Whisper

I've been in this cycle for a long time now, maybe 7 years? I've tried having boundaries, but haven't done well at maintaining them, and I've watched her get worse, and better, and worse... She is unable to consistently care for herself, and I just can't continue to try filling the gap, but even when I try and stop I still keep doing it. Even when I'm not with her, so much of my mental energy is spent worrying about her. I'm trying to be at the point of "I'll call you in the morning, if you're up, you can use the car while I'm at work", but yesterday was definitely a more day. She's still sick, not getting better. Tried going to a walk in clinic, but couldn't be seen before my shift ended. They held her place in line, I brought her back to the clinic and then went to the pharmacy for her. Then ended up waiting outside the clinic for a couple hours, tired and hungry and with a headache getting worse and worse. They needed to do something involving a speculum, and anything involving that area of her body leaves her super freaked out, and I couldn't just tell her to figure out her own way home. So I waited. It wasn't where I wanted the boundary to be, but it also seemed like the right thing to do. I just need to not let hours of my time after a 10+ hour shift be anywhere near the norm. She managed to leave her cell phone at the clinic, and she didn't wake up this morning when I called her apartment phone. I want to tell her that this is her problem to find a solution to, but am worried that I'll end up taking care of it after work. I was too dead to do anything but hit a drive through on the way home, feed the cats, take some headache stuff and curl up in bed after I got home yesterday. I need to have time and spoons left to take care of my stuff too. A few years ago, Tank told me to get a copy of Boundaries and I was a good little Whisper and promptly ordered it. I mean, I didn't do anything crazy like actually open it, but I did buy it! Talking with one of my pastors on Sunday, he told me to read some book called "Boundaries" by some Cloud person... I really should find it and read it, but I'm honestly scared to.

I woke up this morning and decided that I just couldn't do it today. Or I could, but wasn't going to? Sent some messages and went back to sleep for another 3 hours. I suppose I could go to work now, but don't think I'm gonna.

That is a beautiful way of putting it. Happy to hear you're feeling good, and happy Orthodox Easter.

At the risk of sounding absolutely awful; happy she's dead, wish she was gone.

"Hell" is the word you are looking for; the word that best encapsulates that paragraph. I couldn't get any work done in that cacophony. Also, boss is way, way out of line. You've requested reasonable accommodations (dim lights, door closed) so you can do the work they need you to do. He has no right to demand you do a reading assignment on your vacation, no ground to say the shit he's saying. THIS

Happy to hear the move went well, and that Daisy seems to be liking her new place!

This is week three right? Gonna roll with that. Week Three Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box Filled that out the best I could. Haven't been tracking daily, but all the proper spots are empty in my pill holder, the cats aren't trying to murder me for neglecting them, and I'm giving up on the day way before 8... Last Friday I hit a hard DONE point. I knew what Maggie wanted me to do, and I didn't have anything left. Someone else went over, but after an hour couldn't get her to come out. She eventually made her way to the hospital and was in the ER overnight. Sunday I told her brother I can't keep doing things. She needs more care than I can provide, and I can't even keep trying. I've been saying for years that she isn't fully capable of taking care of herself. Not always, sometimes she manages, and then things go wrong again, and the cycle keeps repeating every few months, and I can't keep doing this. Told her on Monday I was willing to keep calling her in the morning, and if she's up, she can use the car while I'm at work, but that's all I can do now. She lashed out. She apologised later. She did hear back this week that the mediation was decided in her favor. We still haven't been shown the actual results of their "testing" but to quote the decision "minimal amounts of the toxin in test results" kind of supports the idea that they were fishing for an excuse. I've told her she needs to keep following up, before they find another excuse, but I'm not going to try and make it happen. Sunday I decided that getting properly drunk was too much work. Went to take a nap at 2, woke up at 4, stayed in bed until 7 before going back to sleep. Lots of getting in bed shortly after work this week, watching something on my phone for a while, before going to sleep early. At least I'm waking up fairly well.

And now, because this is how my brain works, a small rant about a movie I saw once, while on a plane a few years ago, part of a much larger set of movies I've never seen. And the topic: female representation and tokenism, a subject on which I am in no way qualified to speak. Basically, I'm coming at this from a place of maximum ignorance; you have been warned. So, basic good guys fighting bad guys Disney flick, and we're at the final battle and all the forces are being unleashed, and we've got like 45 main characters that need screen time. And in the middle of this just irked me so much it's the only thing I remember about the movie. One if our heros, a scrappy young man seen as a kid by everyone else, needs saving. The music changes, it's Girl Boss time! Every. Single. Female. Characters plays some role in rescuing the kid, and it feels so forced and unnatural. Giant, pitched battle with the forces of evil, and rescuing the kid takes him past every woman and no men? It feels like a bunch of suits sat around a table and started with the conclusion and hammered it into the movie. "All right boys, we've got a bunch of chicks in this flick, and we've got to show that they can be just as badass as the guys" "What if we have them save one of the guys?" "No, no, that won't work, we can't undermine the men like that, they need to be seen as strong and rugged" "We could have them rescue the kid" "Yeah, that'll work, chicks are always looking after kids" "Throw on a montage to cover as many of them as possible and we're set! Now, let's get back to the actual movie " Like, it seems to me that if you feel the need to have a separate scene to remind your audience how badass your women are, than you don't really think they're badass on their own.

Happy Easter, to those for whom that has meanings. I wore my new earrings today. I think I shall pursue inebriation now.

Screen grab from phone, because copying the text message over is more work than I have in me right now.

Couldn't wake her up by phone. Got here about 10:20 and was finally able to get her up. Had to wait downstairs for her. Apparently the front desk lady got yelled at for letting me go up to wake her. She wasn't down by 11, one of the workers went up to check on her. She finally came down. The hearing was done over zoom, or something like it. I laid out things as we see them. The mediator has 10 days to review things and make a decision. She did a fair amount of yelling and interrupting. I felt like I put together an outline of events and unanswered questions. She told them she doesn't trust any of them, including the mediator. She doesn't understand why that was bad.

Week Two Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box Well, I finally brushed me teeth I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY! I'm actually kind of happy about it. I don't understand my own head, but I do know that the longer I go without brushing, the harder it is to brush again, and brushing the night before makes it easier to brush again tonight, so let's bring back the green! Maggie has her eviction hearing at 11 today. I've been trying to reach her all morning, but no success. 9:30 now. I'm leaving work at 10 to help her with the hearing, but if I've got to try and wake her... this is going to be rough.

Really proud of you. This has been a long, hard saga, but you've kept pushing, and you're doing what is best for Daisy.

Forgive me Nerd Fitness for I have sinned. I has been 5 day since my last confession since I properly filled in my beautiful boxes. Tried to fill in the main tasks as well as I could, but I'm not going to try and remember the extras. Last Week and so far this week Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box I'm letting myself have the "Make this box green" box because I have at least put some active thought into doing things, even if I didn't pull up the sheet every day. I've been stress eating at night, and when I do that brushing goes by the wayside. Need to fix that. This are still really stressful with Maggie. There's some sort of "hearing" at her apartment tomorrow about the eviction. I'm going to leave work early and try to advocate for her. What they're doing is total bullshit. Spent a fair amount of time cleaning over the weekend and Monday afternoon, trying to get my living room and kitchen to the point where I didn't want to die at the thought of people seeing them. The floors are clear and mostly clean and even if higher surfaces are still cluttered, it feels a whole lot better to be in the space. I'm thankful for the kick in the butt, and want to keep things going. They did end up going in to measure my bedroom and closet. I wasn't able to even think about touching that disaster. But when I warned the flooring guy before I opened the door, he just said something to the effect of "believe me, how ever it is, I've seen worse" Didn't say anything about the state, just got his measurements. I didn't feel judged at all by him or my landlord, but I still don't like that I let things get that way. The only path left in there is the door to my bed. There isn't like, anything rotten or stinky, amazingly I manage to get my dirty laundry in the basket and wash it regularly. But washed often doesn't become put away. A clean laundry basket for underclothes. All my shirts and pants kind of hung on the closet door. And just, stuff. So damn much stuff. Need to sort through it, find "aways" to put things but I just feel totally overwhelmed by it and when I don't know where to put something, it ends up on top of the last thing I didn't know where to put... 75% of it should probably just go in the recycling. Anyway, we picked out some flooring. Going to be these wood laminate planks. The stuff I have now is a single sheet with no way to fix the areas that are bad. This stuff, you'll be able to pull up any damaged planks and replace them. But it does mean that I'm going to have to move everything out first my living room and then my bedroom, while he's working on it. which is a good opportunity to purge things. So, yeah, kind of a "good but hard" situation.

Today has been a day. Played bells at two services for Palm Sunday, then took Maggie over to my place to start filling out forms. Utah Comunity Action to request mediation assistance. Legal Services to see if we can get her a lawyer. Housing and Urban Development, and Utah Fair Housing to file discrimination complaints. Took a lot of time and frayed nerves, but it feels like we're laying the groundwork for her to fight this. Had an embarrassing encounter with my landlord yesterday. He wanted to come in and look at my floors as he was thinking about having them redone. Didn't feel I could say "it's an ungodly mess, please don't come in", so he came in and saw the mess, and we talked about the floor. There is some damage from some water that got in during heavy rain a while back. He's looking at going away with the Peace Corp for a couple years, and wants to make sure everything is on good shape before he goes. He's trying to set up to have someone come in on Monday to look at doing tiles. Felt highly motivated to clean on Saturday, and did a bit more after taking Maggie home today. Living room is better than it has been in a long time, but kitchen still needs work and I haven't been able to touch the bedroom. Hoping to have some time after work to get the kitchen better before he comes. I'll lock the cats in my bedroom. I like the flooring in there, and it is still in good condition, so hopefully I can hide that shame.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

And M is back in full on crisis. Another eviction notice on her door today, for "criminal activity" and her apartment testing positive for meth. I'll grant that she is a pain in the ass often. She's got a lot of circuits in her head that aren't firing right and she's a whole mess of trauma and physical ailments. And there are times when she is a sobbing mess, and times when she is yelling and inappropriate, and they can't evict her for that. If they could, they would. But this is supposed to be a "supportive living environment" for people with disabilities that have experienced homelessness. They can't kick her out for sometimes ugly PTSD, so they're trying to find some other pretext. They tried to evict her for unpaid rent, saying that her application for rent assistance was denied. As soon as that got paid, they decided to test her apartment for meth because of "complaints" that they say they can't provide any details on. I asked how many other units they tested, they can't say. I asked how many units on her floor come up positive in the last year, they can't say. I asked if they tested her unit after another person on the floor was caught cooking meth, no they didn't. I asked how many spots were tested in her apartment, where, and which once came back positive, they can't say. I asked who conducted the testing, they won't disclose their vendor. Next step is for her to request a hearing, which we did. I know we can fight this, but M herself is going to be the biggest obstacle, because she won't just FUCKING SHUT UP long enough for someone to advocate for her. Before we went in there, she agreed she wouldn't talk, would let me ask my questions. Over and over I told her she needed to stop talking and she wouldn't, until as we're leaving M literally tells the property manager that she is worse than the man that raped her. So yeah, I get why they don't want to deal with her, but tough shit. You're a section 8 building ran by the Housing Authority, providing a place for people like her is your job.

I heard it, but haven't seen it.

Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box Thursday was a bad head day. I'm not sure if I should blame it on stepping on a scale. I hadn't weighed myself in a long while, and yesterday I stepped on a freight scale at work. 390 pounds. I think I was 384ish last I checked, so not exactly a huge shift, and I was relieved to see that I'm still under 400 pounds. Before stepping on the scale, I was already thinking about food, about trying to shift what I'm keeping at home, not to lose weight, but to try and feel better, with hopefully a byproduct of having to haul less around everywhere. Yesterday I could feel the thoughts of fat/ugly/lazy/corpulent/stupid pushing into my conscious. I don't follow them, I try not to even let them fully form. Had bell practice last night. Spent the entire drive home debating stopping and getting food while knowing I wasn't hungry. Stopped at 7-11 again, got chex-mix and candy and went home and got in bed and ate it all.

Hi Sky, I'm sorry you're having to deal with all of this in one big lump. I hope you and Eamon are feeling better soon and things work out with the new med and therapy.

Dumb ramblings I feel safer putting that there.

I left work feeling extremely Tuesday this afternoon, but all the proper Tuesday things happened yesterday. Trash went out, Factor box came in...

I'm feeling strangely disconnected from time this week. Every day doesn't feel like the day it is. I know it is Wednesday, but I keep feeling like it is Monday or Friday. Is the week just starting or almost over? Week One Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Check Goals Make this box green Established Take meds Drink 1 Bottle of Water In bed by 8:15 Practice Spanish New Brush teeth Clean cat box

It always amazes me when a therapist says to do something that feels like it is too small and stupid to actually, but when I get over myself enough to actually do it, damn if they aren't right. I hope Eamon is starts feeling better soon.