I was up half the night, due in part, to monthly curse pain, which apparently I am not supposed to publicly discuss yet it has come to play a very large role in my mental health issues so…whatever. I tried getting back to sleep sans pill assistance but by hour three, I said fuck it, took a melatonin and benadryl and just prayed I wouldn’t sleep through the alarm and make my kid miss the bus. Which by the time Night Club’s “Dear Enemy” began blaring from my phone, I was in so much physical pain from the menstrual dysphoria, I kept hitting snooze and it was all I could to do to call out and make sure she was up and getting dressed. I mustered out of bed by snooze three and fed the cats and got something to drink and went to the bathroom but I was hurting and all I could think about was going back to sleep once she was on the bus…
But my brain wouldn’t stop swirling. I should have been driving to town and giving the landlord his rent money. Instead, I was rooted in place, waiting for Tylenol to kick in against all the physical symptoms that were keeping me down. They dulled but didn’t really go away, and my mental state was somewhere between “If there’s a God, he’d let me die NOW!” and “I really want to attack everyone’s skull with a melon baller!” So I didn’t rush to town, but I was paranoid enough to make it up to the post office for a money order for the rent, stunned this podunk place accepts debit cards. The lady had to drag the money order imprint machine and paper out of a damn closet, it’s apparently so rarely used here. But with a senile landlord, I can’t risk using cash because he even argues with his own receipts and I was so sick mentally and physically, all I could think was, at least if he knocks for his money, I can give him his rent…
I tried to blog. I tried multiple times to even record a short video.
FAIL. This pre-menopause thing blows goats and not in a pleasurable way. I didn’t like the normal hormonal disturbance, I sure as hell can’t stand the ‘end of the road’ hormonal disturbance. And knowing that my mother was born when her own mom was 49 and ‘premenopausal’ so they thought she had a tumor as opposed to being pregnant…I can’t even say this is a relief that I’m at end of the road. I could have ten years of this shit coming and on top on mental health issues and life suckage in general…
KILL ME NOW comes to mind.
My only saving grace is that I know all too well the dysphoria that is monthly and it will pass (only to return again). So I know it’s not all agony and hopelessness but…for a few days a month, it kinda seems that way, no drama intended.
What isn’t ‘coming and going’ is the reality of more expenses than income. I keep calling the state and raising a ruckus about the donor not paying his court ordered child support but as the guy told me, “This is pretty common, if they don’t want to be found, they won’t be found. You can always talk other legal avenues.” Um, I have a lawyer who repeatedly goes to the donor’s door in an effort to hunt him down and the donor even hangs up on his phone calls when the lawyer is not buying his brand of bullshit. I’d like to know why I am the only one who is being held responsible for a child I was repeatedly told it ‘took two’ to make yet only me for going on 8 years has been caring for her. I suppose if I had more money then I could afford a decent lawyer who would actually be on my kid’s side instead of worrying about ‘giving a fair chance so he doesn’t get charged with contempt of court’ for the donor. I don’t care if then send him to jail or deport his ass, I just think after 3 kids and ‘it’s always the mom being too crazy a bitch for me to handle yet she can raise my children safely”- high time someone holds him accountable, even if in a jail cell where he can’t get his precious gourmet saffron seasoned food. In fact, I am feeling so salty because his irresponsibility hurts my child that I’d be fine if they sent him to jail with Kraft mac and cheese, minus cheese powder and a beloved ketchup packet to add to it. Vindictive,moi? Only when you do shit that negatively impacts my kid.
I think of all the times over the last 8 years when others have spotted him out about in town with his various girlfriends and fiancees, and even one of them had a little girl, and they were eating at a steak house and shopping….and he didn’t give a damn if his kid had food. That,to me, is true evil. You do NOT get to preach over and over and over to a pregnant woman who can’t take her meds and is falling apart, “This is your pregnancy but we are having a child” only to leave her with the child and take zero responsibility even when ordered by the state courts…What a dick move. I may be a neurotic, moody bitch who once a month goes fucking menstrual mental, but if I am good enough to raise OUR child by MYSELF…you don’t get to play victim. You just don’t.
I thought since it was the holidays and stuff there’d be *some* assistance so my kid gets a winter coat, boots, and maybe a few clothes and a toy or two for Christmas. I mean, we are way below the poverty line, considering half my income is spent on rent alone, never mind power, gas, insurance, water, trash, gas in the car to get to town, food, pet supplies, household products…But apparently $812 a month in this state means I’m pretty well off so me and my kid don’t qualify for most of the assistance programs. They require 0 income, so in a way, having even disability income is punishing my child. What the actual fuck, powers that be??????????????????????
I don’t want sympathy. I want empathy. And I have come to terms with not getting much for Christmas, ever, as an adult. I’m to the point where all I want is to replace my gogroover speakers and fake silk sheets and I’m good and you can call it Christmas and birthday for all I care (my bday is Jan 22). I mean, my #1 priority is always gonna be my kid, #2 is gonna be the cats, and then there is me. And short of maybe some take out food that I haven’t been able to afford since we had to move to this hellhole, I’m not really feeling all that denied or whatever. (And if someone says they don’t occasionally wish they could afford a pizza or burger, they’re probably on the road all the time and want home cooked food for a change or they are liars, it’s legit to want something you don’t often get.)
Okay, this is not how I meant this post to go but it is what it is. Insult to injury is my kid has exactly TWO friends at this new school and one girl is having her birthday party this weekend but she lives in the town where the school is , 10 miles from us, so I have to drive my kid there and back and I can’t afford a gift so I actually reached out to my dad and stepmonster on the chance they might be able to find something cheap so Spook can at at least attend with a gift for her friend. I refuse to break her heart, even if it means regifting, which I don’t like to do, but I have and I will. One thing about being a depressive, you can end up seeming like a hoarder because you bought 3 bottles of nail polish six months ago and never opened it so…gifting or regifting. Not ashamed, long as it’s not opened. Man, I hate the donor for putting us in this position. It’s not like I get to take a year or two and say, “I have no income so I don’t have to pay or take care of or see her or make any effort at all.”
But ain’t that the big difference. I would never do that to my child.
I would have to be declared incompetent and put on lockdown or lock in before I allowed myself to fail my child in a major way. The beauty of children is, while she wanted to go to that school dance and I couldn’t swing it due to loss of child support…she’s forgiven me, ‘as long as you buy me Domino’s bread bites!” I haven’t been able to do that so far but I WILL. But since we live in Bumfuck, we have to eat them in town and our place isn’t for dine in, just carry out, and sitting in a car in 15 degree weather isn’t optimal…
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
I don’t think I’m gonna ring in the new Year outside a Rubber Ramada without my full strength meds.
And I just hope I have enough DVDs in good enough condition to pawn, even at 50 cents each, I might be able to come up with $10 to buy her a few things.
It isn’t oh woe is me, or poor us.
We are in this situation because a man about to turn 56 seems to think getting fired from jobs to save himself paying child support is a sport to excel at.
If I believed Voodoo worked, I’d have quilting needles to stab into a (donor) doll. That’s not crazy. That’s call ‘loving your kid and being infuriated when someone is allowed to repeatedly do them wrong’.
I love Spook so much, it just rips me to shreds that I am putting in 110% on every front and still not doing ‘well enough’.
If anyone or anything is eroding the family values of this country, it’s the deadbeat parents who don’t do anything for their kids. And because they walked out, the single parents look like we’re in favor of broken families and being broke.
If the world could measure love, it would be the single parents who were the billionaires. It’s easy to spend money. But to give all of yourself, money, your sanity, your heart, your humor, your empathy and understanding, to a child (ren)…
Those are the kids who may wear hand me downs and not live in mansions but honestly…they’re very wealthy children to have even one parent willing to give that much and hold no grudges.
Loving Spook is second only to breathing for me and I’m fairly sure breathing was a thing even as we crawled out of the primordial ooze. But love…that isn’t instant, as so many deadbeat abandoning parents prove.
Morose. Monday.
What downer, what a long idiotic rant, and what the hell. I’m gonna hit publish.
Our page is here.
$100 is what I need to raise to cover expenses and get her school pics and tiny bit of Christmas. $100. Some people blow that one manicures and fancy coffee in a week.
THAT is why I’m shamelessly promoting our fundraiser. Because MY KID IS WORTH AS MUCH AS A DAMNED MANICURE EVEN IF HER DAD DOESN’T THINK SO AND I AM KEEPING HER CLOTHED AND SHELTERED AND FED.
If this makes me a selfish bitch…I can deal. Cos it ain’t about me getting stuff or being liked, it’;s about motivating people to want to do something decent for a little girl who lost the dad lottery and got a devoted but disabled and poor mom.
One day she could cure your cancer or solve global warming or write a concerto or…That’s the point. She’s the future so invest in her.
And for those in our same financial place, a like and a comment count for a lot, too.
The world has lost sight of the value that most things have, even if it isn’t monetary or social influence.
But hey, my kid wants Minecraft Legos and I can’t afford them so were a kind person to go there for Spook…Gratitude would be immediate and immense.
❤