My Third Blogoversary!

A wake of majestic turkey vultures, roosting in a tree in Mountain View, California, waiting for new blog posts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Strangely enough,
March 25th will mark my third blogoversary. Time flies when you type five words a minute. Picture it, I a callow youth of  32, rose in my cheeks  and tortured genius illuminating my eyes, typing my first words! Oh how the muses danced, the angels wept, and the majestic turkey vultures soared! Three years, still here. In case you missed those 3 years, let me summarize:

Lisa, the OCDbloggergirl, lives with her mother and 3 cats. Lisa has OCD and is getting into fights with her mom, mainly because Lisa cannot be the perfect person Lisa wants to be and this pisses her off. Poor mom. The years are swallowed up with Lisa writing, Lisa getting published by online journals ( reprints of blog entries, mainly). Lisa’s writing improves. She thinks “Hey why don’t I get my own website, maybe I’ll get rich or at least be able to have a meowing cat widget!” Life is swell. Then Fate says, “Hey why don’t I let your mom die of complications from pneumonia, that would be a plot twist!” Life sucks. Some social worker says Lisa might have to go to a group home if she can’t find somewhere to go on her SSI check.  Lisa would rather die than be separated from her cats now that there’s no one else. Neighbors step in and she and the cats go live there. Life is very good again and Lisa finds her Soul Mate in her gay neighbor (Dumb, OCDbloggergirl. You get what ‘gay’ means, right?) But gay friend and jealous partner are kinda messed up themselves and who was wrong? Who was right? Who was fucked over? I think Lisa was, but maybe they were, but maybe she was, but then …All the lies and uncertainty make Lisa do something to herself, she ends up in the hospital. Then she ends up in hell…er a nursing home for two months, until her roommates cave and let her dumb ass back in for a nominal hike in rent (475.00 instead of 240.00). Life is teetering from good to bad back and forth. The man she loves, Gay Romeo, likes to lie, and has stopped taking his medicines. He forgets he cares about  Lisa altogether, but she is saved from hell by a program. Lisa now has her own apartment for the first time in her life, and they all lived happily ever after maybe. She hopes that now her blog will stop being a total buzz kill.

I guess you could say I am at a good place now. Well, almost. Oscar, my grey and black tabby is missing now for over a month. I remain hopeful he will return, just as my Phillipe did 9 years ago when my mother and I moved into our old apartment. Phillipe was cooped up 2 weeks before we opened the door and let him go outside. He didn’t come home for 2 and a half months. Came home though, and no worse for wear. I suspect someone took him in and he finally got away, which I suppose happened to Oscar too. I think a good post would be to tell the stories of my 3 cats one day. For those of you who pray, please pray Oscar comes home. Thanks.

But yeah. Good place. Now. I am happy for the most part. There is a strange sort of freedom to being alone in the world. I find my life worth living, even if only for my cats, and the occasional ‘rescue mission’ for Bestie, who is a bit of an anxious lass. I don’t have to be useful to anyone anymore, and that’s freedom in a way. When I was with the roommates, my use was measured in my finances I guess. When I was with my friend I  knew from way back, all he wanted was a batch o’ my snatch. When I went to that ‘home,’ almost everyone wanted me for one reason or another. Eh God, vultures. I am better off on my own having my own adventures and my own  life. Hanging out with Bestie, my friend of 20 years, basically  fulfills my social life, that and my online life. Soul brothers are merely mythological creatures, unicorns. I miss my unicorn though (we even watched My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic together, sigh).

And now, not to be all Jodi Arias stalky or anything, but I did have someone drive me by ye olde home place, just to see if the members of the She-Male Lisa Haters Club had indeed left town as they said they would in March. Part of me prayed that they were gone, that seeing an empty apartment would cure me of my feelings for The Unicorn nee Soul Bro. But neighhhhhhhh, the signs that they were still there abounded. First, the plants that I gave him from my mother were still there. The chair that once was mine was still there, as no doubt the rest of the lawn furniture that he felt was his due (I would have left that chair for him anyway, the way I had left half of my hard candy for him). There is a yellow truck out in front. I wonder if it’s his. He always wanted a yellow vehicle. If it is, the straits they said they were in due to me must have eased into gentler waters.

But the doubts are ever present in my mind. Is it because of  me that they aren’t gone to fulfill his dream in DC? Is he sick? Or, like so many other things, was living there just another of his stories? Once, The Partner told me that I was a boil on his butt that he just can’t lance. Well, I was lanced wasn’t I? Shouldn’t they be happily ever after now, and shouldn’t I, like a normal person, stop giving a fuck about The Unicorn? Somewhere over the rainbowwwwwwww….

I am happy now. I am almost at peace. I must put them out of my mind. I am eternally grateful that he was there when my mother died, but that chapter of my life must close. That way I can truly be happy, That and finding Oscar. Where the hell are you, Oscar?

PS, other fun incidentals. Remember for a time I foolishly flirted with having a self-hosted site? Well when I hung up the towel there at ocdbloggergirl dot com and let my domain expire, guess what happened? I thought maybe some other blogger might buy it, but I doubted it. Nope. Ocdbloggergirl dot com didn’t even become a Canadian pharmacy. Cough. It became…cough…a porn site. A porn site boasting Polish lesbians. I’m not joking,  And as Paul Harvey used to say…”now you know the rest of the story.”

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One Year Ago Today

Ape (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Me a year ago.

One year ago today I was a different woman than I am now. When I looked at my future, I saw nothing. Nothing alone, nothing without him by my side.

One year ago today, my paranoia came crashing down on me and I could barely breathe under its weight, let alone climb out from under it.

One year ago today, the lies became too much, the truth too clear, and the fear unbearable. It was the fear that did it, the fear that my soul mate was as unreal as his words, that imaginary friends are mirages that disappear.

One year ago today, I checked his ears for the cartoon character earbuds I gave him for Christmas. If he’s wearing them, maybe he’s not mad at me. My obsession: checking for signs of discord. Perusing his body for gifts in quick glances. He wears one of my gifts, maybe he is happy with me. The earbuds are there! He smiles at me, he talks happily to his dogs. There isn’t anything in the intonation of his voice hiding ire or sadness. Perhaps all is well. Or not.

One year ago today, he returned from walking the dogs and went into his room, pugs too. The door closed, me shut out.  Me alone and the social worker coming. He was there with me before when she came, supportive, saying what needed to be said. I knock. No answer. Anger? Is he angry at me? Alone. Will I be  alone forever? Scared, and the social worker is coming. And the letter he wrote is on the stove for her. Angry? Is that why he left me alone? So scared of him not loving me anymore. Or is he hiding? Does hiding mean he is guilty of something? No. He’s mad at me. Or is he a liar? The  letter is partly a lie, making him a liar. Can a liar still be your soul mate? He lies sometimes, it means nothing. It means he doesn’t care. No it doesn’t. He has problems, but he loves me like a sister. He wouldn’t hurt me. Oh God, is he angry at me? What will become of me if I’m without him?

One year ago today, there was a knock on my their door. This is not my home, but a place where I stay at the mercy of the queens kings inside. No, my soul mate is merciful, even if his truth is not always truthful. But here is the social worker and there is the letter. She is not happy. She is angry at him. I am scared and try again to knock at my dearest friend’s bedroom door. I am crying. He must be angry. No, you dumbass, he’s avoiding a confrontation. No, he’s mad at me, he doesn’t really love me. Oh God!

One year ago today, my social worker read the letter penned in  my dear one’s artistic script:

750.00 dollars I owed them for paying my mother’s final expenses (I had thought I owed $550.00…but what do I know)

40.00 for a light bill (odd, because I thought the $240.00 I paid a month in rent included my share of everything).

35.00 for a late fee (strange, because I hadn’t been late in giving my share).

PAID IN FULL.

One year ago today, my social worker said loudly enough for my soul mate to hear through the door, “He sat here and said that they would wait until you were back on your feet to pay them back!”

And I told her about the netbook I got too, because of my soul mate’s partner forcing me to take back the laptop I got with my social security check and give him that money or I would have to “get the fuck out of his house,” adding tenderly as he menaced me that I was a bitch and a whore (though he knew I was a virgin). All the while letting me know that his lover acted differently when I was around, that even his dogs did too)

Just don’t let it happen again, admonished my social worker.

One year ago today, I told my social worker a story I was told about my soul mate’s partner. “He’s very mean. He was more worried about a friend of his getting blood on the seats of his van than that she slit her wrists…and when he left her at the hospital, he wouldn’t stay with her.”

One year ago today, I was left alone and I knocked again on dear friend’s door. No answer.

Crash!

That morning, one year ago today, I didn’t wake up saying to myself, “I guess I’ll pencil in committing suicide today.” But it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision either. I went to bed early many nights too depressed to face the partner of my beloved, he who had a way of making me feel like less than dirt. Secretly my death wish had waxed and waned since the day my mother died. Now, five months later, I reached my cliff. Before that day, though it was a thought, slightly researched.  I had researched a while before if one was unfortunate enough to survive death by ativan, ones vital organs may not fail. And so I decided, What have I got to lose now? The only person who really needed me was dead, everyone else would easily get over my loss.

I decided on Russian Roulette Pill and OCD style because I sort of wanted to keep living if my dear one didn’t dislike me now. I wrote a note proclaiming my love in a style mistakable as sisterly love to my soul mate, enjoining him to please take care of my cats and that this wasn’t his fault.

I tucked the note under me in case I decided to stop, and began. One pill. Count to 300. My  friend still hasn’t come out of his room. I take another and count to 300. Another and around this time I pass out. When I awaken, the door is open! I stumble in and ask if I can come in. He gave his ascent. I remember asking if he was mad at me and that was when he noticed I was doped. “Oh no! he exclaimed angrily. “That will get you thrown out in a matter of days.”

Was I afraid? No, peacefully, I stumbled back out of the room, decided what the hell, and down the gullet the rest of my Ativan went. How many did I take? My guess is maybe 7 or 9. When I woke up again sleeping next to Babee Dondee my littlest cat, my soul brother said with an edge in his voice “Good morning, or evening actually.” I can’t remember if he asked me to call my friend to get me or if I took the initiative, pobably the former.

My best friend told me Soul Bro answered the door, called to me that my friend was here, and promptly went back to playing a video game. There’s the love. As I left though, I recall handing him my suicide note.

I stayed in the ER several hours though I recall little of it, they mainly just monitored my idiot ass, my heart dipping down into the 60s. If one might die simply from judgemental lapses I’d have been a goner.

I was given the option of “voluntarily” being admitted or getting a judge to commit me. It was around 4am a nd  I was finally sobering up a bit. I bid adieu to my best friend who had stayed through the whole ordeal, was carted off in a wheelchair by a surly cop and began a 10 day vacation locked away in a psych ward. Ten days because no one wanted my sorry ass and I ended up in a faraway nursing home for 2 months. It was the worst two months of my life, though I absolutely LOVED my stay in the psych ward. It was pretty fun and I met some great folks. I’d do it again if it didn’t entail trying to kill myself and making all my friends tell me they don’t want my crazy self and sending me away to the home. Not fun.

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Your 2012 year in blogging.

 

Because John Lennon Wants to Know (Part I)

Enquiring Minds Want  to  know, you know -John Lennon (Photo credit: Pedro Netto)

So this is Christmas, and what have you done?

Well, Mr. Lennon, funny you should ask, because I’ll tell you if you have the time.  The world didn’t end and you’re still dead, so I reckon you got all the time in the world, right?  It really depends on what you mean by “done.”  “Done” like What I did for Christmas, or done in general?

Another year over and a new one’s just begun.

I know, right? Ho hum, seems like it should still be 2011 or something. It’s like I paused myself, yet the world went on without me.  How the hell did I turn 35? I’m the same age my mom was when she had me.  I suppose there’s still hope that somewhere out  there, there’s a neurotic alcoholic husband  for me too. I think I’d not be a good mom, so it’s probably a good thing my biological clock  isn’t a Timex. I can just take care of myself and my cats. Why would I want a pissing, crapping, crying kid who’d open my Barbie dolls’ boxes?  But I digress, what have I done? Nothing and everything! I have my own apartment, a first for me. I’m a late bloomer, you know. Well, more like I was weeded out of the garden, cast into a mulch pile, and re-rooted myself. But hey, I bloomed.

If my mom hadn’t died and my gay guy crush hadn’t gone rabid and threw me out, I’d still be living with someone now. I’d still depend on  that man’s approval just to get by.  I saw my gay guy crush as a gay guy god even as he grew mean. But oh, Mr. Lennon, if you ever saw him smile or heard him laugh, you’d see what I mean.  I thought he was my Soul Bro, but sadly, he became my Faux Bro.  I wanted to be with him until the day I died. Sigh, I guess I drank the grape kool-aid. Too bad I didn’t do much of his housework though or paid the back rent I owed.

Mr. Lennon, I know you’re all ‘money ain’t shit,’Kumbaya, and what not, but I’m still torn. I really didn’t pay about $200.00 in rent. I pawned my computer and gave them $80.00 and then I gave them $10.00, so if I really do owe them that money, it would be $110.00. But here’s where it all gets trickier than a truck stop hooker. I gave them money whenever asked. I took them out to dinner at about $70.00 for the three of us, gave them $65.00 to go out with when The Prick The Partner was upset about having skin cancer on his face (but they did give a lot back I think) and gave them $100.00 to fix the air conditioner in their van. The air conditioner wasn’t fixable though. But I got a lot of free meals and rides before I began having to pay for all my stuff, and cat food. And then it gets even more messed up. They wanted $100.00 a month after I moved out to pay for what they paid for: pot, food, etc.  And Faux Bro said if he factored in expenses going back to when I first moved in it would be double the amount, somewhere in the $2000.00 region. That part casts suspicion on the whole thing.  I must have been had somewhere in the equation, but they seemed so adamant that I owed them and that I was the advantage taker in the mix. Plus it seems that I broke everything I touched. It makes my brain hurt, and everyone says I don’t owe them jack.

I messed up:

A wine glass of sentimental value.

They say I broke a remote control (but I don’t recall it)

I made a couple of his keys on his laptop stick.

I lost and/or damaged a couple of books, one was damaged, plus I think a cat vomited on a couple others.

I tripped several times on the PlayStation 3 cords, causing the  part where the player connects the controller to short out. I replaced his PlayStation 2 when it stopped working.

I think he wanted to say I messed up the controllers on the Sega Genesis, but I think it was how they stored it.

I played a game on his IPod and it erased everything

An app I asked to  be installed on the PS3 erased all the game data.

I lost a set of keys.

Wow, no wonder they hate me. Good thing all I have to break is my own now. Jinxed people should be mandated to have their own apartments, where they can lock  themselves in and not be a nuisance, you know? I guess I’m still haunted by Gays of Christmas Past (Too bad Logo no longer airs gay-themed shows, because that would be a kick-ass name for a Christmas special). I wasn’t intending to talk this much on this, but…

My life is different now in a good way. I have a one bedroom apartment, a lot bigger than the rooms at the old complex. I’ve literally stuffed both closets in the living room and bedroom with all the random crap from my storage unit.  I’m about to get a hide-a-bed couch for the living room and that will be a vast improvement than the deflated airbed I’ve been chillaxin’ on since late September.A nice woman on Freecycle gave me a TV and random odds and ends that I truly appreciate. I could have more by now, but I can’t stand my social worker, so I avoid her at all costs. My decor is a mix of minimalist and très clutter. BUT WHO GIVES A FLYING F, because IT’S MINE! There’s nothing like living exactly as one wants, without fear of being verbally annihilated or thrown out. When I was with Soul Bro, I forgot how much I liked being alone. I wanted to be with him all the time until he just popped. There’s always going to be a part of me that wants to be with him, and a part of me who thinks it’s all my fault.

 

Destroy Everything You Touch

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End of a Series That I Started Over a Year Ago…What Happened to My Mom and Me Part IV

In case  you missed it:

http://ocdbloggergirl.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/what-happened-to-my-mom-and-me-part-i/

http://ocdbloggergirl.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/what-happened-to-my-mom-and-me-part-ii/

http://ocdbloggergirl.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/what-happened-to-my-mom-and-me-part-iii/

I try again on that red phone and this time we are allowed into the ICU. The third time is the charm. My mom is in room 14. The doctor I met in the ER asks me questions, the one with a European accent and wonderful bedside manner. 

“We  can keep the antibiotic drips going, which may let her live for a little while longer, but I’ve rarely seen anyone get better this far along. But it’s your decision.”

“How much difference would there be in time if I take her off the drips?” I ask.

“It’s hard to say. She could last a few hours or a few days.”

“But it’s near impossible for her to get better?”

“Less than a 1% chance, but if you say to keep going, we will keep pumping her with antibiotics and doing all we can.”

“I need to think about it a bit.”

He asks me about taking extraordinary measures to keep my mother alive, but I know my answer already. “No, my mother wouldn’t want that if she would be brain-dead. I’m certain I don’t want you to resuscitate and she’s told me before she wouldn’t want it.” Break my mother’s ribs so that she can be a dead woman breathing? No. NO.                                                           

“I don’t know if in her condition any of her organs could be used, but if they can, I want them to be donated. My mother wouldn’t mind. She had ‘organ donor’ on her driver’s license. It would be nice to know my mom hadn’t died completely in vain.”

They are going to do some other procedures to my mother, so Bestie and I go out to the waiting room again.  Bestie is on the phone with her mom and telling her about my indecision in keeping Mama on the antibiotics. And of course Bestie’s mom wants to give me her sage advice in the matter. I politely listen.

“She’s your mom. You can’t give up on her.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” I reply. 

“What kind of insurance does your mother have?”

“Just Medicare.”

“Well, you know with people without anything but Medicare, they try to do as little as they can with them and get them out of there.”

I tell the doctor that he should keep the drips going just in case. Afterall, they are also keeping her on pain meds and sedation just in case. I probably would’ve made this decision anyway without the intervention of my bestie’s dear Mama, but…

I have to ask, though. How do you ask such a question without giving offense? “Um, I don’t believe this of course, you’ve all been so wonderful, but…my friend’s mother is a bit of a cynic, and she told me y’all don’t do everything for Medicare patients because of their insurance. Is there any truth in this?”

The doctor’s answer was no. “In fact, this is a teaching hospital, and most of the patients that come here don’t have any insurance at all, so we do everything we can for all our patients.”

Cool deal.

I decide to go home for some sleep. I am assured that the nurse would call me should my mother take a turn in the night. A nurse is attending my mom’s IV and I remark to him, This must be one depressing job.”

“It can be.”

“How much of the people who come in here live?”

“About 50 %.”

It is 10 pm when Bestie and I head home and I collapse into bed. I know no more until about 4 am when the phone rings.

“You might want to come now. She’s taken a turn for the worse,” says the doctor.

“Hearing the phone at this time of the night doesn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling,” says Bestie. She was sleeping on the couch and we go to the hospital in the quiet of the ear morning. This time I don’t have to  wait when I pick up the red phone. I tell Bestie that I want some time with my mother alone at times, but would check on her in 20 minutes because my friend is an anxious soul too. 

I tell my mother that I would understand if she has to go, that I would be fine, but if she could, please stay.  I make myself not beg her to stay for the sake that if she can hear me, I don’t want her last thoughts to be worry over me not being OK without her.

I see the chaplain when offered. He is a young Episcopalian and we pray together. I like him so much I take his number in case I need someone to preach a funeral (my mom and I hadn’t been to church in a number of years). I even end up asking  him if he thought my mom would be OK if cremated. My grandmother didn’t believe in cremation and I suddenly felt  the need for reassurance from a man of God. “God is bigger than that”, was his answer. My mother felt cremation was fine and to rid myself of the ashes in the sea was what she wanted.

I even saw an old high school friend and he was a nurse there. Small world. The last time I’d seen him he was a server at one of those steakhouses where they think it’s a good idea to use roadkill as decor. I guess the road to the original Texas Roadhouse was fraught with many an animal.

Shortly before 8 am, September 13, 2011 my mother took her last breath. I couldn’t restrain my tears now. She was gone and I held it together as well as I could to not upset her. I tried to calm myself again for the Bestie to not upset her more than she was. Who was that woman that shoved anxiety ridden Lisa into a corner and took her place in my body those two days? It wasn’t the me who had dreaded this day for years and went to extremes to prevent her death. It was the  Lisa that only comes out when I’m drowning and that Lisa swims.

 

 

 

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Late, Late OCD Book Review: The Unfinished Garden by Barbara Claypole White

Hi,

just a little note of apology to TLC Book Tours who gave me a chance to review this book, and to the author of the book, who rushed me a signed, gorgeous copy…I’m really sorry. First I fled my old apartment under extreme duress. Trying to salvage the friendship of my roommate, I pawned my netbook (only just got it back) and gave him the money. I found all the stuff to my desktop…except my surge protector (It either got lost in the shuffle, or, it was just one of a number things my roomies decided to keep while I was away a few months ago). Anyway, my new neighbors blew a fuse and my computer died. I began reading The Unfinished Garden the day it arrived and finished it in a couple of days it was so good. I’m very sorry and thank you very much.

The Unfinished Garden by Barbara Claypole White is a unique, beautiful book.  This is a romance novel for everyone: those of us that are dyed-in-the-wool romantics and those who projectile vomit whenever we read Danielle Steele (I swing more toward the latter). Many romance novels have flawed characters, but these often seem contrived and cut from the same cloth the other biddies in the romance quilting bee spun their characters from. Not so with The Unfinished Garden. Claypole White’s first novel lingers with the reader long after the story ends.

The Unfinished Garden recommends itself to me in reminding me of one of my all-time favorite books, The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett. The Secret Garden is a classic children’s book, in which the flawed characters heal themselves through the redemptive qualities of gardening. The Unfinished Garden is The Secret Garden for adults, particularly those with OCD or are mourning. Since I am a card carrying member of Club OCD and recently joined the My Mom is Dead T-Shirt Committee, this book recommends itself to me in its entirety. Through gardening, the two main characters begin the process of healing from their demons, one with OCD, the other with the death of her husband.

James Nealy is not the typical love interest in a novel. James is handsome, but has enough ‘baggage’ to sink the Titanic, iceberg not needed. He has obsessive-compulsive disorder compounded with generalized anxiety disorder.  James easily could become the bungling, hilarious OCD guy of popular culture, but the author’s sensitivity to James and his affliction paints an authentic portrait of someone struggling with anxiety and the past.

Tilly Silverberg is the heroine of The Unfinished Garden, a widowed mother running her own plant nursery. The death of Tilly’s husband three years ago is still in the forefront of her mind, along with regret and guilt. David, her husband, got into a terrible auto accident and was left in a vegetative state. Tilly can’t help but wonder, though, had she refused her husband’s wish to not be kept alive by machines, would he have recovered? She feels by letting the doctors know about her husband’s living will, she in effect killed him. Thanks to modern technology, this is a very believable scenario. I wonder at times whether I should have done more, tried everything to prolong life though it would have gone against what I knew my mother wanted.

When James and Tilly meet, it is due to James wanting someone to build him a garden. While James feels an intense need for it to be Tilly who landscapes his garden, Tilly doesn’t want to branch out her nursery for James or anyone else. James persists though due to his attraction to Tilly and the reason he, a rich software designer, wants a garden: to conquer his contamination obsessions, dirt being a major trigger. As in all good love stories (the ones that are neither too sentimental or about dudes shooting photos of bridges while committing adultery) love conquers all. In spite of having a debilitating mental illness, and even because of the tenacity inspired by his  OCD, James emerges triumphant.

I can’t recommend this book enough. If you have OCD, no matter what your particular obsessions and quirks, you will identify with James and the motivations of his actions in life. James has that sensitivity to the world that can be a blessing and a curse, where he is attracted to other troubled souls. He is afraid of everyday life situations, but has amazing strength at things that fluster or even terrify ‘normal’ folks.  I wish I knew James, and you will probably wish you did too by the end of the book. Shoot, if you just want to read a good book and are as normal as normal be, read The Unfinished Garden!

                                                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                                          

 

Rambling Over 1000 Words; or A Post Not Worth Reading

I’m writing this to later post. It isn’t possible to post online at the moment, but I need to confide things. I asked Soul Bro to take me down to Social Services. I wanted to see if my social worker had news regarding my application for Special Assistance to Remain at Home. This program helps people with disabilities stay at home instead of being thrown into a ‘home.’ I can’t call my worker, because the phone was cut off. Soul Bro said, “yea-….if you have gas money.”

I replied that I could give him 5, maybe 8 dollars. At first he said OK, but then told me I could go to the apartment office and ask to use the phone. I didn’t wish to spark his ire, so I retreated from his room and made my way to the office.

I almost got there before turning back. I’m terrified of that coven that works inside the office. First, I haven’t made my $15.00 payment for the month on the balance I owe from my mother’s apartment. Second, I think The Partner tells bad things about me to them as to why they can’t pay the rent on time. Soul Bro told me that the office is allowing us extra time to cough up the $200.00 yet owed this month on the condition my roomies sign a paper stating that they won’t let me stay here again. The idea that a paper exists forbidding me to live here is wayyyyy too much enmity for me to dare going into that office. AND, according to Soul Bro, they said they wouldn’t even consider letting me have my own apartment here. To know management feels that way is enough to make me stay away. If it’s true. My nature is suspicious these days. I’m too scared to chance it. I guess I will hope if my social worker hasn’t heard from me in a while, she will come by to see if I’m alive.

Perhaps the Lord does work in mysterious ways, because my truest friends came by to check on me. I sent a message to my social worker through them. I wrote it all down, but Elsie is 89. Her ears and eyes work, just not all that great, so hopefully it will get where it’s supposed to go.

I hope what Soul Bro told me isn’t all true, but it likely is. They owe $200.00 in rent…and it’s my fault. Back in May and June, my social security check stopped coming because Window Licker Hall routed it  back to their den of meloncholy. The first month was their just due, even though it completely killed my bank account. Ghetto Bank, Inc., a branch located inside a friendly mega store near you, offers an overdraft protection that allows you to spend your next month’s check this month, with the nominal fee of $18.00 per transaction. It’s great and terrible all at the same time. Like those old check cashing places that used to be everywhere, you have to keep returning because your current month’s check is already spent.

At the end of June, however, Social Security sent my check here, and I spent some in taking us out to dinner, some on the rent, and some on my new netbook (Soul Bro gave me permission because he didn’t like me using his computer).

In July, yet another check didn’t come on time and they re-issued it to me. I believe that must have been when I tried to have their van’s air conditioner repaired for $100.00 –didn’t work. Maybe it was also the month The Partner found out he had skin cancer on his face, so I gave him $60.00 for them to go and have some time.

In the end, I still hadn’t paid back the $300ish I owed from the late months, but Soul Bro hadn’t asked and anytime he needed money and I had some I gave it. They paid for food, I’d sometimes pay for food, etc.  I guess I felt I was giving the money back by how I tried to help when I could. Then voila! I owe them 700.00 (that’s with this month’s rent included. I am also to pay $100 a month after I  leave, for all the expenses they’ve been out on me: The food I ate with them that they paid for, taking me places, household supplies, weed, cat litter, and cat food.

 

Later that evening, The Partner allowed me to use his phone, so I decided to call my nurse. Let’s say her name is Florence N. Florence answered, though it was 8pm and a strange number. That’s when I told her how my social worker appointment went. They’re still wondering if I can live on my own, and if I do become homeless or in a shelter, or in a hotel, or in a ‘home,’ I will lose my chance to get special assistance. My nurse reassured me she thought I could live alone with a bit of help, and would tell the social worker so. I’m worried about what my doctor will say. I hate that all my chances are hanging by a thread. I told her about the payee the social workers insisted I have, and that’s the first time my roomies heard about it.  I was too afraid to tell Soul Bro, “Um remember how upset my social worker was when I told her I’d had to pay back my mom’s final expenses out of my first special assistance check, and how I became convinced you were mad at me forever, and I had a crush on you, and my mom was still dead, and I tried to overdose on Ativan? Yeah well, they ain’t forgot and they’re going to make me even have to turn my damn social security over to a payee to be eligible. Sorry about all that. Have a nice day, now.”

So my roomies heard that I had to have a payee through my conversation with Florence N., but I wanted Soul Bro to, because my conscience is killing me for not telling him. I was afraid he’d be mad and worried he wouldn’t get his money ( I think he really does need money).

Mad? I do believe he is quite angry. Maybe he feels duped and that I’m a horrible user. I deserve it, but I can’t really say much. If I nobly turned down the special assistance I’d have to find something with my check of $698.00 or go to a place. I’d probably still be thrown out of my apartment either way, because I’m a total pig and my roomies tire of me.  

The day the roommates announced they were going to throw me out, they said a lot about me. Soul Bro said I was dirtier than any woman he ever knew ( I bathe every 2 to 3 days because who have I got to impress , it takes maybe an hour and a half to perform my bathing rituals, I deodorize myself, and I seldom leave the house any damn way to get dirty), that I never vacuumed, and only did stuff when asked except for cleaning the kitchen every night and washing dishes. That even if I did start cleaning up the place, I’d only just break stuff. All this hurt, and if you don’t think I’m not mortified and embarrassed at admitting all this, you’d be wrong.

But what The Partner said hit the hardest. “You alienate anyone who’s ever tried to help you.”

Let’s see if this is true:

My relatives disowned me ( but I think, I hope, it’s because they disowned my mother first)

Then a friend I had for 14 years got angry at me for asking if I could stay with her when I was in the hospital –I asked before when my mom died, but now she was pissed at me begging. It wasn’t that she didn’t let me, it’s  because she was a total bitch about it and we only spoke once or twice since. I still like her, but …

My best friend of 17 years: The night she stayed with me in the emergency room until I was admitted was the last time I saw her, and only spoke to her one time afterward. I think I was just too much to handle when she was having a really rough time in life herself. I will try to repair things when I am out of here. God only knows what all Soul Bro said to her to get her to come get me. He may have bullied her into it. I remember how kind she was to me in the ER staying with me until I was admitted into the hospital at 4am.

Soul Bro and his partner, The Partner: Soul Bro was and is my life. He loved me so much before I tried to kill myself. He may have thought I was just trying to get high or attention. He may have thought I was the biggest ingrate ever. Plus, I used to make fun of The Partner when I thought he wasn’t around, but Soul Bro egged me on in a way by telling me both truths and tales.

I only know one thing. I want to be alone where I can’t bother, burden, or break anything.  Soul Bro isn’t even talking to me now. It hurts so much and I’ve got to get away.