Just in a funk...boring rant...ignore if you're busy!:)

I'm 49, bipolar 2 and feeling pretty sorry for myself today. I've had a ton of health problems this past year but most of those are under good control now and I'm physically feeling pretty decent.

I have a lot of good things going in my life:

I got my teaching certificate back last year after 20 years of being at home.

My three teens are basically healthy and happy (for teens, that is!)

I've been married 22 years and we get along pretty well.

My psych meds are working okay.

I have two good girlfriends.

I let my house really go when I was in a bad depression last year, but in the last two months I have worked my butt off and it is now in pretty good shape. I was feeling guilty that the house was too dirty to have people over but now that is not an issue. I'm also cooking dinner most every night. These are big improvements over when I was depressed.

I also lost 35 pounds due to an illness....I needed to lose it.

The stressors in my life:

My husband is somewhat of a packrat and his clutter gets on my nerves. It seriously adds to my stress level.

I wanted to teach in my own classroom this year, but I am not stable enough. I'm not consistently feeling good in the mornings. It's going to be back to subbing again this year for me. I feel I have let myself down in this area. Subbing is a lonely job as you don't make friends at work. I'd like some nice co-workers to be friendly with.

We have plenty of money saved for retirement but we have a cash flow problem as we are putting a child through college on a cash basis and helping out an elderly mother in law. We pay all our bills but getting anything new is tight. It's hard to pay off our credit card bill each month. We have excellent credit and our mortgage and this one credit card is the only money we owe but it still stresses me out. We own four cars and one of them always needs fixing, for example. I was hoping to go back to teaching full time to make more money, but that's not gonna happen. We also had about 14K in out of pocket medical bills last year. This was just co-pays, etc. It was a tough year for us.

I don't exercise and I still could use to lose about 30 more pounds. Now I look okay the way I am. I look sort of normalish large. Not fat any more. I wear a 12 which for me is a decent size and I am proud of it. I'm very tall. But for my health I could drop some more weight.

I feel lonely but am terrified to make friends. I know I'll just screw it up when I have another BP episode. I'm too old and tired to start fresh with people.

I KNOW that so many here have troubles much worse than mine. I am just feeling very sad and needed somewhere to vent. Thanks for listening.

 

awww thanks little b--


i will def drink some more water and do better on the vegies. It is funny about the dog...we just adopted a stray kitty from our local vet. She is an all black cutie but she is a hider so far under the beds. When she comes out to play she goes crazy.

I think i might call my tdoc and see him...it might help.

thx for your reply...it's nice to "talk" to someone.

hugs

Hi azteacher,

No, they don't have that deal where you can only sub at one school unless you request that. For example, I can say..."hey I will only sub at schools, A, B, and C," but then that limits how often I will be called. If I get to be known at a certain school, I will get requested from there a lot.

The part-time positions are more for existing teachers with small babies...that's what it seems like to me.

I did do a long term sub job (4 months) last spring and I made friends there, but it was very depressing when I left. All of the others were talking about the next year, etc and I felt very sad.
I'm so glad you have a good friend to talk to:)

I may just get a bin for the clutter...you are right!

I have cleaned and decluttered most of my house. There are just a few areas that are sort of my husband's own spots. I don't mess with these. Like: his half of the closet, his sink and cupboard in the bathroom, a couple of closets downstairs, and his nightstand. Also, the family built in desk area is sort of "his". Well, and the garage. No way am I touching that. He also has stuff stacked in the laundry room. Until recently he was storing stuff in the SINK in there. I told him I was planning on turning the water on daily in there.

He has a way of stacking stuff up. I'll come home and there will be random stuff all over the kitchen counter. Paperwork, etc. So I calmly gather it up and set it on the desk. Or he'll stack his worn clothes around the bedroom. So I'll gather those up and put them neatly in a stack on a chair in his side of the closet. He doesn't leave trash around, but he stacks stuff everywhere. He currently has five or six stacks of books by his nightstand. Our bedroom is nice and calm and decluttered except for this. He's big on stacking stuff in our entryway which I hate because when someone comes in the front door, that's what they see. He stacks it and I keep moving it. He has a nice armoire with doors which is all his in our bedroom where he can keep books so I don't get why they have to be on the floor by the bed.

I think it's like a head game for him. A power thing. He's got plenty of storage space and spots to put things in.

Are there any packrats out there who can tell me why he likes this clutter thing?