2 October 2008
Yes, I am back. No, I did not kill myself or accidentally get myself killed – yet. I have two partial entries written, but things kept happening so fast around me, I couldn’t get anything finished before something else fell on top of my aluminum-wearing head (that is a joke). I know it is hard to believe that everything I write in here is real, yet it is, to the best of my ability to be honest, including about myself.
I am a real human being. These things have happened to me. Gets easier to understand the nearly daily wishing I could off myself, doesn’t it?
I guess I am in sarcasm mode today. It isn’t a pretty mode for me, and I am rarely in it. But it has been a very rough time lately. Pardon me if I accidentally repeat myself, as I am not reading my last entry first, so I have no idea what I wrote in that one at the time.
I think perhaps I wrote about my pathetic birthday party, where only seven people showed up and it rained the entire time until we took the tent down. Let’s start from there. In no particular order, since I couldn’t remember order if it bit me on the ass.
For one thing, I broke my left foot. Of course. How did I break my left foot? Just walking. Just walking. (I do love the movie, btw.) How is that for absurd? All I had to do was walk and my foot was broken. Do you wonder that I sit and shake my head and laugh or cry or feel like I am losing it when I can break my foot just walking?
It took three doctors and quite awhile to find out that this is what had happened. They finally sent me to a podiatrist in the boonies who called me “honey” and “dear” and made me want to punch him. He did x-rays, and came back in with the simple diagnosis “Hon, you’re a mess.” It isn’t just the fracture; there are about a half-dozen things wrong with my foot, which will probably send me back to physical therapy yet again.
There were days during all this waiting that I felt like large railroad spikes were being driven through various areas of my foot, especially my heel, which is where the fracture occurred. At least I heal well, and after three weeks in The Boot (I hate that thing; I feel like I should be a Dominatrix with a whip while wearing the thing, nothing against Dommes, mind you), my left foot was well on its way to healing, but my right foot was completely bruised from the metal insets on the The Boot. Luckily, no breaks on the right; just a tremendous amount of pain from the bruising.
Sirens outside again. This is about the third time I have heard them. I hope the city is still there, as it appears I certainly am.
I have another outbreak of Thrush. It’s common, with the breathing meds I take for my COPD. It’s easy enough to fix. But everything I eat, drink or take burns to eat,.drink, or take. To the point where I feel like screaming and have to jump up and down and shake my arm to make it STOP! Very painful.
I have been on the welfare merry-go-round yet again (also known as the “You-pathetic-loser-
What’s-wrong-with-you-that-you-couldn’t-make-it-on-your-own). My mother-in-law tried to get me signed up for everything. I did get signed up for Food Stamps, but there is one item missing they need (a note from a doctor saying I can’t work, I believe), and I don’t get them until then and I don’t see my doctor until next week. The rabbi I used to work for paid my gas bill, reluctantly. And I am still facing the electric bill of over $600, wondering how in the world I am going to deal with that. Doing this poor person dance is difficult. It’s like tap-dancing in a roomful of cats. Literally.
My life has been threatened by two different men in the past weeks. I may have mentioned one of these last time, but I don’t recall. M-i-law S. has this agreement going with a group of guys that they get to borrow her car, as long as they fill it up with gas when they bring it back to her. That way, she has gas, they have transportation, and I, well, I think it’s a weird deal at best.
At any rate, “the boys” as S. calls them were going to pick me up, pick up S., and all of us were going to run errands and go to appointments. Until I tried to point out that there would have been an easier way to do this (not really understanding what it was they were doing, mind you), and J. lost it. He screamed at me, called me every name in the book,, threatened to kill me, and damn near did by ramming the car within inches of a large truck on my side. I got out of the car when he stopped, because I will NEVER be in a car with that lunatic again. I was made to understand finally that he had been raped and very recently diagnosed with HIV with very low titers. I feel very badly for him for that, but that’s all he had to say to me: “Look, this is what is happening, and I need some space, okay?” No problem. But he didn’t say a thing until he nearly caused an accident.
Then there is my next-door-neighbor, M. And most of this breaks my heart because I do love his common-law-wife, K., I really do. She is sweet and kind and lovely, with a lot of laughter and love in her. We have been tip-toeing around things because M. can’t stand me and vice versa. But it’s all come to a head.
One day, I was talking to K., having a nice time, and we hugged (as we are prone to do) goodbye. M. saw us and snapped “Break it up!”. So we went our own ways to do whatever we were doing. Wouldn’t you know it – I fell again (I fell 5 times in 6 days; I think that’s a record). I asked her to come help a bit because I was in pain. She did, and then M. barges over like the shit-infested bull he is, and tells her (and I do quote exactly here): “Get your ass on home, bitch!” You don’t talk to my friends in front of me that way, and you damn sure don’t do it in my home. I was furious.
I kept trying to reach her on the phone, but of course, he was not allowing her to answer. He is a very controlling little schmuck, and if he doesn’t want her to talk to anyone, he won’t let her have the phone book, he won’t put her on the phone, and he will talk to whoever is calling.
I tried maybe six times; I don’t consider that harassment. I was truly concerned for her safety. He had closed all the doors and windows, wasn’t letting her speak to anyone, and I was terrified for her.
So I called the police and told them this. And what happened? She backed M. up. She lied.
I whispered to her as she went into the house “I cannot believe you lied to the police!”. She ignored me. My heart was broken; here I was, going out on a limb for her, and she wouldn’t even tell the truth to the police. I appeared to be some nutsy neighbor, and the police told me to stay on my side of the yard.
Now, I know that K. is bipolar. But she has been stable on mer meds for 20 some years. And I know that she has suffered mental/psychological/emotional abuse from M, probably for about the same timeframe. But I do not understand what she did. I just don’t.
Maybe it’s because I have never been a victim of abuse for long enough to get into the cycle. I have been in the situation, twice. Once with R., my current husband. I felt I owed it to him to try to work on the marriage, but he wasn’t interested in that, and I probably should have kicked him out two years earlier than I did. The other time was brief, and not worth mentioning.
But I do not really understand the psychology here. I was so frustrated, and so sad watching all this go on.
The next day, I managed to get ahold of her for a few minutes to tell her she was still my friend no matter what, and ask her why she lied to the police. Unfortunately M. came stomping out, and decided to punish her for talking to me. He took her knitting she had been working on, and took the scissors and cut it off where she had been making something beautiful. Then he took several of her houseplants and threw them down on the ground, breaking some of the pots.
I had already called the police, because he had been over to my place and said “I hate you, and I hate your damn vines, too”, and pulled down some of my vines. He then said “Your life is going to be a lot shorter than you think it is.” Then he flat out said “I’m going to kill you.” So I called the police. They were in the middle of the fight when the police came, and this time, K. told them exactly what M. had done, and how he wouldn’t let her ever have friends, etc.
This time, the police were more on hand to break them up and less to listen to me. They gave me a card with a case number on it if I wanted to go file charges at the Night Prosecutor’s Office. Yeah, great, that’ll do a whole hell of a lot. Worse, I lost the damned card, so now I can’t find the number. I guess I can call, and see if I can get them to order M. into anger management and counseling. I don’t know.
He certainly is no better; he is worse. He caught me at the door the other day and said “Where’s K.?” I said “She isn’t here.” He was right in my face. Apparently he believed me, and left. I don’t know where she was. Probably talking a walk to get away from him.
Yesterday, S. and I ran around and went to the podiatrist, got some food and errands done. K. was on the porch, and I was just engaging in superficial conversation (Hi, how are you, lovely weather and all that) when M. comes out and barks “What are you doing here?.” Um, I live her dude? He started going off on me, and K. was telling him to stop and she didn’t need this and S. was trying to hustle me inside, telling me to ignore it, that all he wanted was a reaction from me.
I am still heartbroken. I find a friend whom I really like, and who lives right next door, and I cannot see her because her husband is an asshole. I hate this, I really do.
He’s threatened me a third time over the phone. I am not afraid of him.
I am afraid of losing electricity. Losing electricity means losing my air conditioner, which equals losing breathing ability. Not to mention straining my already poor vision. I love good storms, but I always pray to Urantia to watch over the electricity and leave it on.
This time, I failed. We, landlocked lubbers, managed to suffer from the tail end of Hurricane Ike. I have never heard of a hurricane in the midwest, but it apparently is possible. We got the winds, and other states got the rain. The winds had knocked out the electricity about an hour after I got off the computer with a thing I do for pet-loss grief support. At least I got that done.
But when the electricity went off, I thought “Oh, my Gods, no!” I had no idea how long it would be off. I dug out an old phone and hooked it up. The buttons don’t work right, so I can’t always call out, but sometimes I can. I called friends in other areas, a few of whom didn’t lose power and were giving me TV reports. I called the electric company; okay, I harassed the electric company about when the power would be back on. I knew I could not take it for long. And I heard a day; I heard three days: and with a sinking feeling, I heard a week.
It was six days. SIX DAYS. Six days without lights. Six days without washer or dryer. Six days without stove and hot water. Six days without TV and DVD player. Six days watching the food all go bad. Six days without computer. Six days without music. Six days all alone in the candle-lit dark, with no air conditioning.
Of course it had an effect. In the dark, I started hallucinating. I panicked. I ended up in the emergency room with one hell of a panic attack.
Or course it had an effect. After a week without A/C, I can’t breathe right, and still can’t. I called my pulmonologist’s office and told them what had happened, and about the short course of Prednisone my old clinic used to give me, and they called in a prescription. Which isn’t working. I have hit that Albuterol over and over again, and nothing seems to be working. It is a nightmare.
And here I am. Food is spoiled, and I couldn’t get it together to get to the Salvation Army to get a voucher. I can’t breathe half the time, and cough like I am coughing up a lung. I can’t tell you how many candles I used up over those six days. And a $300 co-pay I don’t have.
Only one thing could “top” that one. And that is death, of course.
My M-i-l’s sister-in-law died. I felt about HA as though she were my sister, even though without transportation and with her agoraphobia etc. I rarely saw her in the later years. But I still loved her.
She was at a picnic or something, and had to go to the bathroom, for which she needed help (she had put on a tremendous amount of weight, unfortunately). She started slipping, which set off her blood pressure, which set off her heart. Luckily, a paramedic was right there, and they got her to the hospital. She was in her room and stabilized when all hell broke lose, and S. started running towards her room. HZ had just had a heart attack a few months earlier. But she died of congestive heart failure, just after midnight that week. At least she got to get out and have a nice last day. But it still wounds, of course, and S. is hardly back to normal, and neither am I.
I’m sure there’s more, but that is a black enough rock to go hide under for now.
