Seeking Help in My Own Way

There are days that are better than others. Today was a better day than when I wrote the last post. I was at one of the lowest points because I had been having nightares for a while, been triggered a lot and swamped at work. I took time today to edit the last post and and remove things that, from my lowest ebb, were untrue.

Last week I also took a step toward recovery. I called a Clinical Psychologist I had seen years ago and made an appointment... and lucky me (I mean lucky) I was able to get in within a few days. Sometimes it takes a lot for me to ask for help. I don't know whether it is out of pride or because I try to be as independent and self-reliant as I can because people who I will trust are few and far between.

Not being able to rely on people has been something I found out the hard way when I was younger. Those experiences made such an impression that to this day it is almost impossible to ask for help even from close friends and family. As for service providers that is different. It took time but I found I could rely  on my therapists for help. Not help with money or moving or such but help in understanding myself, and help in fixing me. Fixing the my broken things in my personality and my soul.

When you are standing on the ledge with a blindfold, not knowing what to do next what else is there to do but hold out your hand and hope that the person who takes your hand pulls you back and not pulls you down. Trust is a hard thing to grant.

The Path to Nowhere... My Nowhere.

My mother would call it a pity party (yes the tape with her speeches still play in my head) but I call it a bout with depression and hopelessness. 

Ups and downs happen with everyone.  Now I've been off my depression medication for a few days because I just couldn't cram in the time to set them up and take them.  But only a few days shouldn't impact me when I have been taking them for months since I've been told by the GP that it will take a few weeks for it to leave my system.  I think this bout is purely situational.  

• problems with the landlord (we rent)
• fear about the future of my FT job
• terror about becoming homeless again
• lack of support at home

This past week there was yet another issue with our landlord and my disabled husband.  The landlord called out my husband for lying about our 2 golden retrievers... saying they were lap dogs... he was reminded that we told them they 'think' they're lap dogs.  The landlord mentioned the picking up of dog poo LAST winter.  Yes last winter when he wasn't here.  Since I work a lot, the husband is unable to walk on snow due to his balance and his disability, we arranged for a company to come in twice a week to pick up all dog poo on the lawn.  They agreed since they understood (or said they understood) my husbands disability.  This past week we were accused of not picking up after the dogs.  This is a lie since I pick up after them and the husband does too unless they poo on the hilly part of the lawn.  The landlord called my husband out on being disabled saying 'you could do this when you moved in last fall'.  My husband tried to explain that his health has declined after a recent stay in the hospital to the point that he is quite unstable on his feet and unable to pick up on a hill.  He has tried and he has ended up on his hands and knees crawling up to the patio in order to get help from table and chairs to stand up.  Then we were called out for having an e-bike in the driveway because it is leaving dents in the driveway.  Then called out about the lawn having burned places due to dog urine... which is wrong because we put something in their drinking water so it won't burn the lawn.  

They even complained when I decided to mow the lawn myself instead of waiting for the once a month mowing that they do.  They don't want us doing anything garden related because "it is their property".  It was mentioned that they maintain the front of the building beautifully but totally ignore the back side which is where we live... that's when they started mowing at least monthly although the gardens back here are all weeds. 

All these complaints, yet the maintenance that they said would be done when we moved in and weren't because the landlord lost his mother just prior to moving in... are still not done.  We had to get someone else to do a few things... and the person the landlord's wife asked to do a few things never showed up.  Closet doors rehung properly; oven clock fixed; the range-hood fan replaced; the ceiling fan in the dining room needs to be hung by the landlord because of fire regulations.  We even lived in this apartment for 5 months not knowing that there was no battery in the fire detector - which is up to them.  Now we have a bee hive under the patio to the point that the patio has moved about an inch from the building and is tipping at an angle.  

They were told about the bees a week or so before this last call out.  The feelings we both have are that they're gathering excuses to make us leave.  To be honest I do want to leave.  Every day I'm waiting for an eviction notice.  Waiting for the push that will make us homeless if I can't find a place that we can:

1. afford
2. is accessible to the husbands disability
3. is pet friendly
4. is on the first floor with walkout since in an emergency the husband couldn't go down stairs if there was a fire and couldn't get the dogs out either

Our place is full.. full of toys and so-called collectible stuff that he is unwilling to part with.  Yes I have my musical instruments, my hobby materials, a few books (1 shelf) and 2 pieces of fitness equipment.  He on the other hand has action figures, comic books, games, etc.  All this worry about moving and finding a place has me upset because he won't get rid of any more things and yet I'm the one that will have to lift and move or pay for someone to do it since he can't do it without endangering his health.  

If we end up homeless then I'll have to abandon the few things I want to keep... I don't care about 95% of what is in our home since I had to give up so much before... all my Grandmothers things that she left me, ancient and rare books, depression glass, furniture etc.... But I have lived in my car... slept on couches... gone without food, health care and everything that goes with being homeless.  It TERRIFIES me... it triggers my PTSD... it creates situations in my head that pile one on top of another that are constantly in the front of my mind.  It paralyzes me... and makes it almost impossible to keep going. 

My workplace is being majorly restructured over the next year and while a union member, the union has been less than helpful for most over the last 8 years and there is a possibility I will either be laid off or have my salary reduced... reduced when I haven't had a raise in 9 years and we are barely living paycheque to paycheque.  

Our marriage suffers too.  I don't have a partner I have a dependent.  I am doing what I swore I would never do... what my mother did... which was ignore what I want and have to take care of someone who can't even take care of me if it came down to it. The are days I want to leave... days I don't want to be married and tied here. But I have nowhere to go and no way to get there if I did.  I don't see an end to any of this.

I feel absolutely helplessly trapped.  Trapped in just eking out an existence made up of working to pay to live until I die. Nothing good or forward, just existing... and it isn't enough.  I didn't expect to be here living like this at my age.  

Going forward do you know what I see?  Nothing. I've planned my suicide before when I was homeless the first time... but I couldn't bring myself to do it because that would have put my dog back in the humane society where he would have been put down.  So I didn't do it.  Now I have 2 dogs that once they're gone leave me no reason to stay.

No animals, no children, no future, no hope of anything but the possibility of future homelessness and loneliness until death.  My plan is to ask for assisted death when its available and I my husband and dogs are dead.  If it gets turned down then I'll go back to my original plan which will still work and will not be painful which is something I do worry about.  I am afraid of the pain, the lingering, the unknown feelings of death.  

I don't have to worry about leaving anything for anyone because there is no one and I have nothing of value.  I am not close to anyone in my family and as much as I love my husband's family, i"m not close to any one person so it doesn't matter.  All that matters is that all this will be over.  I'm so ready for it to be over.  I'm so done with everything that I can't even bring myself to enjoy the things I do love.  I don't care anymore.  I don't see anything improving or changing now... it is just the waiting.  I want my presence to be removed from everything - so it looks like I never existed in the first place. 

Helplessness, hopelessness, its all there right now.  BUT for the time being I'm going continue to put one foot in front of the other:  to love my dogs; keep working at my job and doing the best I can do; keep it up at home - try to get rid of things and find a new place to live that will work with his disability, the dogs and our income; just get on with it... cause really what choice is there when there is no choice.

If we are doomed to keep coming back for new lives, I really hope this is the last life.  I don't want to come back... maybe come back as a planet, a sun... or just nothing, just stop existing.  I like that better.