Mail Call

I wanted to get my mail today. I only check every week or two, because no news is good news, right?

It isn’t just the mail. I feel a certain existential dread when checking my voicemail. I think of all the bad  scenarios that someone could leave on voicemail. Something  with my apartment complex or my social worker.

I’ve taken to  checking my front door twice a day for something from the apartment complex. I know my neighbors must hear me open the door and quickly shut it again. They must either think I’m the nosiest bitch in the world or that I’m totally nuts. Knowing that one of the maintenance guys now lives across the hall exacerbates everything. He tries to be nice when we see each other, and I try to reciprocate to the best of my ability, which ain’t so great. Looking in someone’s eyes is like looking directly at the sun. Smiling makes me self-conscious because I feel like my lips clamp together paralyzed, and knowing my teeth are ground down from years of bruxism, I just can’t. I imagine my neighbors think I’m autistic, slow, and may know I’m a cat lady.

But yes, I went to get my mail…and my mail key wasn’t on my fob. Panic set in. I will have to go to the office on Monday. First, I’ll ask if anyone turned in a key, and then, heaven forbid, ask for another. Logically, I know I shouldn’t feel like the world is about to end when I have to venture there for something, but I see those times as dangerous. Potential questions asked, complaints foisted on me, as though reminding them of my presence is enough to make me homeless. I got a note from my shrink with some shit about my friend needing to park by my building in order to help me about a month ago. I have yet to turn in said note, the wages of playing the tard card so my friend wouldn’t have to walk a long distance from the dark visitors’ parking lot and potentially get her car broke into at night. Maybe I’ll have the courage to give it to the assistant manager to keep that vulture towing guy off her car. Wish me luck!

Paranoid much?

Well, I think I’ve finally done it. Scaled the heights of neurosis and about to go to full blown psychotic. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration…;But only just slightly. My mind keeps flipping channels to see where my anxiety will land. It’s about time to sign a new lease, and per usual, I’m imagining them saying, “we’ve had complaints…we don’t want you.” Then my social worker tried to do some sort of unannounced visit, and I keep wondering why. Instead of asking her, I imagine she’s trying to take me off the program that allows me to be able to live here. But now my mind is convinced I still have bed bugs (it could be fleas, or hives, or disease…and I’d take all of the above before bed bugs). Every year, I think I see a nymph. Last year, I thought I saw a nymph in some apple cider vinegar I sat out to catch gnats. This year I thought I saw one in some dirty laundry as I was about to load the washing machine, but convinced myself it was a a spider, Something is going on with my skin. My back especially, but everywhere is itchy, and delusional parasitosis has come back. Sometimes it feels so real and nothing there (Bed bugs are so light, you probably wouldn’t feel one crawling on you, but my mind is fucking with me). I saw bubbles in my urine today. Take heart, Lisa, I said to myself. Maybe it’s just your kidneys are failing. Or maybe it’s covid, or maybe it’s both.

Part of me can logically trace back every fear to past trauma. Fear of homelessness, fear of being put in a home, fear of losing everyone and everything. I don’t think it will ever end, If I live to grow old, which I kinda doubt since I’m 235 lbs and covid is popping off fatties left and right, I’ll still be paranoid.

Afraid

I had to call maintenance to come fix my air conditioner. Per usual, I’m terrified. What if my apartment isn’t up to par or it smells bad? What if my bedroom door opens?

My worst fear is losing my home, but summer can be extremely brutal without air conditioning. They just put new HVACs in a couple years ago. What if they blame me for it going bad?

Everyday, sometimes twice a day, I look on my door for a note from management or worse. It’s an obsession of mine. I forgot to check the hallway for the odor of marijuana, so what if my tolerant neighbors get evicted and someone who will tell on me for every little thing replaces them?

The Narc

My upstairs neighbors have lived up in their apartment a few years. Aside from the occasional fuckfest, where it sounds like they’re coming through the ceiling, and the scent of shitty skunk weed permeating through the entire building everyday, they’ve been model tenants.

Well, someone snitched. I expect it was the new white couple across the hall. There’s something about them. They look snotty, snobby, maybe northern (sorry). I can’t quite describe it. While they look far from cultured, they look like the creme de la creme of white trash Brahmins. I could be wrong. I look, act, and sound intellectually disabled, so people judge accordingly. I should be the first to know there are hidden unseen layers to people.

We all got a letter on our doors. ” If the smoking continues, we will do unannounced inspections and will terminate the lease and file eviction papers.” Paraphrasing.

I’m immensely paranoid that I still smell pot, that management will come and throw me out too for other reasons. If they try to come in on me, I will cite the lease that says reasonable time must be given, that I’m not the one, and that I want my worker to be here if they come in. Lord, give me strength.

I will be afraid every time I go out now that they’re coming in. My worker took me to the store today, and when I came home, my cats were hiding. This made me suspicious that they’d been there. I checked my door at 5pm as I do everyday, paranoid I’ll find something saying they’re getting rid of me. It’s a constant obsession with me. Occasionally, I check more than once. Now that there’s a snitch, how long will it be before they start complaining about me too? I’d never find another apartment. My friend might take me in, but I’d be at her mercy. Considering she called me a lazy retard the other day for mopping my kitchen with pure bleach and then feeling respiratory issues, it would be best not to be with her all the time.

Still Convinced I’m Dying

Yay! I’m sure now that kidney infection, or whatever it is, wasn’t killed by 5 days on Macrobid. I found blood the other day, but since then, the color has gone back to normal. I know I still have something going on though. I can no longer deny that the ache in my abdomen is my kidneys. If I see blood again this weekend, I’m going back to the urgent care. If not, I will try to force myself to go to my doctor next week. I’m supposed to go to get a yearly form signed anyway, so two for one if I can hold out for the form to get here. I’ll ask for a blood and urine panel.

If I am dying, I’d really just prefer to drop dead suddenly, thanks. I shouldn’t care as much as I do, because my cats will be cared for, and there’s no one left that can’t live without me. Apparently, however, the idea of having death knocking terrifies me. Even though my life is only marginally fulfilling, I’m not ready to give it up yet. It’s funny what little things make me happy: I found a Discord chat that actually finds me funny ( or maybe they’re too nice to tell me I’m annoying). I think I’m the only one there with an IQ less than 130, but every community needs a village idiot. I feel if I made someone somewhere laugh, I did a small service to humanity, and maybe I shouldn’t have been aborted after all.

My best friend has ESP. She hasn’t told me yet that she thinks I’ m dying. I just keep thinking back to the guy who saw my mom’s death 2 weeks before it happened, and who told me if I didn’t change my ways, I’d be dead by 48. I’ve dropped about 50 lbs since then, but I’m still fat, and my major joy in life is overeating. If I changed, he said I’d make it to 78. Maybe at 42 this is the beginning of my end.

Fear of a New Decade

Last decade was the worst decade of my life. Highlights in case you don’t feel like flipping through almost 10 years of mediocre writing:

My mom died.

I realized friends, relatives, humanity in general will disappear or downright disown you in your hour of need.

I went into a nursing home for 2 and a half months just because there was nowhere else to go.

I almost got evicted.

I got bed bugs.

Instead of thinking that things will look up for the new decade, I’m certain this will be worse.

I’m scared that I’m dying. I recently had a kidney infection, the second in three months. The hematuria cleared up with antibiotics, but I’m still having stomach and back pain. I keep thinking I am in kidney failure. I am having weird bumps and itching. I used to worry it was bed bugs who had hid out without showing themselves in over two years. Now I think it’s just organ failure. I’m too scared to go to the doctor. If I start pissing blood again, I’ll go. I’ll probably die of sepsis one day just like my mother before me. Yay.

I keep thinking I’m going to lose my apartment, I will have to rely on my best friend, and will never have my own own home again. My friend will grow to hate me, throw me out, and I’ll wind up in a nursing home or on the streets. My dreams are filled with me losing my home. Sometimes, the dreams are that my mom just died again and I wake up in amazement that it’s 9 years later and I’m OK.

Well, thanks for letting me unburden myself. I could go on  about how I’m never going to be loved and my life will be remembered as meaningless if I do  fall dead, but I’ve had enough fun for one day.

An Average Orphan

Generally, I’m content in my solitude. My mother’s ashes are nearby, but mainly disregarded in the discount crematory plastic box. One day, when I have the courage to fulfill her wish to be scattered at sea. I can’t let go yet.

It’s the overt stuff that reminds me I’m alone. My social worker, the most tactful woman on earth said, “Don’t you have any family? Your mother’s gone? Not even cousins?”

No. But it’s not entirely true. I have some second cousins, but they made it clear as my mother lay in the hospital morgue that they wanted nothing to do with me.

And then I made someone mad while he was drunk and he told me I wasn’t his bartender, his mother, and NOT HIS FAMILY. We aren’t even friends, but he knows more or less, an outline of my life. While I can’t be certain, I think he meant to cut me to the core. Perhaps he is trying for my own good to excise the unfortunate feelings that crept up on me. Were I beautiful, an uber socialist SJW, and maybe 12 years younger, maybe I would  have said something to him someday…if he didn’t think of me as an ugly, naive sow.

It’s almost my 42nd birthday, and I’ve found out a few things about myself within the past week. Though the consensus of people I casually meet is that I’ m an imbecile, the truth is I’m average. My psychological evaluation says I have a 96 IQ. When I picture a 96 IQ, I imagine me in a MAGA hat with a Q-anon T-shirt, waiting to get into a Trump rally with some of his more gnarly supporters. But at least I’m not mentally challenged. I probably do have a learning disability, which is super nifty to know now that I haven’t been in school in 20 something years. My vocabulary is high average, my processing speed is borderline MR. Ain’t life a bitch? I guess that neurologist when I was 11 was right about me having mild cerebral palsy.

Though the psychologist only put unspecified learning disability, looking around Dr. Google, I think I have “nonverbal learning disorder.” It’s a little bit like being autistic without actually being autistic.

Egads, I also have GAD. Not terribly surprised by this either. I don’t have to obsess on something to be anxious, so I have 2 anxiety disorders.

I don’t have a personality disorder, but I have characteristics of both dependent and avoidant personality disorders. Charming.

Other fun observations include that I’m slightly older looking than I am, that my hygiene is ‘fair,’ and that I’m a troubled and insecure woman. Oh, and a bit of a hypocondriac, I despise myself, and I’m disappointed in my looks. Beautiful, Lisa.

“….but I’m not stupid.” That will be my mantra from now on.

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!