It's Just Me

I feel this way every day, but today for some reason, I feel worse. I think I can literally feel myself dying. I had a positive ANA a couple of years ago and my primary suspected I have lupus and referred me to a rheumatologist but, until recently, I couldn't find any on my insurance that were accepting new patients so for two years my ailments have been untreated and raging out of control. I finally saw a rheumatologist for the first time 2 weeks ago and she ordered a cbc and an autoimmune panel. My next appointment is in a couple weeks.

Impacting my career

I am, or at least I was, a veterinary technician for 15 years back so my medical education is helpful in analyzing my blood work results and rads. I see from the results that I have rheumatoid arthritis and also Hashimoto's disease now, in addition to lupus. Now that I know that, it goes a long way in explaining the things that have been going on with my mind and body over the last several years. Until 2021, I didn't have insurance and had not been to the doctor since I was hospitalized for 5 days with an accessed tooth in 2013 that caused a systemic infection. I don't know how long my immune system has been out of whack, but I'm thinking six years because that was the last time I remember feeling good. Autoimmune disorders can do a lot of damage to a body and mind when it's not being treated for so long. I have been through hell in the last six years and. I think my immune system is harming my mental health, stress levels and ability to cope with stress, which in turn, aggravates my immune system. It's a vicious circle for sure...

Financial challenges

Back in 2018 I took a new job and after working for three weeks I was supposed to get my first paycheck that should have been $2019, but instead was only $205 and they fired me when I text my supervisor to tell her (it was my day off and I thought it was a mistake). She text back 30 minutes later to say I was fired.

When I couldn't pay my rent, my landlord filed an unlawful detainer. I had moved everything I owned from my house into a storage unit while I tried to come up with some fast money, a new job, or at least somewhere to go if worse came to worst, but I was unsuccessful in all my efforts and worse did come to worst.

3 weeks after I lost my job, the police came to serve the unlawful detainer. They made me leave my house in front of all my nosey neighbors (I lived there for 3 years so we were aquainted). It was humiliating and embarrassing.

When the rent became due on my storage unit the next month, I couldn't pay it, so they locked me out of all of my clothes, my laptop, all the things I needed and it's not like I could have carried anything with me especially since I also had my dog with me and was carrying her food and blankie everything else she needed. So I made a partial payment and when I came up with the test of the money I went to pay the rest about three weeks later but the balance was less than I thought. So I emailed the manager to get the right balance and she informed me that my unit had been sold in auction for $185 a couple weeks earlier. She sent a certified letter that my unit was scheduled for auction, but I never received it because I had been evicted. She said I still owed $50 after applying the money from the sale.

Losing everything

I lost everything, my childhood photo albums, my parent's wedding album, journals and important documents like my social security card and birth certificate, things I spent my entire life collecting. But most importantly, I lost the box containing my mom's urn, the urn containing my son's ashes, and for four dogs and a cat's urns, along with a few of their most cherished belongings that I kept next to their urns in my house. I kept all of this in one carefully packed box that I kept right in the front of my storage unit so that I could grab it easily and quickly if I had to.

I was devastated when I read that my belongings were gone. I almost passed out. The manager said she would contact the buyer and see about recovering the urns, but it was too late. They threw them in the trash. Now I have nightmares about my mom's urn, lying in the filth at the county dump, being crushed, or burned. So disrespectful. She deserved better. I am a bad daughter. I feel guilty for letting that happen to her. I will never forgive myself.

I lost things I worked my ass off my whole life to earn (I was 48 at the time). People say, its just stuff and to let it go. It probably sounds materialistic, and maybe it is, but I will never get over the loss. How can I when I am constantly being reminded of the things I used to have and lost whenever I see something on TV or in a store. Sometimes something will pop into my head and I will remember something I had that had not even remembered I lost yet, and my heart breaks all over again, just like it does whenevet I need something I used to have 3 of, and now have to make do without. This is going to continue to happen for the rest of my life. I will never get over it. They wiped out every sign of my existence when they sold my stuff so now when I die it will be as if I was never here because I left nothing behind. Nothing that matters anyway.

I didn't have anywhere to go after I was evicted and had no money. Like most vet techs, I lived paycheck to paycheck. So I was living on the street for a while and was sleeping parked somewhere in my boyfriend's truck until he decided to bring me home to his parent's house (he was temporarily staying there after a breakup with his exgirlfriend). His mom hates me so we only stayed inside for about a month and couldn't take it anymore so we started staying in my boyfriend's trailer in the back yard. It's a haul trailer. It's not made for habitation. It's 17 feet long and is the kind of trailer that people haul race cars in. We put in a window and sunfoof. We used to have to open the door to look outside to see if was light or dark outside and it was very disorienting but to be able to see out. I don't sleep very good because I am sharing a twin bed with my 6'3 230lb boyfriend, along with my dog and sometimes the cat. You can imagine, it's pretty crowded. I am up all night and sleep when he goes to work.

Lacking support

My boyfriend's mom has hated me since the day she met me 10 years ago because I used to date someone she can't stand 15 years ago. She is bipolar and takes lithium and xanax and mixes her meds with wine and pot and they are not a good mix with her mental health problems at all. She turns into a complete bitch for no reason and sets her sites on me. She is so mean to me. And she's mean to my boyfriend for being with me. She tells him he can do better. She often threatens to call the police and have me removed from her property. She calls me stupid, and asks, aren't you uncomfortable being somewhere you aren't wanted? She unplugs the electricity whenever she feels like it and won't even let us in to use the bathroom. I have to hold it until my boyfriend gets home from work or walk to the restaurant on the corner. I avoid her like the plague. I shower in the yard like a barnyard animal in middle of the night with a garden hose attached to a propane hot water heater. She cut the end of our hose because she doesn't want us using their water even though my boyfriend gives her money every month for the space the trailer is taking up in the back yard. She has been stealing my mail for the last couple years. I find it in her trash or marked no longer that this address and back in the mailbox. I kept missing important things so now I have to have my mail saved at the post office but can't get there to pick it up very often. She thinks I am a loser because I don't have a drivers license and am not working. And all the while, I have gotten sicker and sicker. It's been six years that I have been stuck here. I don't have any money of my own and it sucks. Everything is so hard, even the simplest things. It's the worst environment for someone with a disease that is aggravated by stress. She must be trying to kill me.

Dealing with fatigue

I can't go anywhere because the bus stop is a mile away and I can't get there here anymore because I can't even make it to the corner without having to stop and rest because I can't breathe and my feet and back hurt too much.
My boyfriend works all week and sometimes weekends so I am here all day in this box with my dog, Zoey. She is an off white miniature poodle named Zoey. I've had her since she was 8 weeks old, she is 12 now. We have been to hell and back and she has saved my life many times over. She is the love of my life and I am hers. Fortunately, I didn't lose my most valuable possesion when I lost everything else. The thought of how sad she would be without me is to painful that I gave up my bad habits so that I could make sure that I would outlive her. She has heart disease now and only has a few months to live. I don't know how I am going to live through that.

Where it all began

Anyway, I think that these problems with my immune system began when all of this started six years ago. I remember feeling pretty good before then and never needed to see a doctor. I was diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder With Anxiety and depression in 2020, about a year after I lost my job. It's caused by an iniabiliity to cope with a traumatic life event like a death, divorce, moving house, loss of a job, etc. My stress level has grown exponentially over these six years and made worse by menopause and the hormonal imbalance caused by my immune system attacking my thyroid. I feel old and ugly and pale and out of shape from not getting any exercise and unattractive. I never have any reason to put make up on anymore. I have clothes that still have tags on them and I usually don't change out of pajamas. Why? Its not like I go anywhere other than doctors appointments, the pharmacy, the lab and grocery shopping at Walmart once a week. We don't have the money to go out. We don't want to be here but with my boyfriend being the only one working, it's enough to pay our bills and $150 a month in vetetinary meds, laundry and groceries, but it's not enough to save any for moving out. It takes a minimum of $6000 to get a place to live with deposits and moving expenses. I just don't see it happening. I am so sad to know that I will probably die in this back yard of these people that hate me. There's no way out. I am so saddened by the idea that I will die an early death, sick and homeless in this back yard of these people that hate me.

Grieving the life I "should have" lived

This is not how my life was supposed to turn out. When I lost my job, I was finishing my last two semesters for a BAS in Veterinary Technology. When I couldn't login to my coursework regularly when I became homeless, my instructors administratively withdrew me and assigned failing grades, even though I had straight A's until then. I was never able to finish school. I didn't even start college until I was 40 years old and it was not easy. All that work for nothing... what a waste.

I have done everything I could think to do to help myself. I tried to get a work at home job but the test was really hard and I couldn't think straight under the pressure as it was timed and required a perfect score to pass. It scares me when I notice how bad my memory has gotten and I am so scatterbrained at times that it makes me feel stupid. My boyfriend even laughs at me sometimes at the stupid things I do. I lost a box with $1000 in it for a week because I couldn't remember where I put it. I find things in the fridge that don't go there because I am functioning on autopilot at times. I lose things, forget things, sometimes entire conversations. I'll start to say something and forget what it was midsentence. I remember something important and go to write it down so I won't forget and by the time I get a pen and paper I forgot what I was going to write down. I am always dropping things and just leave them there sometimes because my back hurts too much when I try to stand back up if I pick it up. I forgot to put my boyfriend's debit card back in his wallet after I did the grocery shopping last night and he called me this morning furious Anna screaming at me because he was trying to get gas on the way to work. He hung up on me and it's been the silent treatment ever since. The tension around here is so thick you could cut it with a knife. It's really hard being stuck in a 17 foot box with someone that's angry with you. Every day of my life feels like I am being punished. Maybe I was a horrible person in a past life because in this life I have a good heart that hasn't earned all this misery and suffering.

No one to lean on

About 10 years ago, I used to ride a sportbike and was in an accident on the interstate that should have killed me but it didn't. I fought hard to recover from my injuries and didn't have anyone to take care of me or even to pick me up from the hospital. I remember laying there in my hospital bed trying in vain to find someone to pick me up. They needed the bed so they put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me out to the parking garage where I sat for two hours. I couldn't even roll anywhere because my hands were covered with road rash and bandaged. Ironically, it was the first time I ever rode without my kevlar riding jacket. It was hot that day and I had a long ride and for some stupid reason I decided not to eat my jacket that day. All I was wearing were my scrubs because I had to work later that day, boots, gloves, and my helmet. I was launched off my bike to the right and and I remrmber thinking this is gonna hurt and I hit the asphalt and slid and rolled for about 40 feet. When I finally came to a stop, I couldn't see and realized that at some point I had closed my eyes. I had to force myself to open them because I was afraid that when I did I would see the bumper or the tire of the car that was about to run over me. There was alot of traffic in the interstate as it was about 10am. Fortunately, the traffic had stopped. I managed to get up and did a 360 trying to find my bike which was about 50 get further down the interstate. My scribe were hanging off me like I had a fight with a lawnmower and lost. I was so banged up I couldn't even make downstairs to walk my dogs and had to tie 3 leashes together and send them down one at a time. It was hard recovering alone with no help changing bandages. I would leave them on too long and they would get stuck on my road rash and make me bleed when I tried to change them. That's how it is when you don't have any family to lean on in times like that, or this. Life is really hard when you're living it alone. People don't even know how good they have it. Anyway, I cheated death when in that accident. Sometimes I wonder if the universe is punishing me for surviving that accident when I shouldn't even be here anymore. There must be some reason why my life is so miserable and such a struggle all the time. Getting sick is just the icing on the cake. Par for the course. Not everyone succeeds in life and I guess it just wasn't in the cards for me. Not for lack of trying though...

Asking for help

I tried seeing a psychiatrist several months ago at the suggestion of my doctor, but after I told him about my life over the last few years I must have left him speechless. He told me that my life was depressing and that it wasn't going to get any better until my situation changed and he increased the dosage for my antidepressants .I didn't go back again. I knew he wouldn't be able to help me. No one can help me. I am beyond help.

I realized that when I was recently turned down for the third time for ss disability. I even had an attorney this last time and still was denied. I have at least 6 conditions that are in their Blue Book of disabilities, but my attorney says that it's not only having the condition, but that it prevents you from being able to work or function normally. It's not like the eligibility specialist is here to see that I can't walk to the bus stop, can't sit for long, can't stand for long, can't think straight, that my head and body hurts every day, and the 12 meds I take every day make me dizzy and sleepy and sometimes nauseous if I don't eat first.

I wouldn't last long at a job, that I know for sure. Employers don't like people who call in sick all the time, or can't get there on time because they are limping their way to the bus stop at a snails pace. I don't even know what they want from me. How do I prove that I am unable to work Has anyone else been able to get in disability and if so, how? My attorney is filing an appeal, but if they denied me three times already, even with an attorney, it's not going to happen. What a shame it is to pay out all that money from your income for years of work and then you can't even have it when you need it.

I also applied for disability discharge of my student loans, which are now on default. I had to get a paper from my doctor that says I am totally and permanently disabled, which I sent to my attorney because I thought it would help get my social security application approved, but even that wasn't enough. It's hopeless. What more do they want from me? Another sign from the universe that I'm not supposed to be here? Perhaps....

Where do we go from here?

At this point in my life it's too late to start over again, from scratch, with nothing as if I were 20 something again. I already worked hard my whole life and put in the time and the effort to have the nice things I used to have, but thats all gone now and I just don't have the energy to do it all over again, even if I could. And I don't think I should have to either. I should be in a comfortable place at this point in life, reaping the rewards of a lifetime of hard work, not miserable, struggling, hurting in every possible way, and with someone but alone nevertheless. Nope, this was not the plan at all.

Getting on disability was my only hope to be able to get out of this situation. I guess I need to work on figuring out how to accept that this is as good it's going to get for me. AIl I can hope for now is that I won't live too long so that I won't have to suffer much longer.

From what I have read, RA takes 10 to 15 years off off your life, and Im sure lupus and Hashimoto's disease shortens it even more. I am ok with that, though. Life has beat me down and worn me out and I am tired. It's a toss up as to whether my immune system will take me out first or if I will die of a broken heart, but either way, I welcome the day I get to see my mom again. It's been too long and I miss her.
I wish my story wasn't so negative and that I had better things to share about my life, but unfortunately, I don't.

Thanks for reading...💜☮️