant to do. The more stress I’m under at any given time, the worse it gets and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I can’t go to a hospital for psychiatric care; the cheapest I’ve found for that was $1,556 per DAY. If I can’t afford $386 to get the gas turned back on, how am I meant to afford the care that I need without insurance? Everything is in limbo right now and there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do about it.
If I were to try to hurt myself and succeed, then someone has to pay for a funeral or, at the very least, a burial. If I were to hurt myself and fail, an ICU would likely be in order; that’s over $3,000 per day.
So what am I supposed to do? I don’t know anymore…
- Pain
- Dizziness
- Hand tremors
- Memory problems
- Gas disconnection
- Complete lack of money
The last thing that I need to do—the absolute last thing—is miss therapy today, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I don’t trust myself to drive for so many reasons. At first, it was just because I’ve been feeling so depressed of late that I have no business being on the road for any reason. It isn’t worth someone else getting hurt if those thoughts take over.
The gas was disconnected last Friday. Being stuck in a rut in the first place, it’s now been a full week since I’ve been able to take a shower. Now, there’s a difference between feeling so down, depressed, and utterly useless that you just can’t be bothered taking a shower…and being deprived of a shower.
In some ways, it’s my choice not to shower when I’m down and out; it doesn’t matter whether I’m clean or not because who am I even bothering to get clean for? Yes, it means wallowing in my own funk for a time. Yes, it means sometimes waiting until I can literally smell myself before I get so disgusted with myself that I finally go ahead and shower. Usually this is a mood that lasts only a few days—two, maybe three tops.
But being deprived of a shower, that just makes the depression and frustration worse. You can heat up water if you have an electric kettle and/or a hot plate and wash up, yes, but you’re not getting completely clean and before you know it, you have to do it again and again and again and kettles and hot plates simply weren’t made for that kind of use. They weren’t made for heating up water so that you can wash dishes or wash your ass, let alone for two people to be doing it.
Bottom line, our gas was disconnected even though I called myself being the responsible adult attempting to take over for her mother because her mother simply does not care. I used the account number from an old disconnection notice from last year, paid the bill, and was led to believe that it was successful.
Then, July 18th, everything went to shit. Again.
They waited fifteen days to reverse the payment on their end and it seems as if the gas was shut off minutes after that happened, all without my knowledge, without leaving a notice, without giving us a chance to do anything to remedy the situation.
Now we’re expected to pay $386 to get the gas back on. We’re already behind on too much; the bank accounts are almost perpetually in the red beginning on the fifth of the month, almost like clockwork. That means that maybe half of that amount will be paid when her checks come in in August, the other half in September…which means that, one way or another, we will still be without gas for the next almost two months.
Add to that, my left foot screams if anything—anything at all—touches the sole/heel; sometimes it even starts up for no reason while I’m sitting or lying down. I’m now having dizzy spells and hand tremors. And it seems that my ovarian cysts have returned with a vengeance.
But that’s just the physical pain.
A lot of it is mental anguish. People that I thought of as friends turning around and saying things like, “You’re always saying that your mother is eating all the food, but she’s losing weight and you’re gaining it,” which implies that I’m lying about my situation. That isn’t taking into consideration that the only food that I can keep upstairs is junk food or the level of stress that I’ve been under.
That same person is also severely offended by the joke/specification that I make when I find myself sitting at hospitals. I refer to this as taxiing. WHY do I refer to it as taxiing? Because it tells people not to worry about me; it tells them that I am not the one in a hospital bed or an emergency room. It is a clarification for those that are not sitting in the car or waiting room with me at any given time. It also tells them that I’m out and about for the moment, if not the entire day.
They’re also offended by me considering food as currency when they don’t have money to give for fuel. With gas prices (and my finances) the way they are right now, food being currency should be a non-issue; I’m still giving my time and my fuel to take you where you need to be, but I’m doing it for something that your husband is pulling up out of the lake for pennies. I can’t fill my tank on it, obviously, and I can’t pay my car insurance with it (that’s another issue at the moment; my insurance expires shortly even though I tried my damnedest to make sure that it would get paid), but when I am driving six and a half miles to your house, ten-plus miles to a doctor’s appointment or something, ten-plus miles back to your house, and then another six and a half miles to get back home, I would think that some food for all of that is an acceptable trade.
She was upset when she wanted a ride somewhere, but my prescribed sleep aid was still in my system (it kicks in after an hour and then lingers for eight; I was maybe five in when she called), so I didn’t feel safe driving…yet she guilt tripped me into doing it anyway. My driving wasn’t up to par that day. I had no business driving in that state, no caffeine to put in my system to fight it, but I did it anyway because she needed to get her water back on.
She now no longer wants to ride with me to do much of anything. She thinks that I am lying to her and intentionally being cruel.
Now my gas is off and I’m afraid to even think of asking her if I can borrow her shower because she might take that as me using her; she might take it as me trying to make some sort of trade and apparently making trades is a problem.
I’m also constantly being told by a friend of hers that I sleep too much. I think anyone in my situation, with everything bearing down on them at any given time—pain, depression, constant financial problems, people lecturing you all the time, people yelling that you should go back to school when you can’t pay on the loans that you already have, insomnia—would sleep “too much.” Yes, I sleep a lot when I can. I do it so that I don’t collapse, so that I don’t drive into a wall or oncoming traffic, so that I don’t break my neck attempting to go downstairs to the bathroom.
No, you do not have the right to tell me how much I can or cannot sleep. You do not have the right to tell me when I can sleep. I have been under stress since childhood. I have had insomnia since childhood.
It’s all affecting my memory. I’ll have a thought that I should do something and then, seconds later, I forget what that was. I’ll have stood up, left the room, opened a new browser tab or window…and just completely forgotten what it is that I meant to do. The more stress I’m under at any given time, the worse it gets and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I can’t go to a hospital for psychiatric care; the cheapest I’ve found for that was $1,556 per DAY. If I can’t afford $386 to get the gas turned back on, how am I meant to afford the care that I need without insurance? Everything is in limbo right now and there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do about it.
If I were to try to hurt myself and succeed, then someone has to pay for a funeral or, at the very least, a burial. If I were to hurt myself and fail, an ICU would likely be in order; that’s over $3,000 per day.
So what am I supposed to do? I don’t know anymore…
