[Rose76]

I hate to start another thread, but I'm not doing good at all. I get episodes or intervals of depression. In between those times of feeling bad, I feel pretty good. Often I feel fine. This evening I've been in an awful way.

I was pulling out of my last episode by cleaning my place up. It gets pretty messy when I'm depressed. I was making progress and the kitchen was starting to look better. Then a pipe under the sink developed a big hole and there was water all over the floor and in the cabinet under the sink.

I pulled a ton of cleaning supplies out from that cabinet and wiped up all the water. My landlord put in new piping. Now I have to put back all the stuff and clean the floor and finish straightening the kitchen. Then I got the messy living room to tidy up and clean.

I did nothing today. For hours this evening I've been a wreck mentally, breaking down crying, feeling awful sorrow. I recently dreamt of my boyfriend who died. This evening, I felt awful grief over losing him. I haven't felt such grief, since after he died 3 years ago. I remembered something nice he did for me, and I got to missing him so bad that I wished I could die.

My trip to visit family recently didn't go how I hoped. It's like I lost everyone that I thought cared for me.

@I rarely feel really suicidal, but earlier I did. Like I have no warmth left in my life.;

If I can just clean up the kitchen, I think I can get myself better gradually. I couldn't make myself before. I will try now. Also I have to go do things and get out of the house. I'm staying alone way too much with no contact with anyone. If I don't gain some ground soon, I'm afraid I'll be unable to. Any encouragement helps me.

[Yaowen]

You suffered and suffer greatly and carry a crushingly heavy burden. Sometimes the most admirable and heroic people in the world are people like you. It is so sad that the only heroes who are celebrated are the ones who do once in a lifetime feats of courage.

You are definitely someone I greatly admire. Having been crushed by burdens before in my own life, I can definitely identify with you. You transcend the misfortunes that oppress you and I only wish I knew what to say that would help you. Hopefully others here will have better words than my poor words.

Your post helps me and will help so many others cope with the terrible burdens they bear. That is a priceless gift to us.

My heart really goes out to you.

[Discombobulated]

Rose I’m so sorry you had a setback and I wish I could come over and help sort out the mess in the kitchen with you, sometimes it’s the straw breaking the camels back and you could’ve done without a burst pipe when you had just tidied up. Hugs.

[Rose76]

Originally Posted by Yaowen

You suffered and suffer greatly and carry a crushingly heavy burden. Sometimes the most admirable and heroic people in the world are people like you. It is so sad that the only heroes who are celebrated are the ones who do once in a lifetime feats of courage.

You are definitely someone I greatly admire. Having been crushed by burdens before in my own life, I can definitely identify with you. You transcend the misfortunes that oppress you and I only wish I knew what to say that would help you. Hopefully others here will have better words than my poor words.

Your post helps me and will help so many others cope with the terrible burdens they bear. That is a priceless gift to us.

My heart really goes out to you.

Well, d@mπ, that's saying quite a lot. You've just changed my morning. I was about to see if I could delete my post because I was so sure it sounded like a bunch of whining garbage.

You are most generous. Thank you. To be spoken to and about in the way you've just done, right when it feels like I'm on a ledge ready to fall off, is such an amazing gift.

I can only try and imagine what crucible of experience formed your capacity for empathy. I'm greatful that you survived it.

Now if I can just keep on keeping on a little further. I'm in a tunnel, but my tunnels always have openings at both ends.

[Rose76]

Originally Posted by Discombobulated

Rose I’m so sorry you had a setback and I wish I could come over and help sort out the mess in the kitchen with you, sometimes it’s the straw breaking the camels back and you could’ve done without a burst pipe when you had just tidied up. Hugs.

Thank you for understanding so well. With the awful, tragic things that some people have had happen to them, as we know happen every day to someone somewhere, it touches me greatly that anyone could read about my burst pipe and say anything more than, "You'll live!" I hope I'll remember to have that much humanity toward those I meet who have their cart go off the rails over a twig or pebble that disrupts a wheel.

[Rose76]

Well I made a decent lunch. Then I did the "15 minute timer approach" to tackling something one hates to face. I made headway. So I did another 15 minutes. My kitchen is the most stupidly designed kitchen ever. It's not a galley kitchen. But it's barely more than that. It's supposed to be an "eat in" kitchen, but what a hunt I undertook to find a kitchen table small enough to fit. The apartment is in a small building built in the 60s. No dishwasher. No dining area outside of the kitchen. Very, very little closet space or storage anywhere in the apartment. The livingroom is ridiculously big for a one bedroom apt. The bedroom is decent size. It was a lot of square feet for the money, but the space is distributed crazily. The bathroom is stupid-small. (It's bigger than an airplane bathroom. That's about the best I can say for it.) To try to make this place homey took a lot of shopping for furniture that would fit and provide storage space. I use the space under my bed as my pantry for a lot of canned/bottled/packaged goods. In the kitchen, I use a small bookcase to store pots and pans. The kitchen floor is an ugly, old linoleum from the 80s - avocado green - that I hide under accessory rugs, as best I can. I manage to arrange everything to create a pleasing effect that I'm happy with. But the water leak meant pulling the kitchen apart and displacing everything in this cramped, narrow, rectangular room. It looked so ugly! My arthritic back makes it hard to cope with floor-level cabinets. But I started, and now I know I can put the place back how I had it when all was neat. I have a bunch of small rugs and towels that got all wet. They're drying on the patio. A trip to the laundromat will render that stuff all clean and nice. (The spill was clean water.) It could have been worse. I tend to hang on to stuff I haven't used in years. I've thrown some of that stuff away, so those cabinets won't be so crammed full of things.

I'll go work some more on it, in a bit. Not too long ago, the ancient water heater in the kitchen leaked and had to be replaced. That took a few days, during which my kitchen was upside down to make room for the plumbers.

I don't think anything else bad is likely to happen in my kitchen for a while. I'm kind of OCD about how things are arranged. Having things all pulled apart stresses me out beyond reason.

I'll do some more work now. I just tell myself - everything is fixable.

@Discombobulated - thank you for wanting to help me. An acquaintance of mine also offered to help me. But she has major problems, like being on the verge of homelessness because of some very bad decisions. I'm afraid to have her come over because she might not want to leave. Knowing her plight makes me glad I have a place to call home, old and funky though it may be.

Thank you for listening. I just get so down at times. Kind words help me so much.

[Rose76]

@Yaowen and @Discombobulated

Thank you again for your posts yesterday. Encouragement has a powerful effect on me. I am ok today and getting things done. My kitchen is almost back to normal. I was so afraid of getting sucked down in a depressive vortex. But having somewhere to go and talk about my stress and finding members kind enough to listen is so helpful. Hope you're doing alright yourselves.