So Monday and Tuesday at work were very stressful, as I don’t know very many people and I don’t know the new menu or computer system. I’ve been in the corner of the drive-thru managing money and handing out orders, because that definitely never changes, and taking orders when it’s slow, though about 90% of the time I need help finding something in the system. I managed to not have a panic attack either day though both days I spent a lot of time near tears. I got extra-long breaks to cut down on labor, so I only got 19 hours this whole week so far, but the breaks helped me refocus and gather myself.
Wednesday I watched my nephew, who has learned the magical word “nope.” Not no, nope, which was cute for about .4 seconds until he turned into a little snot about it. He got a couple time-outs over the course of the day when he was telling me nope to things like apologizing for hitting me with one of his toys. That did not fly for me.
Wednesday I also got a call from collections, and discovered that the billing for one of the hospitals I’ve been to, has the same account number for both the hospital visit and the physician (they get billed separately) so I’ve accidentally been paying twice on the physician bill without knowing, and the other one got sent to collections. I set up a payment plan and intend to call the hospital to rant at someone about this billing practice, as it’s asinine, but I was ultra mega polite to the people I talked to at collections and at the hospital billing department, as they were trying to help me figure out what happened.
I went through the rest of my bills and got panicky about the fact that new bills keep wandering in and it still feels like I’m drowning, especially when I had so few hours this week at a whopping $7.40 an hour. I still owe my therapist over $1000, my psychiatrist $120, and my old pharmacy $100, on top of various medical bills, a T-Mobile bill with the $200 cancellation fee tacked on to the $80 monthly charge, and my car, insurance, phone, monthly medication costs, and internet. For a little more stress on the stress sandwich, Chihiro’s teeth are still giving her problems, so the rest might need to be removed as well, as her gums simply won’t heal in front of the questionable canine and her incisors are behaving strangely- either the gums swelled up around them again or two have fallen out.
If only I could win the lottery without actually playing, or some wealthy benefactor showed up and wanted to get my debts caught up and my car paid off, that’d be great. I’m stressed about living here, because I know it stresses out my parents, particularly my stepdad, and I keep being reminded that this is a temporary situation and I will have to get an apartment at some point. Because I am so very happy to be here, with the vast majority of my belongings in a storage unit that I’m now paranoid about, and my cat in another state. Yup. Nothing makes me happier than feeling completely useless and hopeless and being reminded that my present state is temporary. I’m worried that I will do something wrong and find myself sitting in a homeless shelter because my parents couldn’t deal with me anymore.
I gladly disappeared once mom got home and tried to relax, but I got all worked up about working on Thursday, feeling like a failure, feeling like I would be better off dead, and stressing over my bills and wanting to keep my credit score from ending up completely in the toilet. Some employers even check THAT now, so I just feel completely boxed in from every direction, and the walls are closing in. I ended up staying awake all night, and just broke down crying around 4 AM. My mom and stepdad both came in when they heard me crying and talked to me, though they’re not exactly good at being reassuring, as a lot of it was “well, you don’t have much of a choice, so pull yourself up by your bootstraps and deal.” There was also some “well, you keep missing group,” because I completely forgot about it Wednesday, and thus have missed it three weeks in a row for various reasons. Mom scolded me about it and my frustration at needing therapy and it not being available was met with a “you just have to deal with what you can get.” Mom did point out that I am doing much better than I was when I first got here, but she sounded very disappointed when she called me to see if I was going to make it to work today, which made me feel awesome again.
I ended up calling in to my first shift because I was just too wiped out and also having akathesia, likely from switching brands of wellbutrin. That seems to happen whenever the pharmacy switches it up for a day or two, and then it’s okay. Just takes a bit of benedryl, which isn’t exactly conducive to being conscious. I did make it to my second shift and while my face was still super puffy from crying, and one of the managers who’s known me forever was concerned at that, but I did okay and didn’t end up needing any of the klonopin in my pocket.
I’m hoping to pick up more hours this weekend, as I’m not scheduled Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, and I’d go up north if I had any idea of I work Monday or not. I probably do. It’s the opening weekend of Faire, and I’m so broke it’s not even funny, so I can’t go down for a couple of days as much as I’d love to, either. I’ll just work on jewelry and job applications, I guess, and try to rest, and pick up hours if they call me and ask me to come in. No matter what, I just feel like a failure all around, but I have no real choice but to keep moving forward, even if it’s at a snail’s pace. I’m trying to remember the encouragement graphic I saw that said something like “Optimism is taking one step forward and two steps back, and thinking of it as a cha-cha.” I just need to learn how to cha-cha more effectively, because damn I suck at it right now.
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