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regular-lord-reckoner · 1 month

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just need to rant a little about something, it's nothing serious just annoying

so, i've mentioned on here before that we've been helping out a family friend of ours here lately (i'll call him C and his wife R to make it easier) and that's been okay for the most part, but here lately there's something that's really been bugging me. a few things, actually.

i think i've explained this before but in case i haven't, they purchased a camper a while back and decided to move down to this area to be closer to some of their family and for a while they were staying at an actual campground and all was going well

as my dad started to get sicker, however, they offered to come bring their camper onto our property so that they'd be able to be right there if any of us, especially my dad, needed anything (it also just so happened that C had gotten into some kind of serious disagreement with the owner of said campground so they probably needed to move anyway but it was supposedly going to be all for our benefit)

which like hey, that's really thoughtful, thank you and so we agreed. however, in the process of making that all happen, it ended up taking them so long (not really sure why, but i'm sure there was a reason) to actually get here that my dad was already well on his way out

this meant that before hospice came in it was just me and my mom taking care of him, which was fine because as it turned out anyway by the time C was here to help me during the day that my dad didn't want him to see him like that so he really pulled all his strength to be as normal and lively as possible around him and then collapsed and spent the whole next day in bed

but hey, that's not his fault, it just is what it is, i guess my point is just...they never really ended up helping us with that, it honestly made things harder for us, but we still appreciated the gesture and we appreciated them just being here.

and since then sure, they've done a few things for us here and there. C especially has taken on the duty of hauling off the trash and here lately now that the grass is growing back he's been mowing that, so like okay, thank you but y'know, that's....stuff my mom and i could do.

it's also not like we don't have anyone else we could ask, my mom knows a fuck ton of people so it's not like, "well gosh, if you guys weren't here nothing would ever get done!!" because it would. we managed this long and my dad was sick for a long time before he actually passed so a lot of his responsibilities around the house had already fallen to us anyway so....there's that.

and i know this is starting to sound really snotty and i promise just...hang in here with me, okay?

because here's another thing: they have not paid rent the entire time they've been here. it's been eight going on nine months and my mom hasn't asked them for that.

she did, after six months, ask for some help with the utilities but even then i know she's undercharging them and still taking on most of the burden herself. (also at one point when our electric bill was crazy high and it turns out yeah, a lot of that was the shit with the ac unit but also they also admitted they'd been leaving a space heater running all day long in their camper while they were at work.........i dunno if you know this, but space heaters run up power bills like crazy and the only reason i'm mentioning this is like...C's work schedule now means he gets home before R and i'd notice whenever he got home he'd leave the camper door open for a bit....almost like it was too hot in there. and mind you, he often comes home and immediately starts doing some shit outside so....why couldn't you just come home, turn on the heater, dick around outside and by the time R got home it should be nice and warm and not too suffocating in there? but...not my business, i guess and i guess form their end when they weren't paying for the power who cares how much you run it up, right?)

my mom's also taken some the stuff around the place C has worked on into consideration and will take off from whatever utilities are owed because she figures that's fair

but on that note, we're both starting to get a little....mmm, pissed.

because my dad paid C $3,000 to do some specific repairs to one of the storage buildings he has and in eight month C hasn't once even started on it, nor has he given us any reason why he hasn't.

instead, he's been taking it upon himself to do all these little projects around the place that we didn't ask him to do, don't like the result of and that are supposedly solving problems that we've been managing just fine for almost 20 years now and acting as if he's doing us some great big favor and it's starting to feel almost patronizing like, "oh, you silly people just don't know how to manage this place, here, let me show you!!"

like at one point he poured a bunch of gravel and widened out part of the driveway and said something about it would be easier for vehicles to get around but like....i cannot emphasize to you enough how much that didn't need to be done and i even said something along those lines when he was showing it to me like, "Oh well, we've made it work for this long but thanks, I guess".

turns out, though, around that time he was talking to my mom about possibly moving their camper into our backyard for whatever god forsaken reason and so i'm thinking that's really why he did it, so it would be easier for THEM, not us but hey, if you say you're doing someone a favor you can just do whatever the fuck you want to their property, right? even if it's actually just for you??

okay, so there's that and now he's also doing god knows what at the end of our driveway where supposedly the gravel keeps getting washed away and sure, every few years or so my parents would go and get a bunch of gravel for the road (not just our part, but for all the neighbors) and would get out there and spread it all out and yeah it's probably not ideal but a lot of the reason why is because after a certain amount of time and cars going up and down a gravel road it....causes the gravel to move. wild ass concept, but it is what it is

now he's dug up a bunch of shit to create some kind of trench system or something because he says it's the rain that keeps washing the gravel away and this will stop it (mind you were were also in a drought for several months and the gravel still got fucked up but...okay!!) but now it just...it looks like shit, my mom said she can already tell it's going to make it harder to mow down there and he's also put a bunch of rocks up down there that have narrowed the entrance which i know has to be pissing off any ups or fed ex or anyone else who comes out here because i'm having trouble turning my car into it so i know they have to be as well

and here again.........we did not ask him to do this. we did not pay him to do this. he's doing this of his own volition and i get it it's supposed to "help" us and solve a problem, but i think it's actually just creating more than what the solution would ultimately be

that's been the case for a few things he's done around here that my mom and i already know as soon as they're gone we're going to have to undo

and here again....there's one project in specific you've already been paid a chunk of money to do and you're just...doing everything else but that

from my end of it as well (and i realize this is probably incredibly petty, but oh well) it's just....driving me insane anymore because so seriously whenever he gets home in the evenings now there's always some project he's out there working on and he'll be out there all fucking evening long until the sun goes down

which not only means that now i can't just go out into my own fucking yard whenever i want to without getting roped into a conversation i don't want (because every time i see one of them it's at LEAST 30 minutes of time in my day i don't have to stop and talk about their problems and he always wants to know what i'm talking about in therapy which just feels weird to me?? like he's started going to his own now and i guess he was trying to get me to just...share my therapy with him but like, bud, it doesn't work like that also i really don't have the bandwith to play therapist by proxy to anyone right now so like ????), but it's made taking the dog outside to go to the bathroom an absolute nightmare

because C and R also have a dog and so naturally any time C is out there so is their dog and whenever our dog sees him he goes nuts and wants to play and wrestle with him and all of that and initially it was like, "awww, that's cute, they're friends!" but now it's just a headache

i tried to open the door just a sliver the other day so i could get something off the front porch and our dog saw their dog out in the yard and so he zoomed past me and then it was five minutes of, "hey you two, stop play fighting! i need to get back to work, please come back inside!"

i actually had a meltdown the other day because of this.

it was one of those days where i ended up doing more chores than work and so by the time i was finally able to sit down and actually get something done it was right as C got home and decided to mow the yard which fine, whatever, but like...he had his dog out there with him who was so upset by the sound of the mower that he just stood right next to our house and barked and barked and barked and barked and barked which means our dog started to bark and bark and bark and bark and bark

and i realize the gracious and kind thing to do probably would have been to just let their dog come inside so he could at least stop barking his head off but once again i knew it would be a lot of "hey, hey, hey boys settle down! hey quit that! please just lie down here next to me while i work, please!?" and i just...couldn't

i took our dog upstairs where he at least wasn't right at the window going ballistic and that calmed him down some but i was just over it by that point

another one of his projects that he's also always out there working on now is this truck he bought, because that's another thing: we were letting him drive my dad's truck for a good while there (like over a year i think?)

my dad obviously wasn't using it and C was in a spot where he needed once because while they were at the campground a tree fell on his truck and damaged it beyond repair so hey, no problem.

once again, here's something we didn't ask for anything in return and you can just use it, all we ask is to please be careful with it because we have a lot of memories attached to it with my dad and he really loved it

well, at some point (mind you after it's been over a year) my mom let him know she would eventually like to have the truck back, especially so she can do things like haul mulch for her garden or get gravel for the road, etc. but there was no pressure, no "you have to do this right now!!!" type of thing and it was only after he'd driven the truck for a long, long ass time did she ask him to pay some of the insurance for it.

okay, so he goes out and gets himself a used truck but it's....in really bad shape. like i don't know fuck all much about vehicles but i can tell you just from the look of it and how its leaked oil all over the place that it's in bad shape but...alright. it's a fixer upper, i guess and he swears he can fix it so it's fine

except for the first few months he continued to just drive my dad's truck while he worked on that one. not....really what we had in mind and he's clearly banged the front of it into something because the front plate has a crack in it so that's....neat.

but still, we haven't really said anything, my mom just keeps dropping gentle hints about hoping to be able to use the truck for different things (mind you, too, we have to ask him for the key so it's not like we can just take it whenever we want.....even though it's ours)

but okay fine, you're fixing up the new old truck, whatever but then every time he gets one thing fixed something else breaks and then he's right back to using my dad's truck and i just....am not really sure why this was the solution

and i know what you're thinking, "geez, anna, you overly privileged bitch, not everyone can afford nice things!" but here again...we haven't been charging them rent for several months now, he has a good paying job, they're both working and when i explain some more shit in a little bit i hope it'll be a little more clear as to why this is puzzling me

here again, though, it's not my money, it's not really my business, we're just trying to step up and offer whatever assistance we can and i guess if he needs to be out there every single day just....tearing up our yard and fixing his broken ass truck until the sun goes down we'll just....deal with it

my mom really wanted to get out in her garden today and just be left in peace to do that because it's good for her mental health, but he was out there fucking around all day and she also didn't feel up to having a long ass conversation about what new terrible project he's up to out there so she just stayed inside and watched TV.

but speaking of vehicles....so, i mentioned that a little while back around Christmas that R got into a car accident and it ended up totaling her car (this was after C bought his truck, btw) and so we were all just happy she and everyone else involved were okay

obviously she was going to be without a car for a minute so we offered her multiple solutions: for one, she and my mom work at the same place now so my mom offered to drive her to and from work every day which would have also saved on gas, but she said no to that which okay, fair, i get it, i like having the independence of my own vehicle and not having to rely on someone else, especially if you wanted to leaver earlier or stop on your way, so that's fine

but at this point we now had a whole ass extra vehicle that's just...sitting there and no one drives which to me seemed like the obvious solution, right? but she also said no to that because it wouldn't be as comfortable because it's a truck (mind you, this woman used to drive a school bus, so it's not like she's intimidated by the size, she just...didn't want that vehicle lol) but so....okay

i offered her my car. i don't ever really go anywhere except to the grocery store, the pharmacy and therapy and it's not an every day thing for any of those so i was like, "hey, you can just take mine if you want" and that idea she did like!!

in fact, she liked my car so much she....pretty much just took it over for a few months which meant every time i needed it for something i had to ask for my key back and whenever i did ask there was always...something

"oh, well, how long is that going to take because we were going to go do blah blah blah...." like...??? then take my dad's fucking truck!! (i should mention that this isn't the one C was still using off and on, he had a different one that he was driving while C was driving his old one full time and so it's literally just been a whole ass bonus vehicle that neither my mom or i are as attached to as the old one that he used far more, but C won't drive this newer one for whatever reason and R didn't find it to her satisfaction so...fine) but i just worked it out around their schedule even though one of the things was "oh, well we were going to take your car to go get the oil changed and wash it!!"

they've been promising me that since december and it's almost april now and guess what still hasn't gotten done?

which hey, no worries, i am perfectly capable of going to get my oil changed and washing my car, i've been doing it for over a decade now, but like....are you going to do me the favor or not because as soon as i get the extra cash i'm just...going to go do it myself and really don't need to be jerked around here being promised every weekend that it'll happen and then it just doesn't

this also again started to become this thing of like, "oh anna, what would you do without us, you don't even know how to properly take care of your own car!!!" because they keep telling me i need my oil changed....which i know, but then they also say they'll do it but never do so like.... and then i noticed every time i would get in my car the heat was always cranked all the way up to 80 and at full blast and R was putting shower caps on my side mirrors because didn't i know that would help them from getting frosted and gosh, my car is just so hard to defrost!! but like.....hey um, y'know that AC button, the one that's always turned off whenever i get in my car? yeah, that doesn't just do cool air, y'all, it's what helps the defrost work if you'd just...turn it on.....maybe you wouldn't have to do all of that and crank it all the way up, i mean...gosh, i've only been driving the fucker for a few years now but what do i know!!!! because any time i tried to ever say anything, i was just wrong!!!

that's something R does to my mom constantly, is just tell her that she's wrong about everything because R saw something online somewhere or someone told her something and so my mom's just wrong and we're both idiots i guess (except i also seem to remember R not wanting to get vaccinated when Covid first hit because she thought the vaccine was of the devil, but y'know...it's me and my mom who don't know shit about shit, i guess!!)

but so at some point i guess me asking one too many times for my key back so i could go to therapy or whatever i guess pissed R off because she decided (without asking my mom, just told her one day) that she would just carpool with her for a while

and i know it's me and i know i'm probably one of the biggest bitches on the planet, but i swear to god i was so nice about this whole thing and really tried to not ask for my car unless i absolutely needed it.

but okay, whatever, fine, ride with my mom, i guess. in the mean time, R and C were going and looking at some used cars to see about getting her a replacement but it took....goddamn forever and the only reason i'm bringing this up is because C was even telling me how frustrated he was getting with her because nothing they looked at was good enough for her and she kept finding some reason or excuse for every one for why it just wasn't adequate

she was even talking to me about it at one point and telling me about this one car she was looking at but she just wasn't sure......and when i asked her what was wrong with it or why she was hesitant she couldn't give me an actual reason, she just didn't know.......

now personally, and this is just between us, i think she was just happy to not have a car payment for a little bit and was trying to see how long she could stretch it. i know that sounds ugly to say about someone, especially someone you love but here again....there will be context to why i think that revealed in a bit

eventually, though, she did seem to find one that would do (or maybe just sensed that everyone was getting annoyed) and settled on one, so great! awesome!! and unlike C's truck, this one actually seems just fine and has no problems, so even better!!

but then like...i don't remember if it was earlier today or yesterday but like...they had to go somewhere and instead of taking his truck or her new car they took...my dad's truck. again.

and i dunno, maybe his truck was acting up again and they needed to haul something her suv couldn't but i just....alright. no please, continue to put more miles on that thing when you both have your own vehicles just sitting there, it's fine!!

but okay, so here's the other thing: my mom helped R get a job at the place we all work. like she vouched for her, asked our managers and because she has more pull than i ever will they agreed to give a shot

she started out as a scheduler for one of the providers and it was going....eh, okay, but she wasn't happy doing it and was getting really behind so that's one thing i have to give my job, for better or for worse, they're very hesitant to fire anyone. you have to fuck up pretty bad to actually get the axe (which is also why i'm so cautious about just quitting it to jump onto something else because job security like that just doesn't exist anymore and it's probably to do moreso with the fact that they don't pay us all that well, our insurance always sucks despite us working in healthcare and they make each of us do the work of like two or three other people but whatever)

she used to work front desk before they moved down here (at the exact same kind of specialty office, so it's not like this was a whole new venture for her) and yet it's been months and she's still just...not doing a good job.

so much so that my mom has told me damn near every single day at least one of her patients ends up sitting out in the waiting room for anywhere from 30 minutes to a damn near hour and it's because she just...didn't finish checking them in!! she's been doing this for months now.

and listen, i'm really not trying to be one of those people who's like, "well if i could do it, anyone can!" but like....it's really not that difficult of a job. i've worked multiple in this company now and front desk is the second best option next to what i'm currently doing (also not for nothing but when i first started back they had me working front desk and getting charts ready for the providers and handling all the incoming referrals by myself so like....i really do get it; she's only being asked to do front desk and that's it)

and listen, because i've been working at this place for so long, i completely understand how it operates and in specific, how bad our managers are at training new people.

it's one of those things where they only know about half the steps themselves so they have no real grasp on how long it actually takes for someone to get the hang of things and think you can just show someone something once or twice and they ought to have it down pat, but like...obviously that's not going to be the case

from my end of it, though, i just....realized that pretty early on and instead of sitting around and hoping someone would come along and train me more i just started asking questions to any and everyone else who i saw did know how to do the job and honestly because of that is how i got to be so good and well-rounded at it that a manager had me write a training manual on how to do that specific job

is it ideal? no and i agree 100% that management should be responsible, but i believe heavily in meeting things where they're at and so if i see management isn't going to do it and it needs to get done, i will find a way, goddammit and most of all, i will not let the patients or anyone else suffer because of it

people can think whatever the hell they want about how i approach my job, but that's always been one of my biggest things is that because we work in healthcare i feel an obligation and duty to our patients to try to take care of them in a timely and efficient manner because as a life-long disabled bitch with a lot of anxiety to boot i know the more streamlined this process can be from the patient's perspective, the better

they should not have to be calling us, calling us, calling us asking if anyone's ever going to look at their referral or sitting in the waiting room for over half a goddamn hour when their ticket should already be printed and the MAs who are already busy up to their eyeballs don't need to be constantly coming to the front asking if their patients are ready yet

but, again, i get that it's frustrating when your job is letting you down and not doing right by you and if this were any other situation i'd say fine, y'know. it's definitely not ideal for the patients, but if you don't give a fuck about anyone else then fine, just...keep showing up every day and doing a bad job on purpose because at this point (and she's said this, i'm not just assuming or putting words in her mouth) she just wants them to fire her so she can get unemployment.

now here's where i get especially pissy. again, if this were any other job and that was her strategy i'd say fine or if this was a different position and it was affecting someone i love, fine.

but one day she came over to do some laundry and were were chit-chatting about work and as she was proclaiming that she just wasn't going to try to get better at her job i did go ahead and just gently point out to her that while i understood her frustration, her doing that ends up messing up my mom's entire day

my mom is not like most providers who i assume have also been dealing with this, but they'll just roll with it and be like, "oh well, your visit should have been 20 minutes at least but now it's going to be five so i can get out of here on time!!"

my mom takes as long as she needs to take with her patients and even when her schedule goes just fine she'll sometimes take almost the whole hour for some that are really sick or really struggling or just whatever the situation is and she'll sacrifice getting any kind of break.

i can't tell you how many times she's come home and said she didn't get to have lunch and was just on her feet all day going from patient to patient

that's a sacrifice she's more than willing to make because she loves her patients and wants to take the best care of them possible, so to me it's just....kinda shitty to make that even harder for her??

because when that kind of thing happens, even just whenever a patient themselves is late, that can throw things off but hey, shit happens, right?

to me, though, it's different if the reason is because someone at front desk just...doesn't want to do that job anymore but instead of quitting and finding something else or asking if she can be moved to some other position she's just going to tank it on purpose and make my mom's life hell every day

and again, i said this all gently, i wasn't the least bit mean about it and i even offered her some help.

i specifically told her one of the ladies that helped train me who has been doing that job for so long that she knows every trick, every trade, every secret and is one of the nicest people you could ever meet that i just know she would say yes if i asked her, "hey, would you mind showing R some pointers, i think our job has left her out to dry"

she too has been through the ringer with them and would fully understand and i know she would have said yes and R even said she had met her before so it's not like i'm telling her to reach out to a complete stranger to ask for help but to my knowledge she hasn't bothered nor did she seem interested in taking me up on my offer to show her some pointers so like....what else is anyone really supposed to do for her at this point?

i'm really not trying to be a bitch here, but like...??? (also, not for nothing but my name has already come up in conversation over who would take her place if they were to move her somewhere else and thank fuck one of my managers stepped up for me and said, "uh, anna actually has enough on her plate right now, ask someone else" but like....she doesn't even realize she almost screwed me over, too by handling it like this)

and i guess the thing that's really pissing me off is like...this shit's obviously starting to piss management off so they've been coming down on her and what does she decide to do?

keep going to my mom sobbing about it and asking her what she should do.

she even asked her at one point if she knew of any other jobs she could help her get and i just...i'm sorry, but that has just flown all the fuck over me

my mom helped you get this job, vouched for you and said you'd be a good worker and all you've done is prove her wrong and fuck up her entire day every single day, she's let you live here for almost 9 months now rent-free, we've given you and your husband our vehicles to drive around and haven't asked for shit in return and you're fifty-fucking-seven years old, how about you get yourself another job instead of asking my mom to fix it and also wanting her to play goddamn therapist to you??

because she's done this on more than one occasion now, barging into my mom's office during a time she's specifically told her over and over again she really needs to be able to focus on her charts and getting results to patients and just plops herself down and won't move until my mom will give her something or fix her problems for her

and more than that, any time my mom tries to ever gently correct something she's said (especially if it's medical knowledge which yeah, what the hell would my mom know, she's only been doing this for like 40 some odd years now) or even just be like, "mmm, i'm not sure that's right" she gets like...almost hateful with her and belittles her going, "no, no that's not true!! that's not right!!!" and like this shit with not checking patients in, she wanted to roll up on my mom one of those days and be like, "i just wanted to let you know this wasn't my fault, i was doing everything right!!!" and was like...angry with my mom because she had said something to one of our managers but honest to god, she didn't even know at that point that it was R's fault, she thought it was the other front desk lady and again, this was after it had happened several times that she even said anything but...okay, i guess

but what's also getting me is like... that same other front desk lady told my mom that R had said something to the effect in regards to them living with us that yeah, they'll probably be here for at least a year and she's using this time to get caught up on all her bills!!! :)

now listen, that's....nice and all, but uh........my mom also gave them $2,000 at some point (i don't even remember for what, they just needed it) and she has yet to pay her any of that back

so between the two of them, they owe either the work my dad paid for or that $3,000 back plus another $2,000 so essentially $5,000.

and it's not like my mom's been sitting here just hounding them for it, she hasn't said anything, actually, which maybe that's why they're taking their sweet time but i just...what the fuck, man.

my mom also loaned out a shit ton of money to one of my dad's sisters because she's trying to raise her daughter's daughter so that she doesn't go into the foster care system and you know what she did even though she really should just get to kick back and enjoy retirement? she got a job so she could take care of that little girl and as soon as she got her tax return (which she must have filed right away) she paid my mom back for all the help she gave her while she was looking for a job

and the thing of it is, my mom is constantly giving out money to people.

i know if someone on the outside were to look at us and look at what we have it would be easy to assume we must be rolling in it but for one, it turns out my dad's income was actually the primary one and without it we don't really have it liked we used to (which is not to say we're struggling, i don't want to misrepresent us by any means, but like i see my mom's paychecks, they're only about double what mine are and i see the bank account, it doesn't have anywhere near as much in it as it used to)

and on top of that, yes, my mom is constantly trying to help as many people as she possibly can.

i know at one point while my dad was dying i opened her cash app because she asked me to send some money on her behalf because she was doing something with him and just the first few things that popped up were like "$400 to one of her friends who was out of work at the time, $600 to my brother who was homeless, $150 to my niece for something the girls needed, $300 to my dad's sister to help with groceries" and it just went on like that

she is by no means a stingy person and it would be one thing if we came from old money or someone somewhere had a trust fund, but so seriously both of my parents were poor as shit growing up and worked their asses off to get where they are

yes, they've obviously had privileges in the process of doing so just by virtue of being white, cis-gender, able-bodied straight people (well, my mom did date a lady that one time but mostly straight) but like...two things can be true at the same time and as someone who's medical expenses damn near bankrupt this family, i know we have not always had it easy

it's in fact a big part of the reason why my mom is so generous and tries to share as much as she has with everyone she can because she and my father both have had to be at the mercy of family, friends and even complete strangers to get by in this world. she constantly feels guilty and like she's not doing enough to share what we have now with everyone

we've had several conversations about this house and this property and she and my father have made me promise them that if i ever decide i want to move somewhere else or give this place up that i just make sure it does as much good for other people as possible, even if that means turning it into some kind of shelter or retreat for people struggling so they can come here and have some peace

so it just...pisses me off to no end that here is someone who's reaping the benefits of all of that, that we're sacrificing our peace and space for with little to no return and yet it's just...never enough and on top of that it's like....one of you goes to work and actively makes my mom's job harder for her and the other one stays here and does shit to this property i know probably has my dad tossing and turning in his urn

and i know this is bitchy, i get it, but like...i cannot tell you how much this has frustrated me as i've tried to sit here and process about a million different kinds of grief and it just feels like these two are running all over us and turning this place into something neither of us are happy with while just constantly taking, taking, taking and never really giving anything back

and the thing of it is, anything they even could do for us at this point we really don't need them to. we've managed just fine up until this point without them and again, it's not like if they couldn't do whatever little it is they are doing we couldn't just ask someone else or do our own damn selves.

my mom literally knows a guy whose entire business is lawn care stuff and he's come out here before to help mow and she's paid him for it, so like....we're fine.

because that's something else, too, R keeps saying she'll come help me and my mom clean and organize stuff but in all this time she hasn't once done it and every time my mom and i are doing stuff she just complains that her back's killing her so she can't which like, fine! again, as a disabled i completely get not being able to do something even though you'd like to, but like...don't offer, then. don't keep promising it when you know you're not going to.

don't keep saying you will and making us sit around and wait for you while shit piles up and we eventually end up doing it by ourselves anyway if you know you're going to be out of commission for doing that kind of stuff. i get that it's nice to offer, but i dunno, just say, "dang, i wish i could help with that. here's what i can do, would that help?" and have it be something you know you can or just...don't offer anything at all, idk

and not for nothing, but it's not just me sitting here getting all paranoid and accusatory towards people i love because i'm just that kind of bitch, it's some of my mom's friends now that are seeing this and getting pissed off on our behalf and i'm just...so, so fucking tired. so goddamn tired.

i realized the other day that pretty much my entire fucking life (with a few exceptions) we have opened up our home to our friends and family to stay with us and have helped people out with bills and whatnot.

i remember in particular when one of my brothers and his wife and their kid came to live with us when i was a kid which to me at the time kicked ass because their daughter was one of my best friends so it was like getting to be roommates as kids but my sister hated it because she had to give them her room and sleep on the couch (they were also the ones, btw, who brought the police to our house one night because they were driving under the influence with their kid in the backseat.....good times!!)

we've also had my dad's brother and his wife live with us, one of their kids live with us (i can't remember if it was him and his wife or if he was still single at that time, but he definitely did), that same brother from before except this time just him (y'know, the time he sexually harassed me and had to be kicked out?? not good times!!) and one of my other brothers for a little while AND C and his previous wife (who was actually our blood relative, we are not related to C or R but we didn't like his previous wife even though she's family so we always joked we'd keep him it the divorce) as well as her son who at the time i think was like 13 or 14.

and once again, it has always been a, "hey don't worry about it, we've got you, we'll help you through whatever this is, we'll help you get jobs, we'll take care of everything, just respect us and our space and we're good"

but it's largely because of how things ended the last time C was here with his previous wife (we'll call her D) that i think we're both hesitant to really say anything because although this was largely on D it still just...ended badly and caused a whole bunch of drama and i just cannot emphasize enough how much we just want peace right now.

because last time i shit you not, all we did was sit down at the dinner table together and said, "hey, so we just wanted to talk about some things and get y'all's side of it and see if we can't work things out" because it was getting to this point where like...D kept inviting her adult daughter to come and spend the week with us without ever asking us (and while she was here D also gave her permission to just..take some of my stuff without asking? like fully took it to a whole ass other state and would be on facebook bragging about whatever it was of mine she was using and that was the first knowledge i had that anything of mine was even moved) and how in the mornings after they made breakfast for just themselves they would leave behind a big ass mess that my mom would have to come behind and clean just so she could then make her own breakfast and it was starting to make her late to work.

we were nice about it and were even like, "hey, we know that we probably do stuff that might get in y'all's way or there might be things we can improve on to help us all get by easier so is there anything on our end we can help with?"

and that just apparently undid D.

how fucking DARE we ask her to clean up her mess or banish her daughter (our FAMILY!!!!) from this house, what uppity, awful people we were!!!! when that was.......not at all the case

i mean mind you, i dunno what digestive issues her son had but every fucking day there was just....shit all over my toilet. literal human shit just caked all over the fucking toilet seat and we all shared my bathroom so it's not like she didn't know

at one point he fucked it up so bad in there i just got fed up and was like, "hey....your kid broke my toilet again, can you fix it this time please?"

mind you, D wasn't working and all she did was sit around our house all fucking day eating our food and farting up the place. i'm pretty sure my mom tried to get her hired as well but that didn't pan out either so like....whatever

but yeah, because we had the gall and audacity after months of this bullshit to just...gently ask, "hey can you guys...pull your fucking weight around here a little?" that was it!!!!

they packed up all their shit and got out of here and proceeded to tell the rest of the family what awful, terrible, selfish monsters we were and that WE had kicked them out and forced them to struggle (mind you, it didn't take them any time at all to find a new place because C was mostly gone during all of this working his ass off to compensate for D's lazy ass but still, as far as anyone knows we tossed them out onto the street and said, "good riddance!!!")

and so i say all of this to say i'm just.......incredibly frustrated right now

again, i realize it is a tremendous privilege to be in a position to be able to help others and give out money and all of that, 1000%.

but at the same time......does that mean we really deserve to be taken for a ride constantly?? and have our lives made worse for it without even an apology or attempt to do right by us??

i dunno.

i've really had to do some soul-searching lately and ask myself if it's us, if we're just....bad people and this is just what we deserve.

but then i think, no, if we're that bad then everyone should just distance themselves from us, right? it's like...serial killer behavior to only keep people around that you think are so terrible that they deserve to be taken advantage of, but not so terrible that you ought to protect yourself and do the healthy thing and distance yourself from such terrible, awful people

please just kick us out of the family or out of whatever personal circles and y'know what's fucking sad about that? not so much my dad because he had a lifetime of putting up with this shit, but my mom and i specifically are the type of people that you can treat us like utter shit and we will still try to help you if you're really in a bad way

we may not do it perfectly or give whoever we're helping every single solitary thing they could possibly need to have a better life, but goddammit if we don't try. (i actually made my dad cry at one point because he could see me getting sucked into trying to help my brother out the same way he tried to for his entire life and i forget what in specific i had done but it was a big ass favor for him and my dad had tears in his eyes when he asked me "why did you do that?" and said he loved me for having done it but knew there was a good chance i'd get burned for having done so but oh well. at least i tried).

and i know a lot of people who know me or even are reading this probably think i'm just some irrational, selfish bitch just for shits and giggles, but it so seriously comes from a lifetime of shit like this

i have watched my entire life as family member after family member, friend after friend, coworker after coworker and everything else in between come into our lives, gladly accept all of the help and money we can possibly give and then skip out of lives while giving us the middle finger and telling everyone how badly we let them down and what no-good pieces of shit we are and i'm just....so fucking tired

i dunno if all of this has triggered something in me, but i've started having dreams about a friend i used to have (we'll call her B) and just...jesus christ, man, same fucking thing

i was best friends with this person for about a decade and the entire time we were friends i tried my hardest to give her everything i had and then some.

her family were not that great and they especially wanted her to be home all the time, i don't think she'd never even gone to the movies before i met her so i tried my very best to share everything i had with her and take her with me wherever i went and buy her little gifts constantly and take her out just to drive around to get out of the house and bought her dinners and took her to concerts that i paid for everything for and do you know what it got me?

tossed to the side the second something better came along!!!!

specifically for dick.

i never could compete with that, nor did i want to, but goddamn if i wasn't tossed out on my ass every time she got into a new relationship which i think is a lot of what's fueled my issues with relationships and wanting to be in one so bad because it was like....oh, guess i better find someone, too... speaking of, the one and only time i ever dated someone B stopped talking to me completely, not because she was jealous or anything, but supposedly because it was *checks notes* for my own good? idk

i ended up breaking up with that guy specifically because of that, i didn't think he was worth losing my best friend over and turns out that was the right call because he was actually engaged the entire time and wasn't planning on telling me so that's...neat.

but she didn't know that and again, didn't ever attempt to actually talk to me like, "hey, i don't think you should date him, he seems like a loser" she just....avoided me completely and refused to even pretend to be happy for me

on my end, though, my own envy aside, i always showed up to support her and whichever dude was actively taking my place to the point where she would stop responding to my messages altogether unless she needed me as a shoulder to cry on

i literally got dragged along on their dates and even once for some reason had to....stay in the house her boyfriend was living at at the time and sleep on the couch, but i just remember trying to get to sleep and having to put my headphones on because they were upstairs having sex so loudly so like...for all i ever get accused of being a crazy, jealous bitch who can't handle herself i've actually been very supportive of my friends getting into relationships even when they were with complete assholes who i tried as hard as i possibly could to pull them away from

it's something else, too where like...B essentially made me be her mom, her therapist and caretaker all rolled into one and tasked me with saving her from herself and yet...every single time i tried, no matter what i did, she would undo in an instant and then i was supposed to come in and clean up the mess and make it all better so that she could turn around and do it all again and again and again all the while my heart's just breaking for her over and over again and i'm pissed off at myself for not being able to save her and once again...what did she do to me? even though my sister had recently passed?? she abandoned me!!!!! for some fucking guy!!!!!! wooooooo!!!

but here again....years later she came back to me and apologized and even admitted that she had taken advantage of me. granted (and maybe this is ungenerous of me, but) she was going through a hard time and it seemed like i was just sort of the last option, but i still did a favor for her anyway

even though she hurt me over and over again beyond measure, even though she took advantage of me, even though the more i shared everything i had with her, the more she only seemed to resent me and even though i tried to the point of exhausting myself to save her from her own life and herself only to be tossed out like hot wet garbage at the drop of a hat, i still helped her because that's the kind of person i am and that's a promise i make to everyone who passes through my life

unless you do something just...tremendously fucked up to me, i will never leave someone i once cared about (and still to some extent always will) out in the cold, not on purpose anyway

i try to always be incredibly clear about what i'm capable of doing even if it seems like i ought to be doing more or should just do x, y, z already!! there is always a reason why i do what i do and sometimes that reason is as simple as i was losing my fucking mind and wasn't thinking clearly but yet again....i try to the best of my ability to communicate that and i know that i wasn't always able to help B with every single thing, but just...my god there is truly nothing more miserable or draining than someone you love assigning you the role of their personal savior while they take all of your hard work and efforts to do so and just...gleefully throw them back in your face going, "haha, i fucked it up again, did you bring your mop?? you've got a biiiiiiiiig mess to clean up this time!!! teehee!! also, if you don't clean this up for me and shower me with praise and gifts the entire time you're doing it i'm just going to assume you don't love me and i get to replace you as soon as i find something better, okay byeeeeee!!!"

i just...i'm so fucking tired. i'm so, so, so goddamn tired

all my mom and i ever try to do is help the people we love and offer up as much as we possibly can, but it's just been a constant, life-long thing for both of us to get screwed over, talked shit about and/or ditched in the blink of an eye or when we need help the most all because ?????

and once again it's like.....if we're that bad of people that we deserve this then why can't everyone just leave us the fuck alone?

pack up your camper, take all your shit, take your stupid fucking projects that make it so i can't set foot outside my goddamn front door without having to strategize and just fucking LEAVE

i just want to mourn my dead loved ones in peace while i try to finally gather up enough energy to actually start taking care of myself and it's like i just can't get a fucking break from this constantly guilty feeling that either i'm not doing enough for everyone or that whatever i'm doing, i'm doing it in such a horrendous way that it's like, "yknow what? fuck these people, i'm taking them for a ride, babey!!"

i really don't mean to ever hold anyone to shit other people have done to us in the past, but after being backstabbed by so many people in your life (especially by family) it just...changes you

i've tried my hardest for it to not, to stay as gracious and as patient and as giving as i possibly can be, but at this point i'm just beyond exhausted and fed up

i've already internalized the idea that no matter how much i work on myself, no matter how much i try to communicate with others my every feeling that even i don't understand enough to articulate properly, no matter what i do clearly i'm doing something so wrong that this many people in my life have seen it fit to treat us like this and so in the past few years i've pretty much abandoned pursuing any sort of new connections or relationships or anything.

my therapist disagrees and actively encourages me to open my self up to new people and new experiences, but i just can't at this point. B once even told me that i would not be a good romantic partner for anyone because i'm just so....y'know, how i am and i agree

i would be a fucking nightmare of a partner so i've pulled back, i've stopped imagining it and now even when i can tell people are trying to be my friend or might be interested in me in any way i just...shut it down or give very little because i know i'm just going to fuck it up at some point or they'll meet my mom and i guess between the two of us we'll just...do whatever it is we do that makes people think we owe them the moon and all the stars in the sky and our failure to hand those over means we're secretly evil, hateful people or what the fuck ever

i dunno and i truly don't know what's going to happen with this situation, but i have a bad feeling we're once again going to have to be the bad guys because we'll have to say something at some point (likely whenever something gets broken, probably my dad's truck) and then they'll go out into the world and tell anyone who will listen about how horribly we've treated them and how wrong we did them by....oh right, yeah sure. okay.

i love the both of them, they've been good friends to us up until this point, but something somewhere must have happened and now we're here.

oh, and that's another thing i also just remembered, so one morning before work R was in my mom's office once again even though she'd told her multiple times she really needed that time to look over her stuff, but whatever, and R started getting all teary eyed and whatnot and when my mom asked her what was wrong she just...snapped at my mom and was like, "Well, don't you know what today is?!" and my mom said no and apparently it was the 3 month anniversary of my dad's passing

obviously that threw my mom through a loop (and right before work, too, thanks!!) but it was almost like...i dunno, R thinks she's mourning him better than we are or something? like how DARE we not realize it had been exactly 3 months since he died, where was our humanity?!

i also get the sense (and they obviously haven't come out and said this) but like...they kinda blame us for him dying?

and like i get it, when he did go downhill he started to go pretty fast and it took all of us by surprise, but like...i dunno. sometimes it feels like they think we did something wrong or that we pushed him into the grave. i know C one time had asked my mom if she should really be giving him as much medicine as she was (which was under what hospice had advised, btw and also once again my mom is a fucking medical provider and this is her husband) but like....yes, C, we're pretty fucking sure

i myself was taking care of him once while i was working and he kept taking his oxygen off and then panicking so that his face started turning blue and purple and the only thing that would settle him was a little bit of that medicine

we never gave him too much because my mom knows how he was with that kind of thing and didn't ever want to be too obtunded but like...the man was also dying and needed to be comfortable but like...no sure, you guys were here for all of, what, one fucking day and once again, my dad put on a performance for you because he didn't want anyone but me and my mom (and not even really me, honestly) to see him like that but yeah, man, you definitely know what he needed and whether or not we were taking proper care of him, get the fuck out of here

and that's just a whole other can of worms i don't even have it in me to get into but just....that's something with one of my mom's friends of acting like she's supposed to be like....happy now that he's dead???

and it's just so insanely cruel because i know from my own posts on here like....yes, he and i did not always see eye to eye. i was, in fact, right smack dab in the middle of unpacking and processing a lot of things at that time they honestly made me look at my parents a little differently because i felt like i had been let down in some ways but y'know what? that's my shit to sort out and likewise, they were going through a little rough patch there for a minute but that was also theirs to sort out

by the time he died we were all good. he and i even sat for a while (one of the last times he was fully coherent) and he asked me if there was anything we needed to settle or he needed to apologize to me for or anything and i decided then and there to just let it all go.

i'm 33 years old and i'm in therapy now, even if i wanted to sit here and list out all the ways my parents haven't always done right by me, it's ultimately my job at this point to sort that out for myself and figure out what the hell i'm going to do about it instead of just be pissed off at them and blame them for everything that ever goes wrong in my life

my mom has shown me here lately that she's at least trying and we're having better conversations than what we used to have and i'm sure if my dad were still alive we'd also be getting to that point and i can acknowledge that although there were obviously things they could have done better for me and my sister (and on my dad's side for his three sons) but i just don't have it in me anymore to sit around and wait for someone else to get their shit together before i decide to get mine together so regardless of all of that, i'm doing what i need to in order to take care of myself and she's doing the same, but nowhere on this fucking earth are either of us fucking happy that he's dead just because we didn't always see eye or eye on everything or because we sometimes let each other down

that is life, that is relationships

in a perfect world where no one had any kind of trauma or defense mechanisms or maladaptive coping skills, sure, we would always do right by one another and no one would ever cause anyone else any sort of pain whatsoever and we'd all eat a cake made out of rainbows and smiles but that's just not how shit actually plays out and of course it's important to strive to do better, but we were all trying our best, we just were also all breaking down in different ways at the exact same time and trying our best to hold it all together so yeah, sooooooooo sorry we didn't do everything the exact way everyone thinks we should, but suggesting that we don't care as much as people who couldn't be bothered to so much as come over to wash a load of dishes for us is such utter fucking bullshit and makes me so goddamn mad (mind you, too, this friend of my mom's also talks shit about her actual piece-of-shit husband all the time but i know if he dropped dead tomorrow she'd lose it if any of us suggested she was just "going through the motions" or "all she does is cry all the time" or that "maybe she should go on medication" like she's said about my mom)

it's not enough to lose someone you love and have it be this long, drawn out thing that just kills you more and more every fucking day, now you have to compete your grief with people who use my mom and i like some kind of magical well that somehow stays full even though they only toss a half full bottle of water into it every so often

i just....whatever

i'm sure i probably sound like a crazy, selfish monster who's just whining about having to share her toys but it feels like more than that to me and i'm just....really fucking sick and tired of it

i would so much rather if people would just be like, "hey, we think you're total pieces of shit, but you could help us out of this tough spot so, whaddya say?" and that'd be fine.

i would so much rather do favors where we're all clear about the terms and there's no expectancy on my part of having actual, genuine family and friends that care about us and will actually be there for us at our lowest than i would have people who just lovebomb us into placation every so often when they can sense we're about fed up and see how much shit they can get away with trampling all over us for, it's just...so fucking unnecessary

i don't lie, i actually really hate it when people lie to me because on a gut level i always know i just rarely ever say anything because i like to give people the kind of grace i hope to receive in return for my short-comings but like...my god, is it so not necessary to do that with me

i've had people tell me directly before, "hey, i don't want to be your friend anymore" and that's it, babey!! those are the magic words, say no more and i am out of your life for good!! but always with the stipulation that if you ever really get in a jam, if my replacement isn't all they're cracked up to be, if whatever happens goes wrong and you need someone, i will always be here

just don't fucking pretend to like me or my mom and then do this kind of shit. i really can't take any more of this kind of thing. i just want to heal and grow and try to build a life i actually want to live even if it takes me forever or never pans out

i at least want to try and it's incredibly difficult to do so with two people right now fully crammed up my ass who just....aren't helping us in the least and are actively making things harder for us

but oh well. i guess that's just life and we'll just deal with it however we have to even if it makes us the bad guys in the end. if that'll at least bring us some peace and quiet then i can live with it. god knows i'm already the bad guy in so many other people's stories and i'm fine with that, too. just leave me alone to be a awful, rotten bitch and if you're going to use me, use me directly instead of playing games. it's all i fucking ask.

#long post

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regular-lord-reckoner · 2 months

Text

welp, guess who hit burnout again ?!?!

i did !!

primarily because of some bad news i got last week. it's nothing bad bad, it's just some aggravating bullshit i have to deal with (basically i missed some payments for my therapist and i thought it was like...3 or 4, but it's like...8?? the lady that does her payroll is going to look into it because my deductible kicked in somewhere in there, but i don't think for most of it so i'm just annoyed at myself for letting this pile up like this but what can ya do!! thankfully she's been really forgiving and understanding, especially because a lot of these missed payments happened around when my dad died so i do appreciate that and will be making it up to her as soon as i can; i don't see her again until april so hopefully by then i can get a little more caught up

i also broke my favorite mirror and my pipe like a day apart from each other (the pipe i'm not as broken up about because i'm starting a tolerance break soon anyway and the guy i bought it from still makes the same one so we're all good there but the mirror???? the fucking mirror!?!)

okay so this goddamn mirror.

i genuinely don't even know how this happened

i had just put our dog down for his nap (yes, he has a nap time and yes i take care of him like he's my child now.........he's grown on me) and i went upstairs to use my bathroom and get my medicine and i may have accidentally knocked into something on my way there, but i swear i wasn't that close and as soon as i got into the bathroom i just heard a commotion and turned around and my dad's guitar fell over, hit the mirror, the mirror hit ??? and shattered

specifically into two pieces, one kinda small, i could have probably fit it into a cardboard box, but the other piece was too big and i would have had to break it up somehow without getting more glass everywhere and i could already see what looked like glitter all over the carpet so i said fuck that

i ended up having to get two very thick trash bags to bag it up and carefully transport it downstairs and all i could think was, "please don't let this fucking mirror cut through this plastic anymore than it already has (because it had a little) and end up slicing my hand up real bad and then what? i probably have to drive myself to the nearest walk in because no one else is here right now and it would take too long for an ambulance to get out here, plus..........expensive so...be careful!!!"

the whole ordeal ate up an entire hour of my fucking day because i had to just sit and stare at it for about half an hour before i could even clean it up, i just froze

then all the transporting it downstairs and getting it outside with the other trash and texting our family friend who hauls the trash off for all of us to let him know to be careful with it, yeah

it hasn't helped that i've somehow gotten behind on part of my work and my inbox lately has been consistently in the 200+ range and i keep finding all these stat referrals that aren't marked even though everyone literally just got an email the other fucking day to make sure those are marked but nope!! so now i feel pressure to get through as many of them as i can so needless to say my work days lately have been thusly:

i get up at 6:30 am. i do a little work. sometime around 7:30 i go lie back in bed for about an hour before i get up to get the dog up and take him outside and feed him his breakfast.

while he's eating i do the dishes and sometimes will get the trash all gathered up and set out to be taken off. i also feed the cat and check to see if he needs anything, any litter or water or whatever else.

sometimes i'll do some of my own cleaning, like my bathroom or start on my laundry (i think last week i ended up doing everything: sheets, towels, clothes, the dogs blankets and towels)

oh, i also give him a bath now every thursday so he's not stinky and it helps with his skin because his breed is prone to getting these little bumps so weekly baths help with that apparently

we'll go on walks throughout the day, too. usually whenever i take him out to go potty but sometimes if i get an extra bit of free time and the weather is nice we got for a little walk together

in between all of this i try to pop in to get some of my actual work done and on good days i do mange to scoot along pretty well. on bad days it's been kinda like how it's been for the past few weeks and i end up staying up until our records system literally begins to stop communicating with our patient scheduling/demographics system which means i can't do shit anymore. that's usually around 11:30 pm

somewhere in there i eat a few meals slowly over the course of a few hours and often don't even up finishing them because i've gotten the ick or they've gone too cold so i save it for later or just toss it out

i go to sleep usually around midnight or 1 am but again on bad nights it's like...almost 2 am. and then it's back up at 6. or my new favorite...wake up at 5 and then i'm not able to get back to sleep!

doesn't help that whenever i don't get enough sleep my neuromuscular shit gets a lot worse so i spend all day just lightly vibrating with tiredness (quite literally, it's just all day minimal shakes which is fun when all you do is type)

i would just take extra of my medicine but i lowkey got shamed by a pharmacist for refilling my meds too soon so....there's that

the last time i went to refill i didn't have any problems, normally the automated system will tell me, "hey, bitch, you can't refill this yet, slow down!" and so i know to wait a few more days and try again (unless i'm about to be out before then, of course), but that didn't happen, it just told me it would be ready tomorrow so tomorrow i went and evidently it was not eligible to be refilled that soon and it was just the way she was looking at me when she said, "didn't you just have this refilled [whatever the date what]??" which like...yeah, admittedly it was a little sooner than usual but like..........sometimes i just need more of my medicine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

pretty sure i was doing a lot of physical shit around then so yeah, i probably took more of my pills than normal....i realize i should probably just bite the bullet and contact my neurologist to see if he can up my prescription before my next visit in september where we normally go over that because evi-fuck-ing-dently if i need a little bit more sometimes it's gonna be a whole thing now

and of course, me being me, i'm like...apologetic, just like, "okay, well i can just come back another day, sorry" and she said, "well, we can refill it if you want to wait," which like....................why did you give me grief over it then?! but then when i asked about how long would it be she was like, "i dunno, 20 minutes or you can just come back later," which is hell to tell my autistic ass so i was just like, "uh, i guess i'll come back later..." which she seemed to be glad to be rid of me and likewise, so!

i went and cried in my car for a bit because once again just frustrated that i felt humiliated over that because it wasn't that deep, but it just kinda reminded me of high school and how i purposefully avoided going to the nurse's office to get my medicine because she was such a fucking asshole to me (she was the one who after i asked if my dad could come pick me up because i was sick started grilling me on my condition to which her conclusion was, "so, what, are you going to stay in bed for the rest of your life or something?" with just pure hatred in her voice, i literally didn't have an answer for that. she did not last long as the nurse, surprisingly! she was very unpopular, i can't even imagine the other fucked up shit she probably said to my classmates)

but yeah, just...hey, i need this to literally function. i'm not trying to hurt anyone. i'm not trying to make your job, that i know is already very hard, any harder. i just want my goddamn medicine. i just walked through over-stimulation city and am going to do it twice today (it's costco btw and the pharmacy is alllllll the way in the back), just......please do not give me a hard time about this for the love of god

also, if you're wondering, "gee anna, i'd just switch pharmacies if i were you, that sounds like a lot of hassle!" yes, i have considered that, but you see............my job's got me by the balls on this one. in the past couple of years they've introduced their own pharmacy and technically...........technically i'm supposed to be filling my medicine with them.

there's literally a clause about like, "don't you fucking dare fill [my type of medication] with anyone but us!!" but like......somehow i've managed to make it this far without them noticing??

and costco themselves have just sort of made it work?? because i think my original script was actually for a larger supply, but i guess if i got that filled it would force me to use my work's so costco just fills it to a lesser degree and somehow it flies under the rader. i dunno !!

but !! i've been using them instead of my work because from everything i've heard.....our pharmacy sux !!!!

i won't get into all of it (but like my mom has said some of her medicine with like...clearly what it is with her name and everything on it was left lying out where patients and god and everyone could see it....not great)

they also just make a lot of mistakes and i'm skeptical if they store things correctly so suffice to say there's a lot of reasons i just don't want to deal with it, it's also apparently hard to just...get your meds from them because of how they do things. so i really don't want to make this process any more challenging than what it already is, but yeah. a little bit frustrating, i guess

in addition to.....all of this, i also had got to thinking, "damn, i've been working a lot of 50 hour weeks lately, how long have i been doing this? a few months now?"

i knew it was around the time my dad was dying because i remember quite literally watching him in his hospice bed over the top of my computer to make sure he didn't wake up again and try to take his oxygen off

turns out it's uh....been a year now

right around this time last year i started working 50 hours a week.

granted there were a few weeks, especially at the beginning, where i would work one 50 hour week and then a 44 hour week and then 50 hours again and 40 back and forth like that because i was worried i'd get in trouble but eventually i realized no one way saying anything so eventually (and with a few exceptions, of course) i just started doing one after the other and now i'm here......kiiiiiiiiinda burnt out

which isn't surprising really, when i think about it

i was quite literally experiencing burn out to the point of serious thoughts about not being here anymore and engaging in self harm through my meltdowns so i guess you could say i was a little stressed last year but i pretty much had to try to put it all on pause and just...get to work in so many senses and i know i let a lot of things fall through the cracks. too many probably. but i cannot emphasize enough just how much i was breaking down and how hard it was for me to hold my shit together during that time.

i didn't want anyone to know it had gotten that bad, i felt like a monster and every day it's like i did something else horrendously wrong or said the wrong thing and sometimes i really did and sometimes it was just my warped perception of things and i started to lose the ability to tell the difference and it all just congealed into one big ball of stress

i spent a lot of therapy sessions honestly just bawling my eyes out because of it after which i usually felt better for a little while, but it would slowly build up again and again because i still hadn't figured out what works and what doesn't as far as self-care goes and what even are my needs and god this is all so fucking overwhelming and the spots on my dad's lungs just keep getting worse and he keeps getting weaker and my mom's falling apart and i'm falling apart and everything's falling apart, but not me!! never me, not yet!!

so i just kept going. and still am.

yes, i've had a few breaks and those have helped tremendously. i'm taking another one next month (bet you can't guess which week) and i'm just going to stay here, maybe do some cleaning on my closet and hopefully catch up on sleep

this, so far, is what seems to work

when i feel myself approaching my limit, i shut off essentially. i go into autopilot

i do what i need to get done, get it all done and then crash and recover as much as possible until i reach the next big rest (which is usually just a week at a time but i'll take it !!!) and along the way i just try to pick up different modalities of self-care and prioritizing my health and wellbeing as i go

like today, i managed to sleep in until 11 am. beautiful !! stunning !!

first time i've felt like a human being in ???

i took advantage of this renewed energy to put my efforts into putting together something special for my niece's kids.

unfortunately, their dad's father passed away earlier this week. sudden heart attack, apparently.

the younger one doesn't really have as much attachment to him, i don't think, but the older one is really torn up about this from what her mom has told us

he used to babysit for them a lot so he was a big part of her life. they were actually supposed to get ice cream that day because he promised it to her if she did well on one of her tests and she did but that obviously didn't end up happening

that's two of her grandfathers now she's lost in about 6 months and my heart is just broken for her

her mom said already that sometimes she just bursts into tears out of nowhere and when she asks her, "honey, what's wrong?" she says she misses my dad (which hey.......big same. the sudden crying about it and everything).

his funeral will be on monday which my mom won't be able to go to but said she wanted to still go up there tomorrow just to be with the kids if nothing else to give them some extra comfort

i'm staying behind so i can watch the critters (and because i don't think right now i'm up for all of that honestly) but i did want to send them my love so i took about an hour today to shop for some presents for them

i got them both these really neat stuffed animals (a dinosaur for the younger one because they're her favorite; it roars and lights up and everything) and a bunny that also makes a cute noise and lights up and they're both nice and cuddly since her mom also said right now all the older one wants to do is curl up with her blanket and watch her favorite shows

i also got the younger one some bluey dolls since that's her favorite right now and a little bracelet that looks like one i know she has and loves except this one has a little purple butterfly on it !!

i got her sister a really nice princess crown and this cool lip balm thing with a container that has some of her favorite characters on it so i hope she likes that and i got her a bracelet that's similar to her sister's but it says "don't give up" on it

mom's going to take them the gifts tomorrow so i hope they like them and most of all, i hope they help. i walked up and down the kid's toy aisles so much i think i was making people nervous with me being a single adult just going up and down the aisles constantly but i was really trying to put a lot of thought into what would cheer them up and give them comfort right now

after that i made a few more stops to get me a few little treats even though i probably don't need them, but they made me happy so...there!

i came home, relaxed for a little bit, took the dog for a walk/potty break, fed him his dinner, washed some dishes, took out all the trash, took a shower and i finally ate dinner around 10 pm

so yeah. been....pretty busy lately.

i think part of what's contributing to this particular burnout is that i just feel like i haven't stopped in....ages now. i just keep going and going and going and going

but !!! if nothing else this tells me i really need to step up my skills for dealing with, well, me.

although i reserve the right as a scorpio to close the door to myself for a while and emerge dramatically when i feel rejuvenated, there are...better ways of approaching things, i think, so we're going to work on that

namely i'm going to work on getting more sleep. i think that's one of the biggest contributing factors because i'm just exhausted all of the goddamn time and being exhausted leads me to being on edge all day long (even when i start out the day in an awesome mood sometimes, over time and as i sit there working it's like the life just drains out of me)

so we're going to work on that and we're also going to work on our diet. although processed foods have kept me steady for all these years due to their dependability and extreme convenience, i'm at an age where i really need to be eating a lot more vegetables and actually start cooking most of my meals

going to work on that and eventually the plan is to also start growing some of my own food because another thing too is like.....every goddamn product in the store anymore is owned by some bullshit genocide supporting monopoly entity so like......the less i can contribute to that the better, i figure

i also really hope to get to my closet soon because i know i keep talking about it and it and it's been forever but i just haven't had the capacity for it so it got put on hold but fingers crossed on my break i can at least start to chip away at it

which....speaking of stuff around the house, that's been another thing

it's becoming clear to my mom and i that this house, beautifully made by my father as it is, really needs some love put into it

the entire thing honestly needs a good deep clean, but in addition to that i'm pretty sure there's mold upstairs. i don't know about downstairs, but i'm 99.9% sure it's up here and i think part of it probably has to do with the fact that the doors i have that go outside don't.....close completely ?? heh

i may have accidentally fallen into them at one point and knocked them out of frame and no matter what i've done to try to fix it (mostly slamming against it from the other side like i'm a fucking football player) so i've done what i can to mitigate the slight crack that's at the top of the door but i'm pretty sure moisture has been getting in anyway so that's fun !!

those doors obviously need to be replaced and there's also a skylight in my bathroom that i think has gotten some water damage around it so that might be contributing as well, but that needs to be fixed, too

there's also some ceiling work that my dad had started on in their bedroom but didn't get to finish before he got sick so that needs to be finished and of course the water heater could still go at any time

the plumber was able to get it back to somewhat full capacity, but even still i've noticed the hot water runs out a lot faster than it used too, so that'll be something else

we also hadn't really realized until all of this with my dad just how inaccessible our house is to get into if you struggle to walk or need a wheelchair

we did what we could with my dad's chair and he'd hold on to one of us to get into the house while holding his cane with the other hand, but like that one night he was so weak after he fell earlier in the day and then all day at the emergency getting checked out, he nearly fell and busted his open and instead ended up collapsing in the hallway just inside the garage entrance and we had to call ems to help come get him up out of the floor so.....we really need to at the very least have hand rails installed at some entrance point of this house that'll make it easier (the backdoor technically has them but it would be a trek for someone with mobility issues of any kind to get back there to them)

the carpets all either need a really good deep clean or to be taken up and replaced with either more carpet or something else

and i'm sure there's more i'm not thinking of right now, but suffice to say, it's....a lot. and no, it doesn't all have to be done right now, right now but the sooner the better for some of them for sure

fortunately my dad left us some money that initially he said we could use for a trip but i think we're going to instead use to do a lot of this stuff around the house that needs to be done

in the meantime, i'm going to try to clean as i go as much as possible. getting all that stuff out from around the water heater really just makes me want to rent a dumpster so we can just throw a bunch of this shit away because honestly a lot of it is just junk at this point that's not even worth donating or giving to someone

some of it yes and definitely any clothes we find that are still good quality, but a lot of this shit i would love nothing more than to just chuck into a dumpster and feel like i can breathe a little easier because it's nowhere near hoarder level i don't think, but for my taste it's starting to feel a little claustrophobic

in the mean time, i'm also going to try to start reading more because i really did used to enjoy it and i think my brain's starting to finally get to a point where it's like, "hey, i can handle new information !! let's start learning again !! let's start reading a whole bunch !!" so i'm excited to start that

i'm still journaling and working my puzzles and spending time outside connecting with nature so these are all also things that i think help me out a lot that i intend to keep up

i also want to start teaching myself how to play my dad's guitar soon because i've always wanted to do that and i think it would bring me a lot of joy if i could manage to learn

i'm also just, as weird as it sounds, letting myself be more autistic, i guess ??

i hadn't realized until recently just how much i've suppressed a lot of stimming and self-soothing behaviors and how much better i feel when i just.....let myself do them

i've struggled with being perceived even when i know i'm completely alone for some time now, i remember even talking about it with my last therapist like a decade ago so this has been a thing

i used to even cover the vents when i went to the bathroom and would shower in the dark because i couldn't pinpoint why i felt like i was always being watched but just in case aliens or the government or whoever were secretly spying on me i was going to avoid them !!

anyway, hey, younger me, turns out you're just really neurodivergent, babe! like i'm starting to think you're more than just autistic, you might also have a decent helping of adhd, dunno, it's kind of slowly starting to emerge which is weird but i'll give you a for instance......i forgot to sign up for my insurance this year!!

i kept getting the alert on my paycom thing whenever i log in every day and i even checked it a few times and was like, "oh yeah, i need to do that," but just kept forgetting the second i would look away from it and anyway, the other day i get an email that's like, "hey, so you've been automatically enrolled in your issuance this year since you didn't wanna do it yourself :P" basically so i do have it, but what's my plan like ?? is it a good one ?? i dunno just yet but i guess we'll see. they're all pretty much the same at this point but i think i did notice it's a different provider so...woohoo, i'm slowly but surely collecting all the insurance types like they're fucking pokemon

anyway, shit like that's been happening more and more lately, but i'm trying to get a handle on that, too because i'm already in a big enough hole as is and quite literally cannot afford to dig myself any deeper so we're gonna do what we need to in order to be well and be somewhat healthy and get this brain sorted out and hopefully, eventually, i'll get to reach a point where i can put down a few of the balls i've been juggling and just kinda....take it easy for a bit

again, and i know i always say this, but i fear i always sound out of touch with reality when i talk about my life like this and so i want to make it clear i do acknowledge all of this could be much, much worse

my life is by far nowhere near as bad as it could be and in a lot of ways i have many things working in my favor and that are of great help to me, so i'm extremely grateful for that. i haven't always been, admittedly, but i've also had a lot of complicated feelings to unpack especially in the past year that made it difficult, but i've come out the other side of that now and i really do just want to mature and focus on growing and part of that is my gratitude for the things in my life that are going right and are immensely beneficial to my wellbeing

that being said, my life nevertheless still hast its challenges and although i blab a lot on here (probably more than i should) i do still tend to keep the majority or perhaps the intensity of how i really feel all to myself

i know there are definitely times that even i can admit that it's like, "uh, hey, the thing you're having a meltdown over really isn't worth being that upset about, it'll be okay........" because sure enough everything was/is totally fine and it's not a big deal, but it's hard to describe how in the moment it feels so much bigger and far more dire so what seems like a lot of dramatics and going through the motions on everyone else's end may all be for naught but like...it's still a tangible hell i end up going through that takes its toll on me, i'm just....used to it, lol

i've literally been getting overloaded since i was born and in some ways it feels like it's never stopped since then, the only problem was i didn't have an answer as to why until very recently so it's not like i wasn't doing anything about my mental health because i just wasn't prioritizing it, i didn't even know where to begin and my first attempt at getting help didn't even land close to what the real issue was so it put me off for a long time (to be fair, the therapy was also heavily focused on like.....my sister having just died, so that's at least part of why, i'm sure)

this really feels like the first time in either a very, very, very long time or possibly even ever that i've been able to just actually stop a little and catch my breath. feel like myself, my actual self. not the mask i've been poorly trying to keep together for forever now

a mask that part of me is hesitant still as i continue to take it off because what i'm realizing about myself is that a lot of who i am/who i've been was tied up in that so like.....naturally i'm starting to see a lot of shifts in the relationships around me and just how i think about myself as well and how i approach things

and it's hard because it's like.....am i being fair ?? am i taking everyone around me's feelings into consideration ?? because i'm so used to having to do that and tiptoe around and always feel like i'm walking on eggshells except my clumsy ass was just tromping through them anyway, always putting my foot in my mouth and saying the exact wrong thing that at the worst possible time and just hating myself more and more but not knowing how to fix it so i'd just princess caroline my relationships and focus on everyone else instead which makes people like you for that, but not so much the rest so there's this constant worry of, "is that all i'm good for? will i be replaced as soon as i stop being useful?" and not for nothing but like....it's happened before, so!!!

so....yeah. i've been unpacking a lot of things lately and just trying to sit with them and think about all of this and about who i want to be now and how to get there

the process is already happening and has been for about a year now, but it's a slow one unfortunately (and really all of this has been woefully too late, but that's what happens when you snooze, anna. you lose !!!) but like that asshole walter white once said, i am......awake, now. except instead of becoming an ego-maniacal abusive drug lord who destroys his family and everything he touches, i'm going to do...whatever the opposite of that is. in every sense

i hope i can grow into a person who is ultimately kind and loving and patient and stable and lovable and healed who has interesting hobbies like making music and maybe recreating some of the pictures she takes of the sky in the form of paintings if she gets good enough

as overwhelming as everything has felt lately i can also feel new possibilities unfurling in me and i can see so many roads and avenues i could go down in terms of growth and development and for the first time i'm staring to feel like i'm brave enough to do it or at least give it a shot

so that's what i hope for. that's what i'm working towards.

thee are going to be parts of me i know people aren't going to like, in particular my tendency to want to spend the majority of my time alone and with my own thoughts, at least for right now, but that's just something i feel as though i need to do and quite honestly, as though i've earned

in some regards, i've spent a good portion, if not almost all of my life in some form or fashion taking care of the people that i love. often in an emotional sense, but i like to think i've also stepped up to the plate in a lot of other ways even if i didn't do every single thing perfectly, i still at least tried

i think i've finally earned some time to focus on me and just me for a little bit.

not to say i won't help anyone with anything (i quite literally spend a good chunk of my time helping my mom now), but i can tell with everything in my being that i really, really need to just turn inwards for a little bit, focus on me, heal some more, mature some more and i think when i emerge from this cocoon i'm going to be....a decent looking butterfly!! (actually, i also hope i get hot. not like "oh, i buy these clothes or makeup or whatever" but just like...y'know, hot. when you invest in yourself hot, you know what i mean? idk it's getting late and i'm quite tired)

but yeah. think that's about it for now.

sorry this was so long, i've just clearly had a lot going on and have a lot on my mind and i like to just check in every so often to document where i'm at in this journey

wish it was a better update, but they can't all be good or we wouldn't be working towards anything, now would we?

i guess that's all for now.

a coupe of last things:

i saw a big yellow butterfly the other day when i was taking the dog out. i sort of associate yellow with my dad now because he loved yellow flowers, especially sunflowers, so whenever i see anything yellow, really, i think of him and of course butterflies are supposedly visitors so i think that might have been him saying hi, which i really needed

also, the cashier supervising the self check i was at today said, "you can use whichever one you want, darlin'," to me which made me smile a lot although they couldn't tell because i had a mask on but i said thank you and tried to smize as best as i could before scooting off to scan my items and get one step close to going back home

oh, and i started to cry a little earlier because on my way home i had to pass by the funeral home and in particular where i was sat at a red light i actually had a perfect view of the crematorium and right as i was looking at it i hear bert mccracken (who btw has apparently been pro-Palestinian for like a decade now so good on him; i knew i chose right in the divorce when everyone else went to gerard's !!) coming from my speakers going, "fill your lungs with smoke for the last tiiiiiime!!" and i started to laugh because like.....c'mon, that's kinda funny, but then i started to cry because i remember that day and then i just missed him but i also had to drive so we just shut that shit down and headed home and i still haven't cried yet so will probably do that tomorrow and some journaling. i think a big cry would help a lot so we'll see !!

as always, i hope if you're reading this you have a good weekend and can also get some rest from chaotic life and stress and all the other bullshit

i hope something good happens for you soon and that you also heal and can try to find some peace and comfort

i absolutely must go to sleep now so g'night !!! <3

#long post #just an update about me/my mental health/what i've been up to type of thing

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