Please, oh please, oh please...... I don't know what to ask for..... I ache in my chest I am so blue...... I don't know what to do..... I don't see my way out..... I know there is one..... I just want someone to tell me what to do......something I can do...... I feel out of control.....
I wish I was more in control of my feelings, or even knew what the triggers were so that I could learn to control them. Feburary 2007 I had the final breakdown of a long slide of depresson. I spent time out of work, friends came and took my kids and my husband took time off of work so that I was never alone. That was when I began seeing a Pdoc and began the process of finding the right medication coktail. In August 2007 I left my fulltime job to begin fulltime school. I found funding to replace my income, but we put a lot of funding to send me to school. Feburary 2008 I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis after spending a few months in constant midgrade pain. By August 2008 I was in so much pain I was on near constant narcotics and stopped taking classes. I am still trying to find the right coktail of medications to limit pain without knocking me out of life.
I have not brought in an income for a full year now. My husband works fulltime and overtime at a hospital, and I care for my 3 schoolage daughters. Try as I might, I have not yet found the strength to keep up with the care of the house. I feel like I push myself harder than I ever did when I was working, but I can't ever do enough. The house is always messy and I the girls complain that I never play with them anymore. We cut our expences to a tiny fraction, but we still end up with a desifit every month. My list of medications and doctors visits cost a lot even though we only pay insurance copays. My school loans have come due- and we do not have the additional income we counted on to repay them. We even took out a loan to cover the desifet each month, and it worked for a little bit- but it is gone now.
My Pdoc says that if I was to get a job I would quickly "crash and burn" from the additional stress. I agree- I don't think I am doing a very good job with daily life now. I am afraid of getting a job and loosing the small steps of improvement I have accomplished. I tried to apply for disability payments- but they concluded that I could go get a parttime job in retail (what I did before my last job) and so I don't qualify for disability. I disagree. (well I guess I could go get the job, but would fall apart after just a few weeks. I don't think I would last 3 months, and then need months and months to recover.) My mother-in-law feels that I should be able to handle a job for just a few hours a week(3-4 hours 1-2 days a week durring school) but with the students in town (we have 4 colleges in town) all of the part-time jobs are taken up. (it's easer to get a job in the summer than the fall here) and there are lots of under-employed people in our area taking up the easier jobs in town. I don't think I could get hired with my restrictions.
I see my Pdoc on Tuesday to discuss if I should try again to get disability. I called an advocate and was turned down because of the wording of my Pdoc's instructions not to work. I hope that she will change the wording, get the advocate and try again. I have 40 days to submit the forms needed. I applied for foodstamps today- but since my husbasband works so many extra hours we only qualify for tiny amounts of help. The don't consider that so much of it goes to pay for medical bills. (I don't have large spending bills because I have VERY limited access to money)
Right now the most comforting thing I can do is wrap my arms tightly arround the ache in my chest and rock in my rocking chair. My husband is so great at simply accepting that I am in a hard place right now, and I am working to get better- but I can see that the stress is wearing him down. He doesn't see me getting much better and I'm sure that he thought it would not take this long. He is bipolar too, but is sooo good at controling himself it doesn't seem like he struggles with it at all. He says that I just need to figure out coping skills and move on. I try but I can't seem to control myself from slipping up.
What I can't get over it that I feel out of control of my thoughts and emotions. When I feel good I can't seem to remember what it was like to struggle. I feel like I just overreacted and need to just forget the whole thing. When I feel bad I can't see a way that I might feel better. I have no faith that things will look up sometime later. I just need to hang on- but it is sooo hard in the middle of it all. I just don't see the way out.
I have rambled on and on- but I feel like if I get it all out someone might understand what is inside and give me some clues on what to do next.