Don’t get me wrong–I’ve had bad days before. But this year, this entire year thus far, exceeds all of them combined. I know this may seem like a soap opera script, but this is the actual events as they happened. They are bad enough on their own, so it is not necessary to exaggerate the facts to make it interesting.
On January 1, my father passed away. He had suffered with Crohn’s Disease for over 30 years but it was liver disease that caused his death. As if his passing wasn’t bad enough, his life insurance policy had not reached maturity so the funeral expenses were our responsibility. Now let me say this — I am the “rich” sibling and I’m flat broke. Soooo…now I owe the local funeral home almost $6,000. Oh and don’t forget I still have to purchase a tombstone. It’s bad enough when you have to grieve over a lost loved one, but when you have to be concerned with cost and trying to give a proper burial the stress levels are unbelievable. My father also received one last Social Security check for around $700. I applied all of it to his burial expenses and my sister was angry because she didn’t get any money. My stress was so bad that I was late for the viewing of the body because I was puking my guts out.
In the next few weeks, while still grieving, I had to take care of all the Thank You notes and try to drum up as much work as I could to pay towards the burial before 18% interest was added to it on the 30th day. I owe $5400 now. I was doing as much work as I could find and forcing myself out of bed in the mornings. On the 25th day after my father’s funeral service, my husband told me he didn’t know if he wanted to be with me anymore. This was my breaking point.
I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating. I lost 11 pounds in January all together. I started hallucinating and hearing voices. I totally snapped and called my husband at work and told him I had two bottles of Ativan and a bottle of Buspar and was going to take them so he needed to be here before the children got home from school. It was about that time that my best friend was at the door. It was pointless to try to keep her out because she has a key. She stayed until officers from the Sheriff’s Department arrived and then until my husband got here. After a quick trip to my doctor and my husband agreeing to be responsible for my medications, I was allowed to come home.
As if all of that weren’t enough, add in my twelve year old daughter who thinks because we are strict parents that she is a prisoner. She told me she was going to report me for child abuse after I spanked her for mouthing off at me and not doing as she was told. I called the officer for her. The juvenile officer was sent out and spoke to her and agreed to keep an eye on her for awhile because of gang materials she had in her possession. Lovely, huh? This is a child who is not allowed to go anywhere except school and church and we changed churches because she was getting too friendly with a boy at our old church. The saga continues with me catching her sneaking to talk to a boy in the bedroom window standing on a ladder outside it. I could scream. Often times, I have to just walk away from her.
Then, my husband decides to buy a brand new truck. As if our debt wasn’t bad enough already, let’s add $26,000 to it for a 2008 Dodge Ram Quad Cab SXT. Ok, I must say the lifetime warranty is nice and we did need a vehicle to pull our camper (which we traded our old van for last fall–evenly) but good grief already. The new truck had approximately 2200 miles on it when he ran into a pole, causing $5,000 worth of damage. Bad enough yet? No. When they started tearing into the truck to fix it, the body shop found that our brake line has been loosened and brake fluid was everywhere. The accident didn’t cause it–it was an act of vandalism. Considering the truck is not driven much, we’ve had it less than a month and it sits in the drive 90% of the time, the only place it could have been tampered with was in my front yard. So, on top of everything else, I have someone attempting to cause us bodily harm.
Am I done yet? Of course not. Let’s continue, shall we?
In January, my 7 year old nephew began having seizures. I had to throw my now 9 year old son a birthday party at my house just ten days after the funeral services. My washer and dryer both went out at the same time shortly after that. Several members of my family and friends have me fill out their income taxes.
We now enter February.
Three people in my house get the stomach flu. Guess who had to stay up all night taking care of them two nights in a row. My sister hits a deer and of course she had no insurance. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt. My husband’s birthday comes, which is also the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. A man who molested my niece was in the paper as the “King of Hearts” at a local nursing home.
Enter March.
I can’t sleep again. My blood sugar has started going up and down. Then we have the whole truck saga. Around this time, my mother finds out about my mental health issues and starts asking the family to check on me regularly. The doctor has to prescribe me a second medication to take with the first one and I started therapy earlier in the month. I need a vacation bad. To hell with the cost…it’s get away or be sent away. Guess who ends up responsible for all the planning.
Still with me? On top of all of this, I have various family members and friends constantly asking me for favors as if I didn’t have enough to do. For some reason, even though I am not even responsible for my own care, others think I should be responsible for everyone else in the family. Will it ever end? Of course the answer is no.
I must say that my husband and I did work things out if you haven’t already figured it out. I still have stress levels that are out of this world. It seems like every day brings something new to the table. Unfortunately, none of it is ever good. It’s bad enough to have some type of mental illness–Bipolar 1 with psychotic features is what I am labeled–but to add everything else I endure on top of it and I really am rethinking my previous belief that the human lifespan was too short. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suicidal at this point. I just keep thinking, I have to endure 30+ more years of this?
*Sigh*.
Tell me I am not alone.
