And Then There Were Three

I love Sean. He is my best friend, my partner, roommate and lover. I realize there aren't many people as open as myself talking about their lives under a microscope, but it is liberating and one of the ways that make my life experience authentic. Sean may not love everything that comes with it, but he knows that because of my outspokenness I am an honest over-sharer with nothing to hide.

My mental health has pretty much always been terrible. When people ask me "How have you been doing?" I always say "it depends on what day/mood you ask me that". And what day does matter. Circumstances for me tint life to either terrible, or just bearable. But never "great" or rose colored. Always black or white.

But it's always the space between the two I find myself hating why I'm still alive. I can see that life hasn't gotten better despite how much I have fought to be in a much improved environment and mental space. Only to still be struggling immensely.

When I'm in the bad, I'm actively planning suicide. When I'm in the "bearable" I'm just trying to get to therapy and do self care. I feel like a high functioning Kirsten doesn't exist.

So I wrote my own obituary because I can. I've been in touch with attorneys to plan my after death care and assign a power-of-attorney.

All of this is so much heavier without feeling like I can't talk to Sean anymore about my emotions without bringing him down. My best friend is struggling with his mental health and his life journey too. I told him recently I feel like he gives and give and gives to everyone and everything else and I get what's left of him after a hard week of work and bullshit. I'm sure he has felt the same way towards me before, except I feel completely incapable of helping him. When I ask him what I can do for him, he doesn't know.

We've had several heart breaking conversations about "even if we aren't dating anymore we are roommates and the person you are as a roommate isn't something I'm loving right now." We are still dating though. His depression manifests in anger, short tempers, and the thing that bothers me the most is his apathy and poor hygiene. I don't even want to be near him or kiss him when he smells and doesn't brush his teeth. Who would? I don't want to bring his depression into my slow trauma healing regarding our sex life, but his hygiene partnered with my already non existent sex drive has left us not having sex, but once, in months. I'm sure the lack of sex is difficult on him, and is affecting his mental health; don't worry I feel super guilty about not being able to have sex with my boyfriend because I'm just not interested. Sex was something that use to make us feel close and was a way to express love for each other. It's an important physical connection that is no longer there. At least right now.

Ideally you'd like to to pick a lover or partner who compliments the things that you struggle with and vs versa, at least that's how things work in business transactions- but that isn't always how love works. For example, I'm overly anxious, all the time. Chronic obsessive list keeper so I don't forget. And as if Sens natural state of forgetfulness isn't difficult, we now throw his depression-apathy in there and he can't remember what I said less than 5 minutes ago, or so it feels. We loose a lot things. Our keys, his ear pods, wallet, important receipts, and forget appointments, promises made and have been letting life slide. I feel overwhelmed keeping up with all his needs and mine too. I'm not handling myself well enough to accommodate the tasks he should be helping out with or doing. House chores, his doctors appointments, when to run to the pharmacy to pick up his/mine RX that ran out, which are never on the same day as mine. (why are we going to target 6X a month for meds?!) Or feeding the cats and taking care of them... What do you do when you are the one who needs help, but your partner is struggling to? (hint: die inside)

Things just get lost in life. And this is my life. Navigating around the unpredictable. Even the predictable things are difficult. Because sometimes they aren't things you have experienced yourself yet, even if you know it is coming. Like living together, sharing a space, seeing someone everyday all the time. It isn't as pleasant as you may think. However I never thought it was going to be solely pleasant, I just knew it was going to be better than living with my dad. And it is. Sean is such an upgrade from toxic family. Where there is gratefulness, there are new paths that are being explored.

My Blog post says there is over 4k characters written so far and I feel like I've said a lot about nothing for an update. As much as life changes, it also stays the same when looking at it in isolated moments like my little blog spots.

So, things that are getting me down?

Fiances.

When I dropped my dad off at the air port last month he asked Sean and I are good with our finances. We are. I live within my very humble means, and I'm not in any debt. (besides medical debt, I don't count that, there is literally no way to pay the hundreds of thousands I owe back from my mental health hospitalizations, it's one of the reasons I am on disability.) That being said because I am on disability I have now started on medicare. Which is 100% confusing.

Medicare is mainly for the elderly OR some disabled people. Apparently I follow into the later. I need to make more phone calls and find someone who can explain to me if what is happening is correct, because it really is quite mind-blowing to me that I pay almost 25% ($145/mo) of my monthly Social Security Disability Income (SSDI=$803/month) on my insurance premium alone each month. That doesn't include my co-pays/appointments/medicines/etc, it's my monthly forced payment to have medicare taken directly out before I get my check on the 3rd. $145 a month may not seem like much, but prior to medicare, I had medicaid, aka "medical assistance". Which is for those whose income is under $10K a year. (poor people insurance) I've had medicaid for years now and it covers pretty much everything, it just doesn't mean you get a great pick of doctors or specialists. It also means you are stuck with generic medications. None the less I still make less than $10K a year on disability, but now pay $145 for MEDICARE. "cheap but good/better insurance than medicaid" ? For the record, I still have medicaid too. *mind blown* Basically I'd be saving money if I didn't have medicare!

I'm not saying I'm not grateful for the income that I am provided, I am. But $658/month in disability income is all I get. My portion of rent alone is $425, it's insane! Certainly there are smaller/cheaper apartments in my area, but what we have is the least expensive housing apartment complex, with a reliable/clean/honest "landlord". We could have gotten a 2 bedroom instead of a 3 but it was only $100 cheaper. Studios were almost the same price of 2 bedrooms as well, and there wasn't any way a studio would work for Sean and I. I know buying could be cheaper on monthly payments, but we aren't in a position that is a wise financial decision. So I pay the extra $50 for the extra space. Of course, $50 could break you with how little disability income is. So I am grateful for Sean and his willingness to provide luxuries I otherwise would not have.

I can honestly say now, that to receive and keep benefits has barely been worth it. My quality of life isn't great and the things I have in my life that are "good", were gifted to me or paid by someone else. And that is need-to-know-information I have to keep to myself, or I could loose benefits. *sighs* Gifts count as income!

I'm a frugal person, I truly do live within my means. Each month I look at the bills that are coming out. I plan meticulously to make sure not to over spend in any category from gas to food to "fun", and when I can, I add to my small cash savings I keep at home. Because again, the government watches my bank account and no one is allowed to have more than $2k in assets at any given time. But it grows so slowly and sometimes things come up, moving in to this apartment has caused my savings of $4K to dwindle to a mere couple hundred dollars. None of these things are "new" to me just because I live with Sean though. I did the same budgeting when living with my dad. While I had slightly less bills, my poor mental health created an inconsistent money flow which had me adopt how frugal I am.

But I understand better now how the disabled are judged and belittled. We can't even get married without potentially loosing our benefits. I'm against marriage anyways, but that is so sad to me. Once married you combined your household income by tax laws and many would no longer qualify for disability; especially if you partner is working. Unless you marry someone else disabled. I understand that disability isn't for people to be "living it up" or "live large". But the system does keep people suppressed, isolated and barely capable of having a decent quality of life if you don't throw yourself 100% into the system. Aka housing authority, SNAP benefits (aka food stamps), etc. These systems are difficult, limited, oppressive and closely monitored. I understand that many people in the system aren't as bright as me... or so society wants you to believe.

And when people say there is theft and fraud happening, I'm here to tell you there are simply too many hoops to jump through for that to be possibly happening in any kind of significant numbers. The most one could probably do is have their own business and not have a bank account recording it. Doing only cash transactions and paying for all your personal needs and bills in... cash. And with that being said, if you have such a profitable business why the fuck do you want to be under the thumb and microscope for a measly $659/month? News flash... YOU DON'T! And you wouldn't.

What other things are getting me down?

The cats.

I have been posting photos about our new kitten. But I have so much resentment toward such a small being it is eating me alive. I hate animals. I'm allergic. And I take medicine everyday to tolerate them. Yeah he is cute but he has literally destroyed chargers, shoe laces and now two sex toys that had wires. It was the same sex toy actually, I bought a replacement and he ate that one too, the mother fucker. (not that I was using them anyways.)

That poor cat was so confused. Just took a damn nap in the back of the chair away from the bitch-ass kitten, to be held tight and cried one upon immediately waking up.

He's just a kitten doing kitten-things. Sean insists that his other cat, Lilith was nothing like him when she was a kitten. But that is just how kittens are. Terrible. Making messing, ripping up roll after roll of toilet paper. knocking over every single water bowl in the house, over and over again. And you know the person who cleans all of this up? Not depressed Sean! *Deep breath* Me.

Sean and I have had so many up and downs on this we are strongly considering getting rid of the cats. All of them. It breaks my heart because just last week we thought Lilith some how got out because we couldn't find her in the apartment even after calling her for an hour. Our apartment isn't big and we don't have a lot of stuff so there wasn't many places to look, so we went looking for her outside with jackets and flash lights. Nothing. Sean was really quiet and very sad as we sat in our new living room (we moved the TV and our seating to the spare room) and out popped Lilith from the back of his chase chair. We since have tapped it shut preventing any other mishaps like that again, but Sean grabbed her and instantly bawl his eyes out. Legit ugly-cry-wailing, that I thought he was laughing at first when I was taking this photo because he thought she was gone and something bad happen to her.

He loves his cats like family. Something my dad mocked him for being too emotional, actually. I don't understand Sean's love for them, but I see it, and I don't want him to not have a pet. They make him really happy. But I sincerely believe we didn't need a 3rd. The 3rd is head ache I didn't know would become so throbbing.

Last of what is getting me down?

Toxic me.

I sent a friend some screen shots of Sean and I's conversations and I asked him to be honest about he thought even if it was "offensive". He told me that we are toxic for each other. I thought it would sting a little, but it didn't. Not because I didn't value his opinion but because he was wrong. Sean isn't the toxic one, I am. Sean is irresponsible with money and personal care. Sean is a forgetful, clumsy, clutter-hoarding nerdy man. Sean even has terrible black-out-anger issues that he needs to see a therapist for. But Sean is not toxic. I am. And I struggle with almost all close relationships I have with people at some point.

He is so handsome though!

I always have been extremely sensitive. And if it isn't any wonder with my upbringing and my mental health diagnosis'. The borderline mixed with my anxiety-need-for-control and my PTSD has me experiencing high and painful emotions regularly. Irrational emotions towards any event, memory or trigger aren't things I feel I have control of when they are happening. And Sean's ability to cope with them has grown slim. I know my suicidal nature was far more frequent when we first met, I have made improvements- which leads me to believing that he is hiding how difficult things have been for him lately because his reaction to my typical monthly period hormones seems unusual. I've even reach out to his mom and sister because of how worried I am about him....

Even though Sean does read my blogs I think he needs to read the linked one above again, and use the resources in it provided to help understand me more. I'm trying to get better, I am in professional care, but our relationship isn't what it started out as. . . His honeymoon phase died for me out back in May after a very serious fight between us and my mental health dip after my dad kicked me out for exposing my sisters child abuse publically. That's when his depression started seeping back in, and it's been a downhill battle since. Foot surgery, moving in together, his vomit inducing migraines, MRI to reveal a cyst in his brain he refuses to see a specialist about and he is back on anti depressants. he has recently changed since the first wasn't helping.

And me rowing this boat around through all the bullshit with my own disabilities.

Now that we are at 10 minutes in I think I've made some progress at least on venting. I hope you understand that we aren't doing too well over here. But we are trying. Sean's awareness of himself is coming forward and he admits to always being angry about the smallest things and cried saying "I feel like how my dad treated me."

There are some heavy discussions happening here with a whole bunch of vulnerability. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to wrap this up and call it day.

Until next time.