Journal Venting

I am the spouse of a Type 1 Diabetic with Gastroparesis and a dog parent which makes me a full-time chauffeur, caregiver, maid, cook, and breadwinner. Journal venting is a term I created years ago that's helped me in the past. I was recently encouraged to share my ravings with the world. Enjoy, or don't.

[dearlordsanta]

Sometimes, you don't see progress

This is going to be super short!

I was working on my homework today and was doing a little quiz in my reading about feeling depressed (we're learning about mood disorders).

The quiz said to write if you agree or disagree with each statement. I scored a six out of eleven (6/11). Even a few short months ago, I would have agreed to ALL of these!

Slow progress is STILL progress, my friends!

Have a good one! :)

[dearlordsanta]

Maybe it's a good thing...

I am currently on day ten of whatever illness I've contracted. This is the best I've felt in those ten days, at least physically speaking.

I've taken off more days from work during this illness than I have all year because I really needed the rest, which is good that I'm learning to disconnect. I'm a little irritated now that I am starting to feel a little better though.

When I woke up today, my husband rolled over and told me that the dog had peed on the edge of her potty tray, so a lot of it got on the floor. I asked if he cleaned it up and he said he hadn't because he didn't feel well. That bothered me. He's actually had a really good ten days, which lined up well because I was really sick, so when he told me that he hadn't cleaned up the pee off the bathroom floor. I got mad. In my head, I just kept saying, "sometimes being a wife is a thankless job". [I'm going to be circling back to this]

I cleaned up the bathroom in a little tiff because I still don't feel well and I'm annoyed that he let it sit all night instead of cleaning it up. When it sits that long, you can't really tell where the pee is, so you have to clean the whole floor. So, here I am, sick, cleaning the bathroom floor because he didn't do it because he didn't feel well. How is that fair?

He got up shortly after I was done cleaning and we hashed it out a bit. To his credit, I was being really rude, and he was staying calm and reasonable. Have you heard of those Reddit threads, AITJ? If you haven't, it stands for 'Am I the Jerk'. I was the jerk here. Because he was doing well these last ten days, he offered to do everything I asked him to do. He said, "tell me what you need me to do, and I'll do it". He pointed out today that I never asked him to do anything. I think it's because I didn't trust or believe that he would. So, now I'm the jerk....again.

Circling back to the "thankless job" piece. After talking things out with my husband, realizing that I was being irrational and angry over my own shortcomings, I sat down to write it out. I am remembering growing up and hearing parents, specifically moms, saying that being a mom is a thankless job. When I remembered that, I started thinking that maybe that's why I don't get to be a mom. I've wanted to be one for as long as I can remember, but maybe I would just suck at it. So, fate found a way for me to not be one. I am happily married, but my spouse is chronically ill and if we had kids, he would not be able to be as involved as much as he'd like and I would still be the only one working, plus I'd be having to pick up all the slack of, essentially, being a single parent when he's too ill to be able to help.

So, now I feel like crap because I am the jerk, I would probably be a horrible mom, and I've still got the tail end of this sickness to deal with. On top of everything else, I don't even want to go into right now because a lot of it is just rehashing things that I've already talked about like, needing to move, but not being able to move.

So, I'll just end here. I think I deserve to be miserable for a bit.

[dearlordsanta]

So, I haven't posted in a while. I've been having a really hard time just holding it together. I'm sure everybody has those times when nothing is really happening that's different, but for whatever reason it feels different and it suddenly causes anxiety, or more stress, and you just feel overwhelmed. That's how it's been for me the less several weeks.

Nothing is different, but everything is a lot harder for some reason. I really want to go back to therapy, but I'm nervous about starting over with a new therapist since I am unable to see my old one. My schedule is changing at work, which I don't think will be too bad, but I will miss working with an entire peer group of people that I get along with and I'm going to miss my team. It's a little nerve-wracking not knowing how some of these people are, so I'll have to tread cautiously at first. I'm not sure how much "me" they'll be okay with.

I'm also struggling with homework. For some reason. It's not overly hard, it's quite a bit of reading, but it's taking me longer than it should to get through the reading because I can't stop myself from taking the scrupulous notes. Even though I'm in my fourth week of this class and I've proven to myself that I don't need to take these notes, every time I come across something. Even remotely important looking, I find myself taking notes. So, homework that should take me an hour or two, I would say three at the very most, is taking me eight to fifteen hours. In the previous three weeks combined I have spent over forty hours on homework.

Because of that, I have not had any free time in the last three weeks which is completely stressing me out. I am not giving myself any time to detox, relax, read, I haven't even been walking my dogs. I just can't handle anything else being on my plate right now, even stuff I enjoy.

In other news: My father-in-law connected me with a financial advisor that specializes in helping people get approved for mortgages. She's given me an impossible task and I'm not sure how I'm going to achieve it, but according to her, if I can't accomplish this Herculean task, I definitely will not get approved for a mortgage. If I don't get approved for a mortgage, I will have to keep renting and if my rent goes up again, which it will because it's rent, I won't be able to afford it anymore.

The last thing that's been bothering me lately is that I've been told I was graded as successful in my overall performance at work this year. Again. Ever since I moved into leadership I can't seem to get past mediocre. My leadership keeps telling me that successful means successful and I shouldn't feel bad about that, but in my head that's not good enough. I feel like I do my job really well so the fact that I'm only successful really sucks. It means the one thing I think I'm really good at, I'm really just mediocre.

I know life isn't supposed to be easy, but I don't think it's supposed to be this hard. Sometimes I just feel like giving up.

[dearlordsanta]

I miss the old me

In a lot of ways, I've changed for the better in the last several years everything has been on me. I'm more confident, a little less anxious, stress doesn't get me as bad as it used to, and I'm better at prioritizing.

However, there are some things that I miss about myself and I'm so tired...all the time.

I feel like I'm not allowed to relax or enjoy time off. Whenever I try, I feel guilty because something is piling up while I'm "doing nothing". I am trying to get better at taking care of myself mentally and physically, but sometimes I just want to give up. I don't want to do it anymore. I am tired. I am done.

Nothing major happened to cause this. Just my normal, everyday stuff. My husband has been in a bad flare-up these last few weeks. It came after a few weeks of talking about trying to return to work part-time because he was "finally starting to feel better". I'm just glad I didn't get my hopes up about that.

I'm tired of everything being my responsibility all the time. I'm tired of not having help. I am tired of being sad. I am tired of being tired. I am tired of being alone.

I am also angry. I am angry that I feel all those things. I feel guilty that I get mad at my sick husband because he's too sick to be my partner. I am angry at myself for being tired of being alone. That's one of the things I miss about my old self.

I used to go to dinner alone, go to movies alone, run errands by myself, etc and it never bothered me. I've been with my husband for almost nine years now and he's been sick for just over three years. After having a partner who could make grocery shopping fun, make errands fly by, and bring such joy and entertainment to the mundane day-to-day things...I feel like I can't go back. I feel like missing that part of my life is part of what is keeping my marriage together. I am afraid to enjoy being alone again because I'm worried it'll destroy my relationship. I currently look forward to the days that he's well enough to be himself and I try to take full advantage of those times, but I need to do something because I feel like I'm dying inside from being alone all the time.

I don't cry as often as I used to, but I do get overwhelmed with sadness and frustration because I feel like the best years of my life were stolen from me. I only got one year of being married to my husband while he was in good health, I don't get to be a mom like I've always wanted to, and I am the sole breadwinner and provider for my "little family" (me, my husband, and our two dogs). I've never had a real vacation. Not only am I the only one who works, but I am in charge of juggling the finances so we can pay all our bills. Calling the cell phone company or power company to ask if I can pay a week late because I just can't afford to pay all my bills and buy food. I do the grocery shopping, walk the dogs/take the dogs to the vet, take care of the car, make and take him to his doctor appointments, go to the pharmacy (several trips a month for all his meds), all the chores at home, plus work full time and go to school. Anything additional that pops up falls on me too. Sometimes...it's too much.

I hate my normal. I want to enjoy time with my husband. I want him to be able to spend the holidays with me again. I want us to be able to go on vacation. I want him to be able to go on walks with me and the dogs. I want to be able to go out to dinner more than once a year. I want to stop being sad. I want to stop being angry. I want to stop being tired.

I want it all to stop.

[dearlordsanta]

Work, school, rosacea, and community

It's been a while. Thought I'd pop in with a little update!

I won't go too much into work because I don't want folks to be able to guess where I work. That being said, work has been a little tough lately, like it has been at a lot of places, we've been impacted by the recession. Hiring freezes, layoffs, being short-staffed, the whole bit. I recently even had to reapply to keep my job. It was stressful. I like my job, and this is the best company I've ever worked for. On top of all that, this job is the only reason I can keep going to school because they are paying for it. I mentioned my anxiety a bit in the past, but not in every post, which is saying a lot, I feel because I'm anxious almost all the time. I did interview practice with a third-party company that was made available to us during the time of layoffs, met with my mentor, and prepped as best I could for questions I thought might be asked. I did well in my interview, better than almost any other interview I've had, so I'm happy to report I'm staying employed! Yay!

School is still going great! I'm in my second math class and it's actually pretty neat. We're learning how to do equations in Google Sheets/Excel, which I thought was interesting. It's practical learning that I can apply to my current, and any future, jobs that I may have. I am also learning that the work I've done in Excel so far is barely scratching the surface, so I'm excited to learn more. Still holding steady at a 4.0 too, by the way! Woot woot!

I have never been officially diagnosed with rosacea, but my face (especially my nose) is red ALL the time, and my mom has been diagnosed with rosacea, so we've always assumed that's what it was. I used to try to cover it with make-up, but that is worse. I gave up on coverup a long time ago and try new things now and again, but it never goes away. That is not why I am bringing this up though! A few months ago, one eye started being really red almost constantly. I thought it might be allergies, so I tried allergy medicine and allergy eye drops to no avail. It was also starting to hurt. Finally, after about a month/month-and-a-half, I went to the optometrist. She informed me that I have rosacea ON/IN my eye! Honestly, I almost cried. I almost cried because I knew this was one more thing that would be forever. There is treatment, but no cure. If I didn't want to be in pain, I was going to have to work at it and I knew even then that there was no guarantee. She told me the treatment, scheduled a checkup in four weeks, and sent me on my way with a promise to call if it got worse. If you read my blog, you know everything else that is on my plate, and I was having a bad day. It was too much. I have eye wipes, eyelid spray, and eye drops. I have to do the wipes and the spray twice a day and the eye drops four times a day. I've been doing that, and it's helped. Again, not gone, but better. Until a few days ago. Three nights ago, I couldn't sleep because my eye hurt so badly. No matter what I did, nothing helped. It was red and swollen and it hurt every time I closed my eyes, even if it was just to blink. After a sleepless night, I called the doctor. She told me to keep doing the wipes and the spray, to up the eye drops to every two hours while I am awake, and to add eye gel. It's annoying, but it's helped. I was able to sleep, but it still hurts to blink sometimes. My appointment is in a few days now. Hopefully, nothing else is going on.

Lastly, I know I've written about my dogs before, but it's been a while. When you have a dog, you become part of a community. I realize this the more I go to dog parks. Even at the pet store, you get people who are rude about your dog, even if the dog isn't doing anything. However, today at the dog park, my girl was running and playing like normal and then she tripped and started crying. I don't mean the sad pitiful crying, but loud, high-pitched, I-think-I'm-dying type of crying. I was close by [obviously] and immediately rushed over to her. She didn't even stop crying when I picked her up and she was favoring her leg. EVERY SINGLE DOG OWNER RAN over to see if my dog was okay. They watched as I carefully, followed by not-so-carefully, felt her leg for injury. Once my pup realized it didn't hurt anymore, she ran off to play. Everyone there asked if she was okay or if I needed help and distracted her by petting her while I was checking her leg. When she ran off again, they all said how glad they were that she wasn't hurt. Y'all...I hadn't met a SINGLE person there before. At that moment though, they became my people. It was so comforting, and it reminded me why I drive a smidge further to this dog park than going to one a little closer to home.

PS: No real updates on my husband. He was doing really well for several weeks and was talking about going back to work part-time, but a couple weeks ago, he had another flare-up that is still going on, so I'm back to barely talking to him because he's mostly sleeping, or too cranky/sick to talk. Feeling really lucky to have my dogs <3

[dearlordsanta]

Recession Blues and Catching up

Hello again all,

I've just wrapped up a rough week at work and was trying to decide if I would post about it. I feel like I need to for a lot of reasons, so here it goes.

As anyone not living under a rock has noticed, the recession is coming. I am lucky enough to work for a wonderful company. We've been negatively impacted by the oncoming recession like a lot of people and a lot of companies. About eight months ago, to try to avoid layoffs, my company instituted a hiring freeze. We hear nothing about anything else for those eight months besides, "there is no hiring in sight at this time," sort of messages.

Then, suddenly, the leadership team was informed that all these months of working short-staffed hasn't been enough, and [almost] every department is doing layoffs. We were shocked, to say the least. Through the next several days our front-line folks were informed of the layoffs and those who were being laid off were informed. Our supervisors are being reduced as well, but they have the opportunity to re-apply and re-interview for their jobs and the front-line employees were just given notice.

I am not going to pretend I could have done what the upper leadership team did, I am sure it was very difficult to make these decisions. There are a few people that I wanted to speak up for because, in my mind, it makes sense to lay off people who are low performers and/or are close to retirement age. That's not what happened, unfortunately. We are losing a lot of good people and it's nothing short of tragic.

I won't dwell on that more though. I was extremely upset for a few days, but there is nothing I can do about it. I let myself be sad for a couple days and then I picked myself up and started helping those who were impacted as much as I could. I will continue to do so until their last day.

I also said this was an update.

School is still going well. I still have my 4.0 GPA, which is still incredible! I was never good at school growing up, but I seem to be doing really well (so far). Hopefully I can continue this for a long time.

My husband had a couple weeks where he was in pretty good health, he even spoke of, and then started looking, for a part-time job! I was excited, not only to have my husband back but to get our finances back into good standing. Unfortunately, that's never in the cards for us. At least that's how it feels. He's been incredibly fatigued these last several days and he's been doing almost nothing but sleeping. I feel so badly for him because I know he hates it. It took me a long time to get to this point, but I feel bad for myself as well. I am not getting the help I need any time soon and that sucks.

Hopefully, I'll have a more positive update soon. For whoever reads this, thanks! Doing this blog has been extremely helpful for my mental health.

[dearlordsanta]

Creeped out...

So, here I am at almost 2am, doing my homework so I don't fall behind during the work week. I usually get a little distracted a few times while reading because there is so much of it, I give myself little mini breaks. Although, I was trying not to tonight because I slept through the opportunity to take my dogs to the dog park yesterday, so I was going to take them on an early morning walk after homework like I have many times before while listening to my audiobook.

Usually, the little mini breaks are reading through social media or something, which is what I did tonight/this morning when I was having a hard time focusing on my reading. I found one of those Buzzfeed click-bait type articles about "unexplainable stories" about people who claim people or buildings suddenly appear and then disappear, things that are far-fetched and probably fake. Normally, I read through them and don't think anything of it, like, if you're going to make up something scary, make it somewhat believable, you know?

Anyway, I'm reading this article and suddenly, I hear knocking. Keep in mind, I said it was almost 2am. The only light on in my apartment is the one in my office. I thought I imagined it for a minute, but then I heard knocking again and one of my dogs started barking. It wasn't knocking on my door. It didn't sound like knocking on any front door. I live in an apartment that uses metal doors and this knocking sounded like a knock on a wooden door. My dog sat on my lap for a little bit while I was freaking out.

Honestly, as I sit here typing this with my heart pumping, I'm sure that it's probably a woodpecker or something and I read a "scary story" that is plausible enough to cause a knock to scare me. With that being said...I am waiting until the sun comes up to take my dogs for a walk lol

I'm also now having a really hard time focusing on my homework.

**Adding an edit at 2:13am: After no noise at all for a bit, I'm starting to concentrate and get my homework done again and, all of a sudden...BOTH dogs started barking out of nowhere! All the lights are on in my apartment now (except my bedroom where my husband is sleeping). One of my dogs has also curled up by my feet. Not sure if it's because I'm nervous or if they want to keep me safe.

[dearlordsanta]

Catching up Part 2

Since my last post, a lot has happened so it's coming in two parts! Part one was basically one weekend, so part two will be the rest.

First, I'd like to share that I am still doing well in school! Well enough to be invited to join the NSLS program for leadership success! I'm very excited to start and my director at work says it will be beneficial when I try to move up. I just started my math classes though, so I feel like my 4.0 GPA is going away soon (lol).

We also learned we have an inheritance coming. I had a hard time coming to terms with this because the person who died is someone I've never met. Although she was my husband's paternal grandmother, he wasn't close to her either. She did leave a substantial amount of money to my father-in-law to distribute how he saw fit, so he's going to give us money to help us with our down payment on a house next year. Don't get me wrong, part of me was overjoyed that we were finally catching a break. On the other hand, catching a break because someone died seems like a messed-up reason to be happy. Made me miss therapy again. I wish I could talk to my old therapist about it. I came to terms with it though. I am still trying not to be too excited in case it doesn't end up happening. My stepmother-in-law is a bit of a harpy (that's a long story I won't go into here).

Update on the move. As previously mentioned, it didn't happen this year. It now takes an entire paycheck to pay rent, so finances are way tighter than they were before, but the move is for sure happening next year, we just don't know where. Thanks to the inheritance, we'll have a little more freedom and hopefully a little more buying power. My credit score is still a little low, but not pathetic anymore, so that's something. There is about a 98% chance we'll be moving to another state again. Hopefully, one that is not quite so hot (lol).

Give or take a handful of days, my husband has been doing well. He's talking about looking for part-time work when we move next year (fingers crossed!). He's talking about selling his excess music equipment so we can finally set up the music equipment he's keeping which will FINALLY allow us to clean up our living room! This year, I am hoping we'll slowly, but surely get rid of some stuff to make it easier to move.

As the country gets closer and closer to the upcoming recession, we can all feel coming, things are getting more and more stressful at work. I am trying to do whatever I can to make things better while doing whatever I can to make myself a better candidate to move up. I'm on the lookout now. There aren't many options/opportunities to move up right now due to the hiring freeze that's been going on the last year, but when I see something, I'll jump on it. Wish me luck!

[dearlordsanta]

Catching up part one

I keep saying I will get better about posting and then I don't. I apologize to anyone who reads. I've been thinking about posting pretty constantly, feeling like I need to and then I don't. Sometimes it feels like complaining, even if I'm just talking about what's been going on in my life. This one will be long and in two parts since I am catching up on things that have happened since my last post. I do write this primarily for myself, so I won't fault anyone who skips this one.

Something that happened recently was going on a mini vacation. We were supposed to be spending an entire long weekend with our best friends who live in Southern California. I thought it was going to be great like every visit has been in the past. It's always been extremely busy, but fun. I was wrong. There were times we were having fun, sure, but overall, this trip made me never want to go visit them again. The more I think about it, the surer I am that we probably won't go back, at least not any time soon.

I'll explain a bit. In the last three years, we have visited our friends several times, I believe it's been three or four times since they bought their house. The first time, we brought our dogs, and it was fine. The second time we went to visit, they had recently gotten a rescue dog themselves that was a little nervous around other dogs, so we found a puppy sitter and went without the dogs. We were worried about our dogs because we got them during COVID, so the longest they had been away from us was about 10 hours. The sitter took great care of them though and they had a great time with her (although they were definitely ready to come home when I went to pick them up! lol) Anyway, the second visit went fine, their dog loved us and he is super sweet and playful. So, this most recent time, we were told we could bring our dogs with us. We were going to be there from Friday until Tuesday morning. That's not what happened.

If you've read any of my previous posts, you know my husband is sickly. On the Friday we were supposed to leave, he wasn't feeling well until about 4pm. It takes us about six hours to drive to our friend's house, so I texted them saying we were finally about to load the car and go and they told us not to because they do not have lights in their backyard and were worried about the meet and greet with the dogs in the dark. Total bummer, but understandable. So, we leave first thing in the morning on Saturday. We get there without any trouble, the dogs get along great, and we're all happy. We decided to go to a baseball game, which was SO fun! My dogs were crated at our friend's house because they go in the crate at our house when we're not home. They did have a massive change though. My dogs are trained to go to the bathroom on trays in my house because I work nights and my husband is sickly, it was easier. So, I go to put the trays by the backdoor and our friends say they don't want them to go potty in the house. Since, apart from walks, they had only gone potty "in the house" (on the trays), I wasn't sure about it, but it was their house, so I put the trays outside the sliding glass doors hoping the dogs would understand to ask to go outside to go potty. (Side note: The dogs did great! They had only one accident in the house each and my husband and I cleaned it up right away, so no harm no foul. at least that's what we thought.)

Sunday rolls around, and we go to Disneyland and California Adventure for the day. When we are there, we start talking about possibly going home the next day instead of Tuesday morning. This is where the next issue happened. We were there all day long, so I was worried about my dogs being in the crate all day and they were going to take their dog for a walk to get out energy and go potty and all that. They said they were going to get their dog real quick and walk him right away so I could let my dogs in the backyard to just run around to burn off energy and go potty out back. When we got to their house, they went to grab their dog and he freaked out and peed (we didn't know this) so, they stopped getting him ready for a walk so they could clean up really quick. My husband was the last one through the door and saw their dog in a harness and leash, so he left the door open because they said they want to go right away. However, their dog did not have the leash clipped to the harness, so he booked it out the door. We offered to help corral their dog so we could get the leash on, but our friends were so angry at us for leaving the door open that they told us to leave them alone. So, we went back inside, got our puppies taken care of, and finished cleaning up their dog's pee off the floor and everything. We also stayed up in case they changed their mind and wanted out help. They never did. We all went to bed feeling awful. My husband and I felt guilty for misunderstanding and leaving the door open, upsetting our friends and our friends went to bed angry that we'd let their dog outside.

The next day started fine, we all decided to go to a mall nearby because one of our friends wanted a specific shirt that was on sale. I ended up getting new shoes as well. We got special donuts on the way and stopped by a special sandwich shop for one of our friends. While we were there, my husband started to not feel well. I was getting progressively more concerned and mentioned we may need to leave tomorrow morning (Tuesday morning) like we'd originally planned. Our friends told us that wasn't an option because they had things to do. At this point, it was after 3pm. Had we realized they were not going to allow us to follow the original plan of leaving Tuesday morning if we needed to, we'd have left that morning without going out for so long. Maybe had breakfast with them and then left for home. Our friends also informed me that they expected me to crate my dogs, lock them in the room we were using, or put them outside in the 110+ degree heat because they couldn't "watch" all three dogs.

As soon as we got back to their house, I let the dogs out of the crate, took them outside, gave them lots of water, and immediately started packing as quickly as I could while my husband slept on their couch. I was packing a little haphazardly so my dogs wouldn't be outside too long (I didn't want them crated or locked in a room since they were about to spend six hours in the car after already being in the crate from 10am until almost 4pm). I was packing stuff in our room for maybe five minutes and when I came out, my dogs were already back in the house because our friends had let their dog out and when he came in, so did my dogs. I was extremely irritated because they made all these stipulations about where my dogs were allowed to be while I was packing and then interfered. So, I moved my dogs into my room so they could be with me while I packed. That didn't last long either because they wanted to play and I needed to hurry, so, even though it made me feel terrible, I crated them again. They whined/cried while I packed our stuff and then the car.

When I was done, I noticed the gas in the car was low. With my husband being as sick as he was, I was contemplating getting gas and returning for him. While I was trying to decide if I would take the dogs with me, when I did that, one of our friends offered to go with me to find the cheapest gas. I figured it'd go faster with his guidance since he knew the area, so I agreed and left my dogs in the crate at their house. As soon as that was done, I got my dogs and my husband in the car, said a quick goodbye, and left.

I have never been so happy to leave. It was the strangest visit we'd ever had with them. I've never felt so unwelcome while being with them. This wasn't even the end.

When we were an hour and forty-five minutes away, they called us saying we'd left the canister of dog food we'd brought at their house. I was frustrated with myself but told them to donate it or throw it out because we were too far away to come back, and we still had five hours to go in the car. They offered to drive to where we were to bring it to us. I was livid! I wanted to yell at them because they had just kicked us out stating they had too much going on to allow us to stay and rushed me to pack up and leave. I turned them down politely, and they offered more than once, too. I told them it would prolong our drive and we already left much later than we should have.

After about another hour, I got a text message from the female half of our couple friends to just me apologizing for her behavior while we were there. She said other people made her feel bad about her house with how it was decorated, and stuff, and other people made her feel bad about her dog saying he wasn't well trained. I told her that what other people say doesn't matter, all that matters is that she likes her house the way it is. As for her dog, he's a young rescue and does very well considering how short a time they've had him for. He's a sweet dog. Then I told her that since my husband and I have only said good things about her house and her dog, it's not fair to treat us like we were the ones making them feel bad. I also informed her I wouldn't be bringing my dogs back there anymore because we followed all of their rules, they set out for us, even though it was against our dogs' routine, and they did really well! But it still wasn't enough for them.

Maybe I am being dramatic? I even waited over a week to write about this because I thought I would calm down, but that trip altered our friendship in a way that I don't think things can go back to the way it was. They are acting like everything is all good, but my husband and I are very cautious now. :(

The more I think about it, the more it solidifies. We did everything they asked, and they still made us feel unwelcome. I even would have been fine being kicked out on Monday if they had said something to us about it before it was three in the afternoon.

[dearlordsanta]

Hard to feel like a wife

I had a really strong burst of negative feelings toward my husband the other day. I almost came on right away to type about it, but that kind of venting would have been counterproductive. Sometimes you need to take a step back and breathe, even before anonymous journal venting.

If you've read my previous entries, you'll see that my husband and I have a great relationship. We have a strong foundation of friendship, otherwise, we wouldn't have made it through the first two years of his illness. Because he and I have a good relationship, I didn't want to come on here to vent it out because then that puts negative connotations on our relationship. Regardless of whether he knows about what I am saying (he doesn't know about this blog, so he'd never know), the fact that I would say such things about him behind his back would say much more about me than it ever could about him.

That all being said...it's really hard to feel like a wife sometimes. I'm sure husbands of chronically ill spouses get that feeling too. My husband had a couple weeks in a row of really good health, I believe I mentioned that in a previous entry, but he relapsed when we overdid it on a trip we risked taking and he's been on this flare-up ever since. It's frustrating for him, so it makes him extremely cranky. That's not what got to me the other day though.

The other day, I was out and about running errands, I hadn't been gone long (I try not to leave him alone too long, especially when he's not doing well), but it had been maybe an hour and a half or so. I was already annoyed because one of the dogs had peed on the floor and he didn't clean it up, he left it for me to get. There was also a bug trapped under a cup in the kitchen (my husband doesn't do bugs) and I needed to go out and run errands. Most of the time it doesn't bother me, but the other day it got under my skin. See, he doesn't help with any of those things even when he is well. Since this was a light flare-up (some nausea and fatigue), I had asked him to help me out with little stuff he could handle. He hadn't. When I ask him to help me do something I get responses like, "I'm doing the best I can" or "I just really haven't been doing well". Don't get me wrong. He's NOT faking it...he REALLY isn't well. However, emotions don't function on reason.

So, anyway, already irritated because as soon as I got up I had to clean up pee off the floor, get rid of the bug, run my errands, and when I got back...he said he wasn't feeling well and needed water.

Yup...that's what made me lose my mind. Water.

He said, "I'm not doing well...I need water." I said, "That would probably help, you should get water." Then I realized...he was expecting me to get him the water. I shamed him a bit as I got him water and added in the powdered electrolytes. He gave me the "I'm doing the best I can" line and I just fumed. He hadn't done anything that day. He hasn't showered in over a week, he's not helping with the dogs, he won't kill a bug, he has been leaving garbage everywhere, and there are a lot of other things going on right now too. I just allowed myself to be mad. I was mad and, for a very brief time, I hated him.

People may think I am awful saying that, but relationships are hard. Marriage is hard. Dealing with an illness is hard. Dealing with a spouse with an illness is hard. Having to deal with all this, the financial and emotional strain it comes with on top of normal life stuff is really freaking difficult. Part of why I keep this blog is to help me and, if someone in my situation sees this and it helps them feel okay about hating their spouse sometimes, then I'm really glad I am doing this.

We're all only human and we're doing the best we can. Some days are harder than others. Some people go through their lives with very little turbulence while others aren't so lucky. Some have it worse than me, sure, but it doesn't make the situation suck less.

It's okay to be pissed about the situation. I broke down again the other day because I know I can't have kids. My future is stagnated. All I can do is hope that things get easier. Hope that he gets a little better and can start working again at least part-time. Hope that I can get a promotion in the next year or so to stabilize our finances. Hope that we can continue to tread water until things just start to suck less. I don't hope for happiness anymore. That sounds dramatic but at this point...I'd be happy to be content. To stop having days I hate my husband because he asked me for a glass of water.

Hopefully tomorrow is easier.

[dearlordsanta]

Whoops...

So, in my last post several weeks ago, I said I was going to try harder to get on here more regularly and post on the off chance that it helps anyone. I've been distracted lately, so I haven't been. I feel like I need to now, not just for the people who might be reading, but for me.

First things first, why I've been distracted lately. My husband has been well for a few weeks in a row! Almost the longest he's been well in three years. I've been taking full advantage of it! We spent his first week going out a little bit then, the second week, he said he wanted to go visit our best friends for a short trip (they live about five hours away). So, we found a sitter for the puppies and went for a visit. Our friends took us to Disneyland! I haven't been since I was about 17 and my husband hasn't been since he was 10! We had a great time hanging out with our friends. I'll tell you what though, we were BEYOND ready to get the puppies back when we came home. They had fun at the sitter's house but were ready to be home.

We are now starting on week four of good health. Don't get me wrong, he's had a few days when he wasn't doing great, but he'd bounce back and be okay the next day. I think he's at the point now where he's feeling like he's about to regress. I feel like he's scared to leave the house because he hasn't left since we got back from visiting our friends and that was a week and a half ago. I have a work outing tomorrow and he seems pretty excited to come with me to that, so hopefully, he comes and has a good time. I think that will make him feel a little easier about going out.

Today, I miss being in therapy. I never thought I would say that. I felt like I was finally making progress and then my job canceled their contract with the company I saw my therapist through, and I couldn't afford to keep it up. My husband woke me up after I had a really rough night of sleep (I woke up a ton and don't feel well rested). He had good intentions, usually, when I sleep too long, I get a migraine, so he was just trying to help, but it made me angry. I didn't want to get up yet. Then he told me one of our dogs had peed and had diarrhea all over the "puppy bathroom". Since he's been well, I thought he'd clean it up or at least offer to help me clean it up. That was too much to hope for. Even though he's been well, he's still not helping with anything. I would even be okay with it if he was getting out more because at least he's making the best out of his good days, but he's not. He's been sitting at home, playing games. He's not going on my daily walks with the dogs, helping load or unload the dishwasher, or even taking out the trash. He even had the gall to tell me that we needed to move the piece of art I bought out of the entryway. This is true, but our apartment is a mess because he never helps clean it and gets upset when I move his stuff. Right now, he's got music equipment everywhere and we need to clean the living room, so I have a place to move the art to. He knows this. If he thinks I'm going to cave and clean up by myself, he'll be in for a rude awakening because I WILL get rid of all his stuff. That sounds mean, but I talked to him about it several times. "While you're well, can you please put all your music stuff on the shelf we got for it? I'll even clean up everything else, you just need to put away the stuff you don't want me touching." He says he will, but then he doesn't ever do it. When I ask him when he's doing it, he just says, "I'll do it. I'm going to do it."

Today I am frustrated. Today I am not a good wife. Today I need to get away, but I have nowhere to go. So, I come here. I vent it all out and hope I do better tomorrow. Today, I just want to cry or scream. I am allowing myself today to be frustrated that this is where my life is today. I am overpaying for a crappy apartment because I can't afford to move. My husband is sick. I had to give up on my dream of being a mom. I have to do everything alone. Pay the bills, do all the chores, adjust my schedule to take my husband places because he's afraid to go alone. I miss out on sleep. I worry, I stress, I cry...I don't know how I'll make this better. I just know that I need to.

I'm sure I sound like a whiner today. I just need a day to feel sad and then I'll be fine again. I do the best I can. I am only human.

[dearlordsanta]

Give me a freaking break already

I'm so sick of getting kicked while I'm down. I've been having all these negative feelings lately because nothing is working out the way it should.

We moved to a cheaper state so we could get married and buy a house. I was supposed to be in my own house, married to my husband, and with a kid or two at this point. Unfortunately, as they say, life happened.

My husband got sick about a year after we got married to the point that he can't work. That put getting into a house back several years. Also, because he's so sick, we had to put off having kids, probably indefinitely. Now with the market the way it is, I can't buy a house. My rent is getting hiked up so much that I will barely be able to afford our cost of living. My work didn't renew its contract with the company that allows me to see my therapist and staying with that company is out of the question because it's too expensive.

Toward the beginning of my husband being sick, he got unemployment for a little while because of COVID. He stopped receiving it as soon as they said he wasn't eligible anymore, but that doesn't matter. We got a letter in the mail that says we have to pay it all back?! *sigh*

With my therapy being gone, the cost of living going way up, and having to give up my dream of being a mom...it doesn't take much to send me over the edge.

I am trying to get us into a good place so we can move to yet another state and buy a house next year. I will do almost anything at this point to make that part happen. If I can only have one thing before I die, it's my own place. One that is really mine. So, I decided to sell my car so I could save money on insurance and pay off some debt to improve my credit score. I met a nice, young lady who really needed a car and I wanted to help her out, you know, put a little good karma out in the universe for myself. She asked me to hold the car for eight days so she could get the money. I agreed. Then when the day came around, she suddenly said she didn't have the money and asked if I would take even less. That's what I get for trying to be nice.

I'm sorry this post is kind of all over the place, this is how my brain feels right now...everywhere, all over the place, broken...

I need things to start breaking my way..

[dearlordsanta]

Focus

A while back, I posted about being back in school after not being involved in, or even wanting, further education. I felt like I've continued to grow professionally and personally to equal anyone who had gone to school four more years than I have (under the assumption the person in question only has a BA/BS). For example, I have peers that have degrees that I am much more efficient and more successful in my job performance than they are. Yet, they would have a leg up when getting a promotion because of that piece of paper. Frustrating, yes, but that is life. I digress.

I have been struggling to focus lately on almost everything I try to do. My mind is going in a thousand different directions. I didn't realize how close to the edge I was teetering until last week.

Last week, I was supposed to leave for five days to go visit some friends. It's the first time away that was not planned around a funeral in four years. I needed a puppy sitter. So, about a month in advance, I lined up someone to watch my dogs while I was out of town. Then, less than a day before I was scheduled to leave, my puppy sitter backed out. My backup puppy sitter also said they were no longer available, and I was unable to find a replacement, so I had to cancel my plans. Then, I was told that my company was no longer contracted with the website I see my therapist through, and I can't afford to keep doing it on my own dime, plus my health insurance won't help me cover it. So, I either need to start over or be done. On top of that, I found out my rent is going up $300 this year. I can't afford to stay here and I can't afford to move yet either. Meaning I have to overpay to stay another year while I plan on moving away. Probably to another state again. I'm completely lost. I have no idea what I'm going to do.

Whenever I sit down to focus on school, I can't. My mind wanders, and I keep re-reading the same sentences without absorbing them. This is the first class that has scheduled so much reading per week. Usually, that isn't an issue for me, but while I'm reading everything gets fuzzy and I can't focus. The only thing I've been able to focus on is a game. I haven't been able to focus on reading for pleasure, listening to music doesn't help, and watching a movie or a show isn't helping either. I feel like my brain is fraying at the edges.

If I can't focus, I can't get anything done. I've got too much to handle to lose my grip now.

On a brighter note, after four weeks of 16-hour sleeping days, not a lot of eating (causing him to lose over 20lbs) my husband is starting to rebound. So, here's hoping for a good long stretch of good days! He could really use it and, forgive my selfishness, but I could use it too.

[dearlordsanta]

Not alone, but lonely

It's been a while since I've posted on here. My last post I said I was determined to post more frequently, and I am, but the last month has been an extremely hard month. So, if anyone reads these for whatever reason, I am sorry.

What spurred me into writing this one today is a post from a 'Caregivers Support Group" I belong to. Someone said that their friends and family would think they were being dramatic when they said they were lonely. "How can you be lonely? Your loving spouse is literally home all the time!"

When I saw that post in our group, I almost cried I felt so horribly for her because that's literally what it's like. When you have a spouse who is chronically ill in general, you get a lot of non-believers. My husband has been unable to work for over three years now and I constantly get berated for enabling him. "He's just being lazy, there is no reason he can't work, even his doctor said it." This is true. The first doctor he had said that. She basically told him to stop being such a baby and get back to work because he should be able to. She was from the Mayo Clinic, the best of the best, so doctors we saw after that told us there was no reason to get a second opinion, it was really frustrating. Now that we're finally with the right doctor, I wish I would have pushed sooner to get a new doctor. People also ask, "Is he really that sick?" Yes. He is. He is either in pain or so tired he can barely stand about 90% of the time. Not that my friends and family believe it. They met him before he got sick...so energetic, silly, optimistic, and full of life. "Why can't he just work from home? He should do something." Can you think of any employer who would be flexible enough for that? I can't. For example, as I said before, this month has been really hard. He's been fatigued and in pain for a month straight. He can barely stand, he's sleeping 12-16 hours a day, and can't even stand up long enough to shower. I've barely spoken to him in weeks. You tell me, can someone like that hold down a job?

Anyway, I am digressing too far from the point. Allow me to circle back. Yes, my husband is home all the time. The person in my group who made that post today, their spouse is home all the time too, but it's still lonely. Why is it that people have no trouble believing that a mom at home with a brand-new baby can be lonely, but look at caregivers like they've grown a second head when they say they are lonely? The person from my group said people ask, "how can you be so lonely when your loving spouse is home all the time?"

Let me explain.

Does my husband love me? Of course, he does. Do I love him? Absolutely, I do. However, the man that is normally here, is not the man I married. The man I married was adventurous, funny, fearless, optimistic, determined, a hard worker, and generally, a genuinely happy guy. The man that is normally here is tired, in pain, frustrated that he can't do little things, frightened of leaving the house on good days because what if his feeling well doesn't last, he's angry because he can't contribute, he's sad because he knows I'm having a hard time and can't do anything to help, and he's lost the spark. The spark that made him who he was. There are sometimes weeks at a time when I don't see him at all. He's only up for a couple hours at a time, but if I am working or sleeping when that time rolls around, I don't see him. In the last month, I've said less than a hundred words to him, and he's said even less back to me. It's heartbreaking. It's sad. It's lonely.

This is how it is. If I am lucky, I will get a couple days with the man I married a year. All I can do is hope that he'll rebound from this flare-up and be a little more like himself. Hoping for a conversation once every other month. It's bleak. Really bleak.

So, I cried a little when I responded to that person in my group. That's why that group is so great. It's filled with people who get it! They know what it's like. They know how lonely it is. They know how tiring it is. They know how nerve-wracking it is to leave the house. It's nice to have people who understand.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TEDTalk. If you're going through something similar, I hope this helped. If you're not going through something like this, count your lucky stars, and be better about being supportive of people in your life who are going through this. I hope you never have to understand what this is like.

[dearlordsanta]

For Better or For Worse in Sickness

It’s been a while since I posted on here, I think because it’s been helping, so I don’t feel like I need to do it as often. I’m going to commit to doing it more regularly though because on the off chance someone is reading it and it’s helping in any way, shape, or form, I will continue. This is a long one, so buckle up.

First, I want to talk a little about my relationship with my husband. We’ve been together for almost nine years and married for just over four of those years. When I met him, I was two years out of an on-again/off-again relationship and was really struggling with it, so I wasn’t looking for anything serious. He and I worked for the same company, but at different retail locations. One day, I was asked to cover at his location, which is how we met, and we both did something a little quirky that made it easy to joke around and have fun at work that day. We both carried our Nintendo 3DS in our back pockets to collect Street Passes. We were both teased by coworkers about it at our respective locations, so we bonded over the 3DS and this odd little quirk of ours. He also made fun of how I spoke due to the odd colloquialisms I used. He left a lot earlier than I did that night, but I figured since we got along so well, I should see if he has social media so we could stay in touch, so I decided when I got home that night, I would search for him.

When I got home, even though it was very early in the morning (about 1am since the store was far away and it was the holiday season and all that), I booted up my laptop, got on Facebook to search for him, and noticed I already had a friend request from him that he had sent when he got home from work that night. I quickly accepted and sent him a message. To my surprise, he was still awake and responded immediately. 

We spent the next few days messaging back and forth from the time we got up until we went to sleep, and even made plans to hang out in a shared day off we had coming up in about two weeks’ time. We had decided that he would come over and play Mario Kart (he had been bragging about his mad skills and I wasn’t too bad myself), then we were going to see a movie we both wanted to see and go to a popular local diner after to talk about it. The week before this hang out, he said that since we were hitting it off so well, he wanted to make this hang out a date instead. I was really skeptical about this. I wasn’t sure I was ready for a relationship or anything, I had been on a few dates since I had broken up with my previous boyfriend, but never felt ready, so it never went passed date two. I liked this guy and didn’t want to miss out on a really great friend if this dating thing didn’t work out. Plus, this hangout was starting out at my parents’ house playing Mario Kart with my dad and my youngest sister! It felt wrong (lol). So, I told him all that. He said if it didn’t work out, it didn’t work out, but there was no harm in seeing where it went.

I was nervous about it, so I knew he had been a type 1 diabetic his whole life, so I did research and learned as much as I could about it. I figured if we were going to be spending time together, I should know more about it, so I was prepared. (He was very touched when I told him later that this was how I prepared for our date.)

The date went really well, in case you didn’t guess. It took me a few weeks to get on board with making it official, but after two weeks, we were officially ‘dating’. We’ve been together ever since. He’s one of the funniest people I know and we’ve helped each other grow into better people. We had a lot in common, but the best part about our relationship is our communication. It sounds hokey, but it’s true. You can’t have a good relationship with anyone without good communication whether it’s a lover, a friend, a parent, or a sibling, it doesn’t matter. Good communication is always important.

If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know my husband is ill. About a year after we got married, he started to get sick and now he’s been unable to work for several years at this point. Within that first year of diagnosis, he gave me an out. He said that he was in this for the long haul, it wasn’t going to get better and he knew I wanted to have kids and he wanted me to be happy, not to suffer with him. I told him that my vows meant something to me. I married him for a reason and I wasn’t going to leave just because it was going to get harder. This was not an easy decision. I have wanted to be a mom more than I’ve wanted anything in my entire life, but with the way things are, it’s just not feasible. I am still frequently dealing with that part of it, especially as I get into the latter part of my “childbearing years”, but I’ve been working with my therapist on that because, as I said, my vows mean something to me. 

He has Diabetic Gastroparesis which, to put it simply, makes it hard for your digestive system to do its job. Symptoms include vomiting, nausea, abdominal bloating, abdominal pain, a feeling of fullness after eating just a few bites, vomiting undigested food eaten a few hours earlier, acid reflux, changes in blood sugar levels, lack of appetite, weight loss, malnutrition, and fatigue. This has made it very hard to control his blood sugar levels, which has its own side effects, and the weight loss makes it even more difficult because that causes the amount of insulin that he needs to take to fluctuate. 

The worse thing that can happen with chronic diseases, is having one that not many doctors know anything about. For years one of the worse symptoms for my husband has been fatigue. He sometimes sleeps for 14-16 hours a day and is still exhausted. Sometimes he sleeps more, sometimes less. He’s always in pain, but that fluctuates too. On good days, he’s at about a 2 on the pain scale and on the bad days, he can’t even move...I always say those days are a 12 on a scale of 1 to 10. He has been told for the last three years that he needs to get used to it because this is the way life is now and he should be able to manage it enough to work. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Recently, our PC doctor recommended a new gastro doctor who has been wonderful. He is the first doctor that has listened to my husband and agrees that his symptoms are not within the norm and the new doctor is fairly certain that there is something else in play here. This alone has improved the mental health of my husband exponentially. 

During one of his good days last week, he got online and did a ton of research on his elevated fatigue. He found that he has almost every symptom of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are fatigue, problems with memory or concentration, sore throat, headaches, enlarged lymph nodes in your neck or armpits, unexplained muscle or joint pain, dizziness that worsens with moving from lying down or sitting to standing, unrefreshing sleep, and extreme exhaustion after physical or mental exercise. So, he pushed himself and went to our PC doctor one day to talk about it. She agreed that it was possible and ordered bloodwork. Bloodwork came back today and according to those tests, he was right. He was so relieved. 

You may think relief is a weird thing to feel after having a second difficult to handle chronic diagnosis, but what you need to understand is, that when people have an “invisible illness” or “invisible disability” they are constantly having to defend themselves. We get a lot of eye rolls, uneducated advice, and hurtful statements such as “he’s just being lazy” or “he just doesn’t want to work”. We’ve received treatment like this from family, friends, co-workers, and strangers on the internet. Tell us he just needs to go outside and push himself to exercise when he feels like he can’t move and to “just eat” because it’s “not that hard”. Sadly, this is not likely to stop with the new diagnosis.

As hard as this whole journey has been, and will be, I am glad I decided to stay with my husband. Having someone in your corner makes a huge difference. As hard as it’s been going through this together, I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if he was going through this alone. I had to push him for over a year to get a third opinion because all the doctors were saying “this is your life now, get used to it, and get back to work.”

A lot of people ask me why I stay if I am so frustrated and sad all the time. Like I said, my vows mean something to me. I married this man for a reason. I don’t believe in destiny or fate because that would mean there is a reason behind the terrible suffering some people have to go through, and I can’t believe that. 

I love my husband. Part of the reason I write here is that if I vent out how upset, frustrated, angry, or sad I am about all this, it hurts him. He has enough to deal with, he knows how I feel, and it’s not worth putting him in a negative environment. Part of the reason we’ve gotten this far is that I don’t vent my daily frustrations out on him. 

“Rebellions are built on hope.” So, I rebel against the negative feelings and frustrations so that we may have hope that things will get better one day, and he can have a better quality of life.

[dearlordsanta]

I feel awful...

In school right now, I’m in an English class. I like English and it’s a class I am good at. My professor gives me great feedback and genuinely enjoys my writing which makes me feel great! As part of this class, she has us do a journal that is one to one-and-a-half pages long on any topic. We technically just have to check a box that it’s done, but my conscience won’t let me do that. I am afraid I will get lazy and stop doing it and just check the box since it’s not checked. I figured, I’ll do my journals and provide them for her so she can see I did it. I assumed that since she didn’t require it be shared, she would just see how long it was and give me credit.

I was wrong...

For last week’s journal, I was having a really bad week. When I do my journal for class, I do what I always do. I sit down and I just type until I get it all out in true journal venting style. Whatever comes out, is what I submit for my journal that week. She read through it and her comments on it made me feel awful. She complemented me on my writing saying it was beautifully written, but she feels awful for me. That wasn’t my intention. She gave some grandmotherly advice to take care of myself and a “this too shall pass” kind of message. <This is what I feel awful about. Although, I am touched that she genuinely cared enough to reach out and give advice, so I did email her thanking her.

I am about to start the last week of this class, so I think for my final journal, I will do something more normal. She probably thinks I’m extremely troubled. I was thinking about doing a journal about today because I could probably do a whole journal on just today, but I won’t. I figure I can post about it here because clearly, no one reads this anyway! (haha)

I’ve been doing a lot more for my mental health. I’ve been going out when I can with friends or to get coffee, just so I am not ALWAYS at home. There is nowhere I can go right now and not be stressed out. The last few months, at least once a month I’ve been doing brunch with people from work. It’s been really nice. Today was the day to do that. Plans of brunch, I LOVE brunch. Love mimosas, love coffee, love brunch.

Today was a little bit busy for a day off. I had a doctor’s appointment the other day and my PC doctor is concerned about some stuff that’s been going on with me (I won’t go into detail just because medical stuff grosses me out lol). She ordered some fasting bloodwork for me to do. Since I spend a lot of time at home, I was worried about doing these. So, I decided to sleep through the fast. 

I get off work at 8am, so I stayed up as late as I possibly could Sunday morning. I made it until 2pm. I ate something before I crashed, turned on my audiobook and went to sleep. With only one brief interruption to get up and feed my dogs their dinner, I slept until 3am. I still had three hours to kill before I could do the testing, so I took a shower, did my nails, and placed an online order for groceries. I also had an at-home blood test thing to do for work that requires fasting, so I did that too since I had already fasted. At 6am, I went to get my bloodwork done and then had a snack because I couldn’t wait until 9:15am to eat again, I was STARVING (lol).

At 8am, I dropped off the at-home blood test to FedEx so it could be sent out today, picked up the grocery order, went home to put away the grocery order, and then went to brunch with my co-workers.

The food wasn’t anything to write home about, but the coffee was amazing! I had a great time hanging out and catching up with my co-workers in a social setting. By the time I was heading home, I felt pretty good, but definitely ready to be home.

When I got home, my husband was near the tail-end of a flare up. I felt the caregiver’s guilt. It’s the kind of guilt you don’t understand until you’re a caregiver. He was uncomfortable, in pain, and needed help...and I wasn’t there. Not only was I not there...I was out having fun while he was home and in pain. I felt like an awful wife.

I gave him some medicine and some water with electrolytes, then some hot food that would be easy on his stomach. After about an hour he started feeling a little better and I came in here to write.

I feel like I am always running on fumes. He doesn’t know that I wake up all the time to check on him. I wonder if he sees how much I stress about him not having the medicine he needs or making sure we have the right foods for bad health days (soft, easy to digest). On days I am working I feel like I’m being torn apart. On my off days, I just feel like I should be doing more, I just don’t have the energy. 

I don’t know how to get out of this, but if I don’t figure something out soon, I think I might break.

[dearlordsanta]

Back to School (not venting)

This isn’t “Journal Venting”, but I promised that I would share my victories as well so as not to be exclusively negative. No one wants to visit a blog that is “woe is me” all the time, which is not my intention. Things are hard right now, yes, but as I said in one of my previous posts, it’s important to celebrate the smaller victories as well.

For a little back story, before this year, I had not been in school for an extended period of time. Fifteen years, to be exact. I gave up on school in my late teens and when I couldn’t figure out how to go back by my early twenties, I had given up on the premise of going back to school. Especially in the United States where it just gets more and more expensive to get an education.

However, I promised a story of victory here. It started with my work coming up with a new program that pays for 100% of your schooling, regardless of what you want to major it. It sounded made up, the previous program had been reimbursement where you’d pay for the class upfront and then work would reimburse you if you passed. I asked a LOT of questions prior to committing to it. As you may have seen from previous posts, I’m going through a lot right now and adding in one more thing sounded like a really bad idea. However, I decided to take the plunge. 

I’ve been in college (doing online only schooling at the moment) for several months now. It’s still very new. I am only on my third class, but I’m passing with flying colors. I know the 4.0 GPA won’t stick forever, but it’s a great confidence booster and I’m so glad my professors give genuine feedback instead of the “cookie cutter” feedback. They give feedback that helps you grow as a student.

As someone who suffers from horrible anxiety, I must say that doing school as I feel like I can handle it has been huge for me. As long as I do everything needed by the end of the week, I get full credit! Going at my own speed and approaching things in my own way while being successful has been a huge confidence boost for me.

It’s one of the only things keeping me going right now. It’s the one thing that isn’t hard for me. It still blows my mind because I was awful at school when I was young, so I am sort of amazing myself that I am doing so well. I hope it continues. 

Thanks for reading!

:)

PS

The optimisfits book I spoke of in my last post is pretty religious, which I am not. I will read through it to see if it has anything I can benefit from in it, but judging from the reviews, I don’t think it will. A lot of them reference “God’s plan” and if you’re a non-believer such as myself, one of two things will happen. One, you’ll feel like the book is saying you’re going to hell or two, you’ll feel like they aren’t talking to you because the source of comfort they are using is non-existent for you. I’m curious if other non-religious people feel differently than I do about those sorts of books. I will give a real review once I’ve read the book also.