CAB

Okay, I realise I've not really posted anything for a while and I probably should. Here's what's been happening:

Friday afternoon I went to my cousin's house to see if she was okay and if she needed anything and if there was anything I could do and to just generally give her hugs and try to make her feel better. Spent a few hours talking about everything under the sun except my aunt as she wanted to be distracted as much as possible. Then in the evening her uncles and aunt showed up - her mother's brothers, which means more Irish than a stereotype could possibly be - and we went to the nearest pub and drank and laughed and reminisced about what a wonderful person my Auntie Mary was. My ribs were hurting from laughter by the end of the night and I could barely breathe. May sound insensitive but it's what Mary would've wanted. For instance, we're under strict instructions that nobody is allowed to wear black at the funeral - there will be bright colours, happy music, and much drinking and laughter.

Saturday I got two letters in the mail - one from the gas company telling me I owe them £250 in arrears. I thought gas bills were on a direct debit, but if they're not, this is the first I've heard of money owed. They've not been sending me monthly bills, just this 'you owe us money, we're gonna turn your gas off' letter. Fucking great.

The other letter was telling me I owe £750 council tax and they're taking me to court. Again, this is the first I've heard of it. I'm not meant to pay council tax anyway. My council tax benefit states that I have £0 council tax to pay. But my sister was living here at the time so she had to pay some of it. She's since moved out, informed people of it, taken her name off the council tax, but apparently none of this evidence is good enough for the housing & council tax benefit people and they refuse to believe she no longer lives here. So my housing benefit's been at the same low rate as when she was living here but I'm paying full rent. Making things so incredibly difficult. I'm not sure I can afford food for the rest of this month and that's not even taking the gas bill into account. Screw the council tax that I'm not even meant to be paying.

So we went to the CAB on Monday. We've been trying to make an appointment with them for months but we've trying to do it by phone and it's impossible to get through. Eventually said screw it and spent a tenner (that would've gotten SO much food - gonna have to scab food off my dad this month) that we really couldn't afford on bussing over there just so we could make an appointment to come back next Monday. Which is Valentine's day. Gonna spend all the spoons I have going to that appointment. Kind of sucks. I rarely get to have sex because it takes so many goddamned spoons, and I was kind of hoping that on Valentine's, of all days, I could have enough spare for it. Oh well.

Anyhow, CAB are gonna help me sort things out. Hopefully. Although I still think it's ridiculous that I had to go all the way down there and then wait for two hours (in the noisiest waiting room I have ever been in - so many levels of sound my head was constantly feeling like it was going to explode) to see someone for all of two minutes so that they could do an 'assessment' so they could give me an appointment.

I'm Going Crazy

OWWWWWWWWW.

+Yaaaaaaaaaaawn.

^Pain and fatigue. That is all my life is.

I missed a doctor's appointment this morning because I just could not make myself be awake for it. I'd care more if I thought there was any chance my doctor would have gotten me some painkillers but all I can think is 'At least I didn't hurt myself walking down there.'

When I DID wake up the first thing I did was read news and blogs and catch up on current politics, as I do most days. Then, as I do most days, I cried and settled into a slump of depression and was unable to do anything for hours.

My mental health can't take knowing what the government's doing, but I can't bear to NOT know. I don't want it just sprung on me all at once later, but the constant barrage of assaults on equality and justice are slowly eroding my sanity.

Puppy Getting HEAVY

I just had a bit of a mental breakdown, and whilst I was sat there crying hysterically I realised that the monologue in my head* might actually make me feel a little better if I actually SAID it to someone, or typed it at least.

Anyway, here's what happened: (Not the answer to the whole 'oh shit what's wrong?' question, but the answer to the 'what little thing happened that made you start crying which then made you think of all the other shitty things which perpetuated the crying and turned you into a hysterical sobbing mess?' question. Which is a far better question. Why does no-one ever ask THAT question? I don't care if it's wordy; I like wordy.)

I got up to go to the loo. There was a puppy downstairs, but she's always intrigued by the noise of people moving upstairs, even if it's only down the hall, and there was an open packet of cookies on my bedside table. It wasn't within easy reach and puppy KNOWS not to EVER take things off of tables/desks/etc, but the cookies were too tempting. I should have known this because she stole one earlier when I got up to go to the loo***. I come back, see her with her head in the pack of cookies, shout at her (which hurts my throat), grab her (which dislocates a shoulder and subluxes a wrist), she squirms, I keep hold of her (subluxing the other wrist and an elbow) and throw her out of the room (not quite literally, but still getting the other elbow). Then close the door and collapse sobbing against it because both of my arms are just huge masses of PAIN and WRONGNESS and I have no idea how to go about setting them to rights when both of them are so completely dead and I'm so weak and ill and crashing and I'm already in so much pain and the stupid fucking thing about putting joints back in the right place is that you have to put yourself in MORE pain in order to FIX the pain and it's all just so ridiculous and overwhelming and I don't know how to deal with it and I HATE putting myself in pain and WHY exactly haven't people prescribed me any working painkillers yet? Then the hyperventilating hysterical sobbing hurts my throat and my ribs and I tell myself to suck it up and I fix all my joints because I know damn well that the longer I leave them the worse they'll hurt and the more likely they are to cause some sort of permanent damage so now matter HOW bad I hurt I can't just sit there crying like a baby; I have to be all grown up about it and fix it.

I fucking hate that. I want to be able to break down and CRY dammit. Except I don't, really. Want to cry, that is. Crying sucks. It's given me a headache and made my throat worse. What I want is to not feel so goddamn helpless that I feel the need to break down and cry like a baby. I HATE being so broken and I HATE being so fucking dependent on someone else to take care of me. And I was HOPING to be able to look after myself for the rest of the night until I'm able to fall asleep but I'm fairly certain my chances of that just went out the window and now I'll have to wait on someone else's fucking convenience in order to get drinks to soothe my goddamned throat.

I have no idea how I'm going to manage getting up next time I need the loo, by the way. All that sitting against the door seems to have killed my back, which doesn't help me with walking, and the crying made the lightheadedness worse, which also doesn't help with walking.

Fuuuuuck.

EDIT: Yup. Depressing moment there. First ever 'I need someone to help me go to the loo' moment. The shoulder that dislocated is none too happy about it, despite being fixed now, and I can't reach down with that arm, nor could I bend forwards without hurting my back and shoulder blade, so I couldn't actually pull my pants down myself. FML. Although, less FML than all the carer-less disabled people out there, who I'm feeling extra sorry for and depressed about at the minute. Because if it wasn't for Rambo...I don't even want to think about that. It's a horrifying and disgusting thought, to be honest. I'm going to go back to crying for a little while.






*I do that all the time. A constant attempt at explaining myself to other people from the rational part of my brain. Except it never gets said to said other people** and then I forget about it. And it's not explained and they don't understand and I don't feel any better for it.

**I'm sorry if I occasionally write confusing sentences like that. It's a poetic thing that creeps into my prose which I've always enjoyed because I have a thing for word-play, but other people like to shout at me about. Fuck off, I like it.

***My throat is on fire, so I've drunk about 10 cups of water today, and 4 or 5 cups of hot blackcurrant/lemon/throat-soothy-mediciny stuff. I have a weak bladder. I've been running back and forth from the loo all day, despite the nearly-fainting-ness that accompanies standing up when you a fever and POTS. I've not fainted. Yet****. Fingers crossed.

****Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I've fainted once since we worked out what was making me faint. I still FEEL like I'm going to all the time, but I know what causes it now and I'm so much better at recognising the signs and forcing myself to collapse on the floor if I need to in order to stop me fainting. I mean, I end up on the floor either way but the first is by far the better option.

16 Hours

until Rambo comes home. I can't fucking wait. I am falling apart here.

Crazy abdominal pain flared up out of the blue on Sunday and my Mebeverine for some reason isn't doing shit about it. Then Dini kicked me in the stomach and I was unable to walk/cough/sneeze/laugh/BREATHE PROPERLY for the next few days.

Pain level's been at 8-9 since Sunday. Moxie has not helped in the slightest. I have no spoons left whatsoever, have borrowed quite heavily from the bank, and once Rambo comes home I will take to bed and crash for a good few days.

Needless to say, I've not been able to get any writing done, and am fucking hating myself for that. I had over a fucking month to get this done and I left it until the last week because I write better with a deadline but I wasn't expecting Rambo to bugger off and crazy flare-ups to happen.

Dazed and Confused

Everything fucking hurts and I'm sitting here bawling and Moxie is looking at me so confused and apologetic but it's not her fault I'm hurting - she doesn't know how fragile I am.

And I'm so confused and brain-fogged that I keep not being able to remember when I last fed her and I have the sneaking suspicion that the reason she has hiccups and is retching right now is because she's tricked me into giving her two dinners.

And I keep having odd chest problems and not being able to breathe properly and making such loud fricking noises trying to suck in breath that Moxie for some reason thinks I'm playing a game with her and starts trying to attack me - WHILST I CAN'T BREATHE.

And my POTS is still flaring and I keep nearly fainting with all of the jumping up and leaning down to grab the Moxie when she's doing something she shouldn't.

Once again, I CANNOT FUCKING DEAL WITH THIS ALONE.

EDIT: Oh, and I still haven't written my Screamprompt and I'm running severely low on time but Moxie can't leave me the fuck alone long enough for me to do anything about it. I normally hide upstairs for hours when I want to write but I don't want to leave Moxie alone for that long.

Oshit

So, turns out Scouser's not coming as she forgot she had other plans that she'd already put deposits on. I am now officially alone. Until Thursday at least.

I am so fucking terrified that I have been in tears since Rambo left. I can't take care of myself, let alone Moxie as well.

I'm exhausted. I've not slept and I can barely move. POTS is flaring like mad and I've been coughing and sneezing for the last couple days so I figure I've got a cold (and a fever that's flaring my POTS.)

To top it all off, I just got letters through the mail saying:

1. Housing Benefit won't give me any more money until I send them the letter stating my ESA has ended. I never got the damn letter because ESA fails at their own bureaucracy and the only way I found out it had stopped was by phoning them to ask where the fuck my money was.

2. A new council tax bill for July-March stating I owe them £710, no mention of my Council Tax Benefit.

3. A letter from the estate agents saying they're going to be doing an inspection on Wednesday. When the house will be in a right fucking state because there is no way I can clean it and look after me and the dog - and if there's ridiculous amounts of puppy-related mess they may well change their minds about me being allowed a dog.

4. Finally got my new Choose & Book letter and once again the only appointment available is THREE MONTHS from now. I've not booked it and will just keep trying every day in the hopes of a cancellation I guess.

I CANNOT DEAL WITH ALL OF THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW.