If It Always Rains It’s Hard To Notice When It Pours

I’ve lost myself over the past few months. I’ve been overwhelmed by the hurricane my girlfriend has brought into my life. Her constant battles with her roommate; the relationship with her sister and parents which seems to be based entirely on anger, resentment and passive aggression; the divorce from her husband; the child we’ve created together, and the long and exhausting stays at the hospital.

My recovery, as a result, has taken more than one step backwards. For the first time in a year I’ve gone three days in a row without my anti-depressant, and it has happened twice in the past thirty days. For the second consecutive month I’ve spent my way into having nothing. Last month I ran out of money and food with a week left in June, and this month I overspent my incredibly small budget almost before the disability cheques were deposited.

There are also serious non-bipolar health issues I haven’t been able to deal with properly because my priority has been my girlfriend and the pregnancy.

I have type-2 diabetes, but I haven’t had time to shop for the right foods. So I end up eating whatever I can find at the convenience store, or I take my girlfriend and her son out to second tier fast food restaurants. My blood sugar, as a result, has been too high. I’ve also been forgetting to take my Metformin at the right times.

I finally managed to see my family doctor at the beginning of this month. Since Christmas my foot has regularly been numb along the top, and when I walk it feels like I’m doing it on wet sand. There’s also an uncomfortable pain from my knee to my foot. He did some tests, and has referred me to a podiatrist for more.

So while we’re dealing with court dates and hospital check ups for our baby, and I’m listening to her talk about the inane things her roommate does, I’m thinking about how much longer it’ll be until I lose my foot. Or how I’m going to afford food for the rest of the month. Which are things I don’t want to talk to her about because she’s got enough to worry about.

I haven’t learned how to schedule outsiders into my life. At this point of my life I doubt I ever will. So I end up living on two schedules. Instead of a few hours writing, another hour shopping, maybe an hour walking somewhere, I end up skipping the things I needed to be doing so I can spend four hours with my girlfriend in a hospital, then a few hours recovering before starting my writing when I’d normally be going to bed.

As a result I’m exhausted all the time.

My quality of sleep has really suffered over the past month as well… at least a month. If I’m with my girlfriend and her son for dinner and a movie, I don’t start writing until one or 2am at the earliest. When I finish, mostly around 4am or 5am, it takes me an hour or two to get my brain to stop working. Which puts bedtime around 6am. If I don’t have anything else to do I can hopefully sleep for six to eight hours. But if I’m meeting my grandfather for lunch, that’s a four to five hour sleep period.

And that’ll go on for days.

I thought I had this beat when I set a schedule with my girlfriend where we’d see each other from Monday to Wednesday, but the rest of the week was mine. But her insecurities but an end to that plan. Whenever it rains, for example, she’ll bring her son up to sit on my balcony… and it has rained almost everyday for two weeks.

It’s not like I was doing a great job of taking care of myself before I met her. But I was definitely healthier, and more able to look after myself. I realized a few days ago I had been drinking nothing but milk and pop for three months. I bought some orange juice on Friday for the first time in months.

I cooked for the first time in a month last night (Sunday). I’ve been eating cereal for weeks. Just cereal and take out. When I can’t sleep, my judgement on everything goes out the window, I can’t think, I lose words, ideas are half formed, and my body breaks down. When I’m not eating quality food, my body breaks down even more, I get exhausted quickly, and my judgement just dies. It’s like I’m a whole other person.

When I listen to my girlfriend talk about her soon-to-be-ex-husband or her roommate or her family, I have to make room in my head for all of those stories. I’m constantly thinking of ways to make her life better, or to solve a problem. I’m also an introvert, so it takes time to recover from being around all of the doctors, nurses, admins, patients, from the crowds at the theatre, from being around her parents and her friends…

And when I’m dead tired and thinking about things I don’t write about, I don’t write. I do things like start up Facebook accounts, or fiddle with little things on my blog. I’ll spend two hours trying to get a blogroll image just right. Or I’ll spend hours hunting through my archives for photos to put up on my Facebook page, then another two hours resizing them and another hour trying to write captions for them.

And that eats even deeper into my schedule.

Which is aggravating, because I’m not even supposed to have a freaking schedule. I’m on Permanent Disability for a reason.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here. Each time I’ve explained to her my need for time and space to concentrate on my recovery the peace lasts for a day. Maybe. And then the phone rings, or there’s a knock, and all she wants is to sit on my balcony. Or my grandfather calls and all he wants to do is have lunch. Or my mom calls and all she wants is for me to look after her dog.

I feel like I haven’t slept in a month, and I’m not sure how to make things better.

Wednesday we’re in Ottawa for the cervical cerclage operation, because I don’t drive and I’m not letting her drive, my mother will be taking us in. This means we leave home at 7.15am, the operation is before lunch. Then we’re in the hospital until my mom can pick us up, so around 5pm. Then we get home around 7pm. I’ll be with her all night to make sure everything’s okay.

We still have to move her stuff into her new apartment, so that’ll be this weekend.

I really, really don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.

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