sinking lower and lower :(

It just keeps getting worse & worse for me. I had an appt. with an interfaith church group that would pledge $100 toward our $856 mortgage if I could get the rest covered by 2 other church groups. One group would do $250. The other church said no via email (that one was my best hope too), it would only be short-term help. Sigh. Two, steps forward, 3 steps back. I left the 2nd church sobbing and yelling in my car (luckily with the windows closed). Thank God I made it home without getting into an accident, but the roads weren't busy, some of it was through downtown La Porte, with a 30-35 mph speed limit (you can bet police patrol it constantly for speeders), and it was about a 15 minute drive, main street trafffic picking up only to 45 mph once it had gone through downtown. If I'd been in a more crowded area, I don't know what I would have done with driving. I was panicky, anxious, depressed, angry, frustrated all rolled into one.

I did disclose some stuff to my daughter's school counselor, who said she would try to find someone to help us, but I don't hold out much hope at this point. What we need is my husband to get a job that pays him what he is worth. He worked himself to the bone to get that Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from a Nobel Prize winner (Rick Smalley, deceased, father of nanotechnology, the Buckey Ball). When I met my husband, just finishing his post-doc for Smalley, he was skin and bones, maybe 155 lb. dripping wet at 6'4" tall, possibly less than that. He had always been naturally thin, but I don't think that thin. He gained weight after we married, though he tends to get up to 200 lb. over the summer, to lose 20 lb. while teaching because of the stress & constant standing with little time to eat (just 1 30 minute lunch).

My moods are a tangle of depression, anxiety, anger, resentment, panic, probably more if I thought it out. I'm so discouraged I really wish I were no longer here (not going to hurt myself, don't worry). My husband doesn't believe in my taking meds, but I think without them, I'd be even a worse trainwreck than I am now. At lease, I sleep on the Seroquel. Otherwise, I'd be up all night with insomnia.

My husband begged me to please be in a better mood (than yesterday) when he comes home today and not in any disagreements with our daughter (fingers crossed on that one). I am trying to pull myself together, took the low dose Seroquel that is supposed to help with long panic attacks, which you had better believe I am having. Yesterday, it made me sleep, but I did lie down after taking it.

I've got to get it together by the time I pick my daughter up from school (3:45). Shortly after we get home, my husband gets home. I have to cook tonight, and I just don't have the energy, but I have to do it, we can't afford to eat out.

I don't think I have eaten a thing today, and it's not from the eating disorder; it's from the constant anxiety. I am going to try to get at least a banana and some yogurt down before I have to get my daughter, maybe read a lot, try to get my mind off things.

I feel like instead of wasting time not getting any help, I'd have been better off watching TV or sleeping this morning. My life really suck

I am sorry life is so difficult right now.

(((((( cln and family ))))))

Thinking of you.


WC

I am so sorry to see you go through this terrible time. I think I can understand some of what you are feeling. You need someone to throw you a life preserver. Keep working at it like no other thing matters. Try to pay attention to what you are doing instead of how it is making you feel. You need to believe in yourself, and understand that no matter what happens, you and your husband will manage to make sure your family will be OK. There is always hope in a situation such as yours. It will no doubt work out for you one way or another. It is just scary not knowing what this will mean. I hope the following will give you some ideas.

You were not always as good at running as you are now. Haven’t you found yourself miles from home, very tired, wondering how you were going to make it back home? Perhaps you even needed to go up one or more steep hills to get there? Anyway, something like this has happened to me not too long ago. I decided to run not paying attention to the time and the distance that I had to cover. I stopped counting my steps and stopped frequently looking up to see how close I am getting to the next light. I wanted to stop running, being in the process of convincing myself that I cannot run any further, allowing myself to experience the increasing effort of every step that I took, wanting to stop at any time.

My solution was to look down and to continue running, and I took some satisfaction in watching the ground go by me. I worked on not thinking of every little step that I was taking, and instead visualize the goal I have to get to believing it was not only possible, but it will happen. I then stopped thinking about it and kept moving forward knowing where I will end up. It was just a matter of time. I realize that was playing with myself psychologically. I believe this is the kind of thing competitive runner do. Once I realized I had no other choice but to think this way, it became easier for me to do.

Can you relate to this at all? I am sure you do. I know this is not really the same, but you cannot afford to let yourself become less functional in your pursuit of a solution. I do not know how old your daughter is. Maybe the first goal is to get your daughter off to school. Take the time to truly enjoy being with her. Children can be small packages of joy if we let them be that way to us. Take each time to fix her hair in different ways. Have different colored ribbons to use in her hair each day. Make this a big deal to her. Focus strictly on her during this time, making sure she leaves home with a smile on her face, wondering what adventure she has in store for herself that day. Next focus on yourself. For instance, eat something.

When your family has gone, work on a list of things to do, options to pursue to financially get through the next month. You can discuss this with your husband the night before. You are not alone in this. This is what you need to understand. I am sure you are already doing this part. However, consider that there are more possibilities than you can be aware of. It is not understanding what you do not know, but acknowledging there are things that you do not know that you do not know. This can help you understand there are other possibilities out there for you to discover. This is where you need to be creative here.

One idea is to connect with others that are in a similar situation that you are in. The question is where would you find them? As a full time caregiver, I joined a list of caregivers that help each other survive their care of their loved one. I was given allot of ideas by them which they found to work for themselves, and we helped to emotionally support each other in our sometimes dire situations. Caregiver depression is not uncommon.

I have discovered that there are people called “advocates”, who are essentially social workers that are committed to helping familys in need such as yours. They understand that children are involved. They have already helped many other familys like yours in similar situations. They know what you need and what they can do about it. They know about all the services available, private and public. They know who to go to to get you more help. My ex girlfriend and my then new family went to one for a medical problem with her son that we could not afford. This was not a problem that the ER would help us with.

I think the first priority is to make sure there is food to eat and a roof over your heads. Find cheap food. Dollar stores may have something. Where do the neighborhoods of poorer people go for their food? There is a poor Mexican population here in Tucson. There are grocery stores for them that provide more affordable food. Besides, how expensive will it be to place chicken that was cooked by boiling into a flour tortilla with beans in the form of a burrito? Add potatoes to this. Hot or mild sauce anyone? Cooking rice using some tomatoe sauce can be tastey. My ex girlfriend used to do this. Mexican cooking can be very easy and inexpensive to make. It is not worth the cost of purchasing bread when rice and potatoes can do.

It will probably take time for the bank to evict you from your house. I do not think the bank will not want to go through this effort and expense when they do not need to, and they can be convinced otherwise. Find someone to negotiate with the bank in an attempt to temporarily reduce your monthly payments. I think this is possible. A credit counselor can help in this regard. I think next would be your electric bill. Maybe rent a room out for money to help you pay your utility bills? Yes, I do not like this option at all either. But you need to do whatever you need to do to survive. Rent it out with the intention of this being a temporary arrangement.

Do you have anything to sell like an additional bed or coffee table that you do not need or use, a doll collection, a box of tools, file cabinets, or anything that anyone would find worthwhile no matter how worthless it may appear to you? We both know that you can use CraigsList. Some here in Tucson go to the weekly swap meet to sell this kind of stuff. Also there are those bartering type of ads where people are looking for trades.

Thanks for the ideas and throwing some things out there. No, we really do not have anything of much value to sell for collateral. Even my engagement ring was something like $300. We have 2 computers, but between my husband, my daughter, and me we need them both. Same with our cars; they are old too—a 1995 Jeep Cherokee and a 2007 Subaru Forester. I guess some toys of my daughter’s, a couple family jewelry heirlooms passed down from my husband’s grandparents, but we really don’t want to sell the heirlooms, and they are not worth that much anyway (except sentimental value). I do have books I could sell on eBay, but the state I am in now, it would be too much to deal with. And that wouldn’t bring in much as most are paperbacks. I can’t handle day to day very well right now.

A lady did call me this afternoon after I finally emailed the school counselor for some ideas, and she can help me with maybe finding a pdoc for emergencies (though I don’t need that) or a less expensive one come January; mine will suffice for now. I have his cell phone number and an appointment on Monday. I couldn’t talk to her long because I needed to leave to pick my daughter up from school. She sounded as if maybe she could get someone or be an advocate for us, but I am not holding out hope unless it happens. She is supposed to call back tomorrow. We’ll see.

My eyes are tired from crying so much told, and the low dose Seroquel stopped the worst of the panic attack but made me sleepy. I hope my husband had a decent day today. Things feel 100% harder when he is down and depressed. No idea how I am going to cook tonight. I feel like I’ve been run over by a giant truck.

Sigh. Even simple tasks are hard these days. I tried to put contact lens cleaner on my toothbrush when I was getting ready in the morning, and things just got worse from there.

Maybe this lady can help. I hope so, but I’m not holding my breath until it happens.

You actually read through that multi chapter book that I posted above? I hope it took you mind off of your situation even though for only a couple moments. I do really feel for you and your situation. Let me blather on a bit here.

I do not think it is a good idea to sell items that have allot of sentimental value to you. As you know, they can bring you allot of satisfaction and comfort in the future, if they are already not doing this for you now. Like your wedding ring. Once they are sold, they are gone forever. This would be not good at all. Irreplaceable. As far as this pertains to me, I think in the end when I am very old as I sit there in front of my TV in my one room Section 8 apartment, all I will have left of value are memories, and better yet, the people I can find to share them with. I think this is called wistful thinking. Perhaps with a little self-pity thrown in. Fortunately you will have your husband to share your memories with. You will get there. You and your family will survive to live a much better life.

Anyway, my next post will be on topic.

PS Do you use running shoes or sneakers for running?

Technically, I think they were advertised as running shoes on Amazon. Love them. Bought them over a year ago, maybe even 2 or 3 years because of the good reviews they got. I am going to have to replace the shoelaces soon. I think hubby has a pair of laces somewhere, but I am not sure if they are for sneakers or his work shoes. I don’t think men’s work shoelaces would work for running. I guess if the laces give out, I’ll go to they dollar store. Looks like the brand on my running shoes is Ravenna? Never heard of it before seeing all the good reviews on Amazon. They are not just my running shoes but also the shoes I wear when I know I will be outside or walking a lot - zoo, museums,etc. I will be sad when they give out. I am actually a bit surprised by how many miles these shoes have gone. Before that though, I used ASICS, and they were usually pretty good.

Do you think maybe you need to go IP ?

The reason I bring it up is each thread you post is more desperate ( understandable) than the last. Going in circles.

Going IP likely will get you hooked up with some actual help for your situation. Help with bills and food. social case workers knows the ins and out.

Just a thought.

In addition to mental illness, I have a few fatiguing illnesses along with chronic pain. I have learned to make meals very easy, especially nights I am wiped out. Just a few ideas: sandwiches, hot dogs and beans, Lean Cuisine meals, etc. Look around in the frozen food section for some easy ideas.

When I am struggling, I will also use a crockpot, starting dinner in the AM, letting the crockpot cook all day long. I also will sometimes cook a full meal in the morning, before I tire out, and will re-heat it at dinner time; this way I can cook and clean up in the morning.

If I am very ill and can not attend to dinner, DH will help out. (He works, too.)

Just a couple of ideas to help out when you are exhausted by dinner time.


WC

Yes, if it were just me or my husband and me, I’d go IP. I think I probably need it (or maybe it’s about 80/20), but we cannot afford to do it. I am seeing my pdoc Monday morning; I will let him know about my mood plummeting. And I have the cell number of the phone he keeps for urgent matters that are not 911 but still very pressing.

We can’t do it with my daughter though. Hubby has to leave for work before she even gets up. We did use a good church based childcare here when I attempted my last failed job. Even if they discounted the childcare (which they will in times of hardship), the earliest they open is 6:30 AM, and my husband has to leave for work around 6:15 AM. My daughter definitely will not get herself up in the morning, and it is such a struggle to wake her, that would just be another burden on my husband’s plate. He already told me he is going to have to work into the evening or night tomorrow to deal with all the stuff the school has dumped on him this week,pack double lunches for him. They gave him 2 preps- physics AP 1 (which are the go-getters, hoping to take the physics 1 AP test at years’ end and get university credit for physics 1 (this will be his first year teaching AP, but among the teachers, it’s seen as a reflection of good work, a bit of an honor to teach AP). Then, the second prep they gave him is physics si-op, largely composed of ESL students (he speaks no Spanish), but he taught Si-Op physics 2 years in a row. So he has the go getters and then the kids he says need gentle encouragement, a bit of babying, much prodding along the way, many of them working 2 part time jobs to help their families get by, who are exhausted and could care less about physics. And 2 preps is always harder, but he said the admin could have made it easier on him by giving him the AP class for half his classes and plain regular physics for the rest. But the admin at his school is very inconsiderate of teachers. He is also part owner of a nanotechnology company in India; the CEO read my husband’s Ph.D. thesis on making carbon nanotubes and wanted to build a nanotube reactor based off my husband’s design (which his boss patented, giving him no credit), but minor changes could be made, and they accidentally used a different material for some part of the process because that was all they could afford (husband’s graduate advisor was Rick Smalley, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the Buckey Ball, money was no issue for him), but that actually made the nanotubes much more pure than any currently on the market. They consult my husband regularly on problems they have or if he thinks aa idea will or will not work out and why. It does not make any money to pay us yet, unfortunately, but the company is getting very good press in India and even won an award for a startup company from DOW Chemical. It is very likely that within the next 2-5 yr, he will travel to India to be on site for awhile, at which point, he is optimistic the company will be able to pay him a salary. I really think he needs to tell them he needs payment for all the hours he spends researching, thinking, and consulting (because this is very complex stuff; it’s hard thinking, and a wrong decision could cause an explosion or horrific accident, killing or injuring one person up to everyone on site), even if he does hold a decent share of stock in the company.

None of that helps us now though.

Is there any chance you could work a part time job that would not interfere with your morning getting your daughter ready for school? You are in a difficult spot and I hope you find a way out of your difficulties soon.

Right now, no. Not the way I've been doing lately. I had a huge meltdown today. I've been having long panic attacks all week. Right now, I can barely be a mom, and I think that is why my husband is so easy on my daughter, to overcompensate for my mental illness. Though I sometimes feel he goes easy on her or takes her side just because he thinks I don't make good parenting decisions because I have a mental illness. I mean, I just can't be wrong about every single thing, every single time?

I do think my daughter deserves a much better mother than I am, one who can engage with her more. When she was younger, I couldn't take the repetition of toddler & preschool games while my husband could or could at least be creative with them. Now that she's older, she's become very interested in computer programming, something my husband is an expert at, and I don't understand a thing. She has this online game she's been playing too, several years now, but I never got in early & don't understand the rules. My daughter plays it on my husband's computer, and really, the way our house is set up (lots of small rooms), only 2 people can sit behind his computer at the same time and see what's going on. Lately, she's taken an interest in games my husband plays on his tablet like Minecraft and others, which I definitely don't understand. So she bonds more with him.

If I have the energy to take her out, we can't do anything outdoors for at least a month or more. Maybe a night hike at a nearby nature bayou, but you have to pay for that, so probably not. She sometimes wants to paint her nails, but it's a take it or leave it type thing with her. She doesn't want to help cook or bake because she is paranoid of knives, raw eggs, and raw meat, as if those things will jump out and kill her. She is the same with razors, and she will need to shave her legs soon, not sure what we'll do about that. I don't like baking or cooking much anyway unless I'm hypomanic and suddenly have all these plans for meals I want to cook or desserts I want to bake. Maybe she'd watch a more girly movie with me (if we checked it out of the library), but I don't know. Sometimes she will watch a movie sometimes not. I want to go to bed early; she wants to stay up late. Then, I'm frustrated, but I'll go in there to wake her up in the morning only to find she's fallen asleep working problems from an old math workbook the school sent home at the end of the schoolyear or doing Brainquest problems from a book my mother bought her. She does like to read, and I do too, but it's hard to turn reading into a bonding moment. I don't know. It's not always easy for me to connect with people, which is probably why I only made one good friend ever (my best friend from college), other than my husband, and lately, he's under so much stress, he is not much of a support system for me right now.

At least, I can go to bed soon. I've had it with this day.

I’m surprised you can write so well and long being so overly stressed.

When I stress I am lucky to write a few sentences lol

You write really well ! Do you have a blog ? If not you should

Hang in there. Sleep is good. What about puzzle magazines? I liked those when I was young. I purchased a medium level word find puzzle magazine for my at the time girlfriend. I wanted her to start becoming familiar with how English words look in print. She did not understand much English. She had limited edjucation in Mexico. She had that whole magazine quickly done. Maybe share a puzzle magazine with your daughter? There are different types out there, with some that an be very challenging. You both can go shopping for one together. It does seem like your daughter is pretty intelligent.

PS ASICS have been purchased!

I really wanted to major in English in college, but my dad pushed me to major in science, so I got a B.S. in microbiology. I actually really love direct microbiology and the labs that go with it, but I do not like running gels, most especially PCR gels, as I spent all of grad school running SDS-PAGE protein gels (they are very thin gels that run vertically and very slowly, sometimes even overnight for large gels), but most hiring places, besides being in downtown Houston (a place that gives me panic attacks to drive to), want PCR gel, which I am not good at running. I love reading. I placed in several regional contests for different types of writing: editorial, persuasive, short fiction, descriptive. Sometimes the school librarian (got to know me very well) wanted to read my assigned papers for school; I didn't mind the second opinion, and over 4 years, I got very familiar with her. She told me several of my English papers were outstanding and could hardly believe I wrote them myself. It was the 1990s (graduated school valedictorian 1996), so plagiarism off the internet was a rare thing as many people and schools did not yet have internet. I was give the top English student award every year through high school, but I got top biology, chemistry, and physics as well.

I wrote short stories as a hobby while in middle and high schools, but seem to have lost all my creativity on meds. I used to be a very good artist too (only in pencil & charcoal though, not color) but good with drawing from an image, especially faces. That creativity is lost too.

Honestly, I'm confused by some of your posts. If you're losing your house it seems like waiting until your husband gets a job that pays what he's worth is not the top priority for your family. In fact, if he were under-employed your family might qualify for government aid, rather than (for example) paying a lot for medical services. It seems to me that it's better to compromise and give up some things than not to compromise and lose everything.
Do you see a therapist?

I was thinking that maybe if you started working an a part time easy job that got you out of the house whilst your daughter is in school, that might (a) give you a little more money to spend and (b) help transition to a 'bigger' job.

Do you have enough in the house to be able to get a 'second mortgage'. I found this quite helpful in paying my son's way through college. Now i have some debt but only pay a few percent interest on it. This could help you through your dry spell while you wait for your husband's opportunities to come to fruition.

Can your husband pick up hours as an adjunct at a local college or university? I know that wont help now but it might help later. Is this your first month late? If it is can you put what you can scrap together then pay the rest as you have it? Can your husband work a 3-11 job also just for now? Is your husband applying to things all around the country or just in your local area?

I don't think he could pick up anything just right now. This was his first week for the students to be back at school, and the school admin is a mess at his school. They got a new assistant principal over my husband's department (that's the person in charge of his teacher evaluations later in the year), and they had to hire him spur-of-the-moment because the old one just sent the principal an email saying he quit. They didn't even have him there last week (teacher training and prep) until Thursday or something because the school board had to vote and approve him. He has tons of new demands on the department, some of them very ridiculous from a teacher's viewpoint. I think he talk history before, and they made him AP of the science department. Science is so different from history, especially when you consider they need to do labs in science. My husband tells me no one in the physics department is happy. His school principal (her 3rd year now) is a complete mess. Last year, she got over the loudspeaker yelling at all the kids about the fighting, but my husband said he could tell it really wasn't about the number of fights; it was about the fights students recorded on their cell phones and posted to YouTube, making the school look bad. She had a freakout over all the loudspeakers about posting school fights to YouTube. My husband says if she does anything similar again, he is ready, going to record the audio and send it to my brother-in-law's aunt (an assistant superintendent for the district.)

The adjunct positions pay next to nothing for the amount of work you have to do, and he can't take a 3-11 job; he is required to stay at his school until 3:30 on the days he has tutoring.

We are not late yet but may soon be. I have heard it is best to prioritize the mortgage as number 1 and then go from there. Yes, he has been looking countrywide for jobs since my daughter's last day of kindergarten (when he lost his last really good paying job). He has not gotten a single phone call about a job he applied for, let alone an interview, has had multiple people look over his resumes, written different resumes and cover letters to fit different jobs, gotten free profession advise on them and nothing. For all he knows, the computer weeds out his application before it even gets as far at HR. It is very discouraging. He was on unemployment, but we had savings then, and his mother helped us out financially a lot; she passed away in late December (she'd been on hospice at home, getting sicker & sicker though she still had her mind; I knew when we left her Aug. 2017 after visiting, my daughter & I would never see her alive again). We didn't count on her just passing away shortly after my husband's plane landed at LAX, on the ride to his parents' house, so he never saw her alive again either. I had told him, nearly begged him to go out there, spend Christmas Eve/Christmas with his parents, but he wanted to be here with us, and she passed Dec. 28. As late as Christmas Day, she was able to write little notes. She had a bad breathing condition, not COPD, similar though, couldn't get enough air to speak the last month of her life or so and communicated mostly through writing notes.

It seems as tho your just in a bind financially and your just waiting to find help, which sucks , I say pay as much as you can towards your mortgage and then catch up in the coming months. Maybe you can find a simple part time job that would at least pay for food?

How are things with your daughter ? Any better ?

Have you been able to cook meals ?

I get your ED , I deal with it and it’s understandable that your trying to cope with that. But please eat even if you have no appetite , your family needs you to care for yourself so you can be there for them.

Take care