From blog written on 9/5/12: The person who usually helps me pay my rent–as my disability that I'm currently on is not quite enough to cover it with living expenses–I didn't hear from her today–this being the day rhe rent is due….So, this could be the beginning of a downward spiral that I was so fearful might occur if this were to ever happen….I'll elaborate more later….all I ask is for the strength to handle the adversity, for this to somehow not set me off into a whole new world of anxiety and depression….we shall see.

9/7/12 And,,,,still haven't heard from her….so looks like I'm on my own…guess I had this coming….my fault for not getting another job yet since I lost my previous one during the darkest days of my breakdown….So, went to the landlord yesterday, with only half my payment; told her I'd pay her the other half a week from Tuesday when I get my disability check…However, that will also mean an additional $125 in late fees that I will have to pay at that time….So….that will be a total of $760 I will have to pay…..subtract that from $884(amount I will get for disability); assuming I won't be getting the help with paying my rent any longer, that will leave a grand total of..(drumroll please:) $124 for me to survive on for the month!…Wonderful!…Now, I should say it could be a little more than that…MIGHT get an extra $100 from disability–as I was approved for "extra help" from them–something I had to apply for after they started automatically deducting $100 a month for Medicaid staring a couple of months ago; Extra Help means, among other things, I think, that I will get that $100 from them again–at least I think it will; I don't know, the whole thing confuses the hell out of me…..And there's the possibility that I might have a couple hundred dollars more if I manage to save a couple hundred bucks or so out of the few hundred dollars I currently have in my checking account(will depend on how much more this month I have to pay for bills, gas, etc)…So anyway, it might be a little more than $124…we'll see…

How am I feeling about all of this?… DIsappointed, of course…and angry…REALLY angry(which, actually, if I have to choose, I'll take feelingg angry over feeling depressed and/or extreme anxiety over the matter)…..

Angry that this person didn't bother to warn me ahead of time that she wasn't going to help me out with the rent anymore so I could have planned accordingly…angry that she must be assuming that since I've showed signs of being "better" in recent months that that must automatically mean that I'm okay enough to get a job, and if I haven't gotten one yet, it must mean that I'm not trying to….well guess what? It DOESN'T mean that I am better, or at least THAT MUCH better to go back to work!!!….I applied to places…and I could feel depression/anxiety wanting to surge over me JUST FROM TUNRING IN THE APPLICATIONS….I went to a volunteer orientation thing at the library–was going to try that..nevermind that it turned out to be something totally different than what they advertised it to be, but I felt depression/anxiety JUST BEING AT THAT ORIENTATION…so, based on these things, I unfortunately have no choice but to think, no, I'm NOT FREAKING READY to go back to work!!!!….I might be doing better with everything else–I don't lay in bed all day anymore; I keep myself busy–doing things again that I enjoyed doing that I had little or not interest in doing when the depression was at it's worst; I decided to go back to school(even though I'm beginning to be a little worried about that, of course!!! But I'll babble about that some other day); I'm exercising again for the first time in three years); but obviously, I am still NOT QUITE READY to go back to work, and I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BE FREAKING PUNISHED FOR THAT, not looked at as some freaking "underachiever" who's just not making an effort to get a job…I HAD A FREAKING BREAKDOWN; I had to check into the hospital FOUR TIMES in a span of a year….Did I ask for that?!? Did I enjoy it?!?…Did I do it just for kicks?!?…HELL NO I DIDN'T….and if she,and anyone else, can't understand why I feel I need to be so careful if I'm going to work again–so careful to find just the right job that won't trigger a major depressivbe breakdown like I had at my previous job, well, than, what can I do except tp say to hell with them?!??…And just be perpetually pissed off that they don't understand?!?….

Oh, am I not taking enough responsibility for myself on this?!?…Perhaps I'm not, but beating myself up over and over again throughout the years certainly didn't get me anywhere either….And yes, even though this is hard for me because of these f!@#ing demons of depression and anxiety that I have to endlessly battle, no, that doesn't mean I shouldn't try…And no one knows that I've also been going to a voc rehab counselor to try to find some way that we can get me back to work for a part-time job for now at least(that is assuming I haven't screwed THAT up; I missed my appointment to go there yesterday; called the voc rehab counselor and left a message on her vm that I wasn't going to be able to make it; told her I want to reschedule. Haven't heard back from her. Maybe she thinks that because I've rescheduled appointments with her a couple of times previously that I'm not really interested in their help.. That's certainly not the case…but maybe…she's making an assumption; maybe she's angry with me about the cancelation on such short notice; maybe she threw in the towel on me; well… I hope not, but I guess I have no one but myself to blame if that's the case…)

I am NOT going to force myself to take a job just because she and everyone else are pressuring me to work again and assuming I'm just not trying–I have a HISTORY of working hard–I've even worked TWO FREAKING jobs simaltaneuosly at two different times in my life at no one's urging to do so!!!!….So I don't have to question my willingness to work, and to work hard for that matter–and neither should they!!!…They want me to get a job already, huh?…I am NOT going to force myself to work someplace if I can sense depression and anxiety are going to overtake me AGAIN; I am NOT going to go through that hell again….

So fine, she doesn't have to help me with my rent–I'll scrape by somehow; whatever I have to do–I'll have to be aparment-bound for the most part(can't afford to be driving around any more than I have to with gas prices being what they are these days, right?), will get by on mostly TV dinners I suppose; will have to cut down substantially on doing things I enjoy like going to the movies and visiting friends whom live in the city–if not wipe all of that out completely, and will have to hope that being forced to be stuck in my apartment doesn't lead me down to another horrific bout of depression in and of itself…. and if I don't/can't scrape by, and it gets to the point that they're going to have to kick me out because I can't keep up with the rent?!?…Well, I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it, maybe even liteterally….

I'm also very angry at me with all of this, but no, not because that I'm in this predicament; not going to beat myself up over that kind of s!@t anymore….but angry that I don't have the apparent guts to call her myself and get the official word from her on why she's not going to help me anymore…even though I already know the reason why, I feel it's still somehow gutless of me to not discuss it with her…yeah, yeah, I know–I don't deal witb confrontations well, especially with her; well you know what??? I should LEARN to deal with them!…

Anger, so much anger with me lately; but that's fine-give me anger and resentment ANY DAY over feeling miserable and depressed; not saying anger and resentment are good qualities to have–far from it–but, yeah, if I HAVE to be stuck with any of those emotions–than yeah, I'll choose anger….Been a bad week: Earlier in the week, just after losing my best pair of sunglasses, I discover that I have locked myself out of my sister's house where I was dogsitting….That meant having to pay a locksmith $125 to get me inside….which, in turn means, there goes my "scalper savings", ie money I was going to use to attempt to buy a ticket from a scalper to see my beloved Missouri Tigers play tomorrow in one of the biggest games ever in their history since my friend is not going to have a ticket for me like he sometimes has…..but not now(yeah, you want to call that a misguided priority anyway with how much little income I have? You can do that, but also know this: attending games there is one of my favorite pastimes that I have been doing for some 20 years now, makes me feel happy when I go there, "rejuvenates me" and breathes life into my soul–no, no, not just the game, but everything about it: the roadtrip there and back from STL to Columbia; walking around the beautiful campus; the tailgating; having a good time being around friends, that gorgeous shining jewlel of a stadium–in other words, I see attending these games as VITAL to my mental health!..),and I suppose ESPECIALLY not now since I'm on my own paying my rent….so I'm angry about that now..and jealous(yeah, I know; jealousy another bad quality. I'm flawed–I ADMIT IT) that friends who used to laugh at me for years for being such a devoted fan back when the football program was miserable and losing games left and right and when I would show up to the stardium and practically have the whole place to myself–well. of course they got on the bandwagon when things started going good in recent years, and now they have comfortable enough lifestyles where they can afford season tickets and they go to all the games while I'm stuck at home if my freind doesn't have a ticket for me or I can't afford to scrape up enough $ to pay for a ticket myself….And I gave a freaking damn about this team way before they ever did…IT JUST DOESN'T SEEM FAIR–yeah, I know, LIFE isn't fair–so this is my kicking and screaming and pouting..hey, I'm just letting off steam here, okay?…I'm certainly NOT SAYING I'm right or hat it's admirable or mature to be having these kinds of feelings!…

Look. all I ask for is the stregnth to handle the adversity…all I ask for is that this doesn't send me spiraling downward into a whole new realm of depression and anxiety attacks…that's all I ask for….I hope that's not asking for too much…and if it is…well, hopefuly, I can do what I have to do to battle it, including getting the help of the often very kind and caring people on this site c to help me get through it…It can't send me down that path again…IT WON'T, even if it means being an angry @-hole to prevent it from happening….