Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I’ve been very diligent about taking my meds. They do keep me functioning. There is a lot I have to do, every day. Sometimes I am completely overwhelmed but, on the meds, it doesn’t seem so bad. And some of what I do isn’t work related, something the doctors always said was important. I’m in the Spectrum Singers choir and I’ve completed 4 rehearsals so far. I go every Thursday evening for two-hour practices before work. At the last rehearsal, they announced there would be solos and we needed to come prepared with a number matching the theme if we wanted to perform one. Of course I do. But I can’t think of any refugee/immigrant themed songs. The ones I find on google don’t speak to me yet.

Counting down the days…till I quit. I don’t know how many days. I’m not ready, I want to pay down my credit cards more. And there is trouble in my rental property – they’re not getting along and one says she is looking for another place. It is unlikely she will find something very quickly, but I have to decide what I want to do with the place – keep it divided into units or rent the whole thing out to one family/person. Getting a new roommate for them is daunting. It has to be full, or I start losing money. The whole point was to make money.

Money buys me a strange peace of mind. I can worry and stress about a lot – my meds, my mom, the entire world going to shit – but when I have money I feel like I’ve established a safe bubble. Bought myself out of danger.

The world is a threatening place, and the good parts are only accessible if you have money. I’m far from rich but I’ve set myself up very carefully over the years. Not by saving so much as avoiding the ridiculous cost of housing by buying in 2016. Now I save everything, putting away all of it except the money I make at SH part time…that’s what I live on. But goddamn that is still hard to swing sometimes. The cost of life just keeps going up so I work and work to make up for it, determined to stay ahead. I want at least 2,500 or even 3,000 to go in savings every month.

Work/acquiring money is a coping mechanism, though not one of the healthier ones. I’ve been going hard two years now. Every time I transfer another chunk of money to my savings account, I get such a satisfied feeling of dopamine.