One hour into April and it snows…

Hello April. It’s nice to see you again. It’s been a long time. I don’t suppose you could do me a teeny tiny favor and just be nicer to me than March was? March was a real bitch this year. She and I did NOT get along. I could do with a break, and it’d be nice if you could provide that for me. The pretty snowfall while I was in the kitchen was a good start, keep it up like that? Pretty please. Love, Cleo.

Hey there Internet. How ya doing? Long time no talkee. Which is kinda my fault I guess. I’ve been a little lacking in the blogging department. But I don’t see you messaging me. You could always make the first move, you know Internet.

Okay, enough with the humor. I really haven’t been doing well the past few weeks. For a start, I haven’t been taking my meds. Not deliberately, but I ran out and getting my prescription proved awkward. I took my repeat prescription in, and said to myself that I’d collect it when I went to the doctor’s for my appointment about the x-ray on my ankle. But then every time I called them, there were only emergency appointments available and then a week had gone by and then I went to my mother’s for the weekend and I ended up there for a whole week and by the time I got home I’d been off my meds for 2-3 weeks and all the antidepressant was out of my system.

Which, just by itself, is not a good thing. It’s a bad thing. But when it’s coupled with other things going wrong, then it becomes a flipping disaster. And there have been other things. Aren’t there always other things? When will the other things just go away? While I was at mum’s last week I did a very, very, VERY stupid thing. I don’t know how much detail to go in, cos this is the internet and everything, but it’s no secret that I’m ridiculously bad with money.

Here’s the thing. I’m not bad at budgeting. I’m really not. I’m very good at budgeting. I’m ridiculously brilliantly wonderful at budgeting. It’s just organizing, and I’m REALLY good at that. I can budget with the best of them. I’m just not so good at sticking to the budget. That’s where I fail. Miserably. I am bad with money. It’s no secret. Very bad with money. Have been since I was sixteen and suddenly had control of my own finances. I’m sort of genetically predisposed to it, the same way I’m genetically predisposed to curves. From my mother’s side.

After all the mess I got into in America last year, and the nearly not making it there at all, I was determined to be better with money. My New Year’s resolution was to better with money. Much better. I failed. That New Year’s resolution failed miserably. Half way through March and I was already way behind on my bills. So – and here’s the really stupid thing – when my housing benefit payment went into my bank account I made the (very, very, VERy stupid) decision to use it to pay off my bills rather than paying my rent. The way my unmedicated depressive brain saw it, I was consolidating. I worked it out, and I could clear the rent off by the end of April. But I overestimated how lenient my landlady was. Which was fair enough. I really shouldn’t have done it. At all. But I did, and I couldn’t undo it, much as I might like to.

So my very cheesed off landlady officially served me 30 days notice on my apartment. If I cleared my rent within seven days I could stay. If I’d been at home when this happened, I’d have episoded and probably done Something Stupid. As it was, I was at my mother’s. In her living room. With my 12 year old sister. The text conversation with my landlady had me in tears and my sister was very worried, so I suppressed the episode. Note: that’s a bad idea. It physically hurts to suppress an episode. It’s a much better idea to let it out.

So Thursday evening I pack up all my bits and head to the station to get the train back home to sort out my affairs and sell lots of my crap in order to make the rent. Except that I miss my train. My pre-booked train that I can’t transfer. By seconds. I had the time wrong in my head, and it pulled away just as I got onto the platform. After sobbing like a baby in the train station; seriously thinking about throwing myself in front of a train; dismissing the idea as far too inconvenient for other people; sobbing at the bus stop and waiting in the rain for half an hour, I end up back at my mum’s. Where I cry some more. Lots of crying.

Mum understands my urgent need to get home. Aside from the rent, the landlady has decided to do a house check on the Tuesday so I had to get home to sell stuff and sort out money as well as cleaning my house and getting rid of anything incriminating. So while I cry, mum calls her friends and manages to borrow me money for a train ticket on Saturday. Thanks John!

But this means missing the last Brownie meeting of term, so Jen wasn’t too happy with me. But during the meeting time on Friday I text her to find out how it went. She was even unhappier. We’d had to cancel a theatre trip due to unavailability of tickets and one of our most awkward parents had ripped into her about that, about the fact that her daughter’s jacket was in the supply cupboard which she wouldn’t be able to get to until after Easter because I had the key, and she ripped into her about me not caring about the girls because I wasn’t at the meeting that night. She really is not one of our favourite parents. But aside from that there was something else which I’m not going to mention on a public blog. I’ll sum it up – I cocked up, again! I’ve resigned from my position as Unit Guider because of this cock up and I am deeply ashamed about it. I don’t plan on leaving Guiding for good. It’s too big a part of my life. But I am leaving that unit, probably the division (but that’s mostly because where I live at the moment is actually in a different division and if I’m gonna change units I might as well go to one that’s close).

So it was not a good week. And because I was unmedicated I didn’t deal with it at all. I’m still not dealing with it well. I’m back on my meds, as of only two days ago so they aren’t really in my system yet, and the rent is sorted so I don’t have to move again. But I’m depressed. Oh, did I mention that I’m ill. Mum and Michaela were both ill with sniffles and stuffy noses and headaches and horrible coughs. And of course, they gave it to me. So I’m depressed AND I’m ill.

Plus, Neil is still in Hyde mode, although he is getting better. Even if he was feeling better, he can’t afford to pay the £30 train fare cos he’s been out of week for three months. So I’m lonely too. I had an episode this evening, and I had nowhere to go. Neil had fallen asleep, or just chosen to stop replying to my text messages. Jen was on a date. Cayden was at home with a sick relative. And that pretty much sums up the list of people I can talk to at the moment. I used to have a whole host of people I could text when I was feeling low. I have very few of them left. Those that I still text regularly… well, I usually feel like I’m bugging them when I text them.

Hang on….

Sorry, the rabbit knocked something over in the living room. He’s been relegated to live there permanently now, since after coming home I had to throw away two of my books, cellotape three more together and replace two ringbinders. I just don’t have the storage space to take everything off the rabbit-height shelves and put them somewhere else. So, for now, he stays in the living room. He’s doing well though. He binkies a lot. For those who aren’t well-versed in rabbit terminology a binky is what a rabbit does when he’s happy and content. He jumps high in the air and waggles his little feet while he’s in the air. It makes me ever so happy every time he does it; partly because I’m permanently paranoid that I’m a bad pet owner.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah… lonely, lost, worried, sick, sad, miserable, scared, depressed and with no one to talk to.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m accomplishing by posting this online. But I get a lot of strength from reading Dooce’s blog and seeing that she’s come through her depression and her post natal depression and is dealing with it and has a lovely family and is a successful happy wife and mother. Maybe in a few years I’ll be doing better, and someone will read my blog and it will give them strength to see what I’ve gone through.

Blah, that’s probably all rubbish. I just needed to rant a little bit. Rant over.