Lessons Learned

I am so sorry if I worried anybody with my last post. I really shouldn't post when I'm in the middle of a panic attack. It's never a good idea. I made it through though, as you may have guessed, so at least there's that.

I am all moved. Have been since April 19th. Finances are extra tight, but we're making do. Aldi is our best friend, and I've been using my UDF card thingie (like the Speedway ones) to help with gas costs. Ben's going to look into a seasonal job at the same place our friend Rob works, loading cars at a garden center. After that, he's agreed to try and find a different job. And great news, he's going to start paying on his student loans when we move in with Jeff in two months (cuz our costs will but cut down quite a bit with a third person paying). All kinds of great news.

I was out of all my psych meds for a week or so, and the damn Rite Aid STILL hasn't filled one of them (the one that helps with the hallucinations). Unfortunately, that's the one with really bad withdrawal effects. Ugh. So I've been sleeping and not doing much the last few days. I'm trying to get myself out of that funk, and it's working bit by bit. So yays!

I've been using MyFitnessPal again for the past week or so. I've lost a few pounds already (seven, to be exact, though I bet a lot of that was water weight). It's nice to see the numbers go down on the scale again. I'm also on the poor diet, too, so that's a lot of it. The poor diet, for those who don't know, is what you go on when you're poor and can't afford snack foods and sweets. For obsessive snackers like me, it works wonders. Though I do miss cake. And cookies. And brownies. And candy. And chocolate. And chips. And popcorn. You can see where this is going. Though we have been bad. On Friday, we bought a carton of Chocolate Moose Tracks at Meijer (did you know they no longer have the half gallon cartons anymore? They only have the tubs with 1.75 quarts, fuck!). We also bought a metric assload of discounted Easter candy awhile back, but most of that was eaten during our Thursday night Pathfinder game. So, saved calories. Gods, now I want cookies. Beets for breakfast is no way to live.

Been on an absolute horror movie binge as of late. I blame The Conjuring. I watched it, then decided to hit up Netflix and watch V/H/S. Then I decided sleep was for the weak and watched V/H/S 2 (which wasn't as good as the first, but was still quite good). Then, the next night, I watched Silent Hill Revelations. Also good. And now I wanna watch more, but Netflix's selection of good horror movies is very limited, and I don't want to watch ones I've already seen so my extensive collection is out. I'd have to dig through my boxes in the second bedroom to find them, anyway. Bloody hell. >_<

Oh, and the Dayton Metro library system needs to die in a fire. I can't get a card again until I pay off the $74 I owed them from 5 YEARS AGO! Fucking hell! I have never been to a library system that didn't forgive fines after a year or two. Never. Even Springfield forgave fines after awhile. The thing was, when Jim kicked me out, I had some DVDs and books from the library still checked out. I figured it'd be okay if I took them to Lakeview with me, because I'd be able to take them back in a few weeks. Those few weeks turned into a few months, and then I finally turned them all back in. All of them. So that $74 from five years ago is ALL FINES. I never thought I'd say this, but the library can fuck off. I don't need their damn card that bad. Fuck them. But Ben has a card, so if I need something (we've been getting DVDs), I have his. So fuck you, Dayton Metro! Suck it!

I have a whole mess load of exercise DVDs me and Ben need to try out. I obviously have a lot of weight to lose (about 150 pounds or so), and Ben's got a bit of a beer belly showing up, so we neeeeeeeed to exercise. Also, we need to get my back tire filled on my bike, and he needs to get his back tire completely fixed. Then we can start going for bike rides. The weather is being gorgeous for us, so we should take advantage of it. It's Ohio, after all. As the quote goes, if you don't like the weather in Ohio, just wait fifteen minutes.

Oh, and I found this website that lets you take free college courses. How awesome is that? It's coursera, and I'm taking an archeology class right now. They give you video lectures to watch and quizzes to take. It's so much fun! *is SUCH a nerd*

I should be doing dishes. Shh, don't tell on me.

Why Can't Things Be Easy?

I had a panic attack. A horrible one. Crying, thrashing, suicideal thoughts. I think it was among the worst I've ever had, and if you've ever seen my wrist, you know how big of a statement that is. But I didn't cut this time, and I'm proud, but since the panic attack feelings are still there, I'm also kind of disappointed. Cutting helps calm down the suicide feels and the pain. But I have reasons not to cut. People I would hurt. Gods damn it...

The reason behind said panic attack is this whole apartment moving stuff. I'm afraid that we won't be able to afford a place if we don't live with Jeff. I only get $721 a month for my SSI, and Ben brings in even less for his job. Car insurance is going to cost a good hundred dollars or more. Plus groceries. Plus utilities. Plus internet. Plus rent. Plus gasoline for my car. Plus repairs for my car. Plus moving costs, which include a few hundred for the truck, and bribe money to get my friends to help. Plus any animal costs if we get a cat, which would help calm me down. Plus saving up for when we get a house? Holy fuck! There's no way we'll be able to afford that on so damn little. There's very little chance we can get Welfare, and even if we did, it wouldn't be much at all. Not enough to make a difference. See why I'm stressed? Do you SEE why I'm stressed? All this, running through my head twenty four seven, when I haven't seen my therapist in a few months cuz I keep getting sick, and I'm down two VERY important psych meds that I can't get more of until Monday, and you have an Amber that isn't sure if she should just check herself into the psych ward.

Maybe I should just go to the hospital. But that woulldn't do any good, because psych wards don't do a godsdamned thing for you except try drug cocktails until you're no longer suicidal. Art class and exercise doesn't help problems like mine!

I just don't know what to do. I keep thinking about knives and razor blades and I know I shouldn't. I won't. I know I won't. Doesn't mean I don't desperately want to.

And John's still fucking here, so I can't even talk to Mom about all this stuff. I had to drag her into my room and close the door to tell her I was extra stressed, and corner her in the laundry room this afternoon to tell her about my panic attack. I hope to the gods he leaves on Friday when he's supposed to. Everybody pray for him to get better so he can leave.

Everything's so damn messed up in my head right now. I want to just go to bed and sleep until this is all taken care of. Are we ever going to be able to afford kids? He doesn't want to leave his 15 hour a week job, doesn't want to go back to school very much (otherwise he'd work towards it). I obviously can't get a job right now, if I'm getting like this over something as little as being able to afford to live in an apartment. I just want to scream until my lungs bleed.

I want to curl up into a ball and cry. I cried quite a few times in bed last night during my panic attack, and on the phone with Ben today. It's like I never went to therapy at all, or was taking any psych drugs. This is what it was like before all that. I don't want to fuck things up with Ben like I do with everything else. I'm in love with him, and this might be the first time that it's the real love. I want to keep that. I want to grow old with him and have tons of kids and be happy. But I'm gonna fuck it up, I just know it. Gods, please help me?

I promise I won't cut.

Omgitchy!

I dunno why, but I have been so freakin' itchy lately. I think it's the winter dry skin thing. Must start using lotion. I have a bajillion bottles, so I might as well use them for something. Gyah!

This whole moving thing should be interesting. Between the two of us, in furnature, we have two beds, three bedside tables, two computer desks, a curio cabinet turned entertainment center, and a recliner. You may have noticed, if you are of the observant sort, that nowhere was there mentioned in that list a couch or a set of table and chairs. So vasically, once I move in with Ben, unless we move in with Jeff, we are going to have to scramble our asses around, trying to buy those two things quick and cheap. Always fun. We can do it, it's just gonna cost a few hundred bucks. Guess it'll be a wee bit longer til I get my engagement ring, then. Sad face.

Back to the itchy. Gyah! Itchy! Itchitchitchitch!

Need to start writing and packing. Those are the two things I'mma start focusing on once I go home tomorrow. With maybe a bit of reading added in. I pledged to read 75 books this year on GoodReads. Only have 13 so far. I needs to read. And I need to figure out how to get the new post screen to use spellcheck when I'm on my Nook, too. Damned typos.

For those curious, Ben is doing a bit better, health-wise. He's not as dead, and he's not as phlegmy. Yays!

Oh, and being broke/saving all my money sucks. On St. Patrick's day, B.D.'s has all-you-can-eat stirfry for only $10.99! Of course I don't have the money to get it. *weeps* Oh, but B.D.'s Mongolian Barbeque is so mega mega tasty. I love the fact that I can pile that bowl as high as I want, and they can't charge me extra. Nom. *drools* And now I want stirfry. Seeing Ben's plate there is kinda funny, though. He's not exactly a vagatable eater, so he's got this huge plate full of meat and noodles, and that's about it. It looks fairly funky, and not good funky. But I guess it tastes amazing to him, cuz he loves it. Waaaaaaaaaaaant stirfry!

GloryCon is coming up next month, though I'm not sure I'll be able to go. GloryCon, by the way, is the gaming convention put on by the Wright State Adventurer's Guild, that club I belong to that I spend $30 in gas so I can go to each week. Yeah, that club. Yeah, it's a damn fun con, but I don't think I can afford to be here then. Not fair!!!!!!! Though it's only a maybe, cuz I will be getting my birthday monies next month. On the 4th. The big 3-0. Not looking forward to that number.

Saving Money Sucks And Is Hard To Do

It looks like I'm going to be moving at the end of April no matter what. That's when Ben's roommate is moving. Though my friend Jeff, who I was going to move in with to a three bedroom townhouse a month ago, sounds like he still wants to get an apartment. This time, though, he wants to try a two bedroom. We didn't get the three bedroom because it was just too expensive. A two bedroom would be cheaper, especially with three people paying rent and utilities. That'd be nice. Me and Ben would have privacy during the week, and we'd have a friend to talk to and hang with on the weekends.

For those not on my Facebook friends list, Jeff is an over the road truck driver. The place he works at right now gets him home every weekend, but he has to stay in his truck during the week driving. So he'd be getting home Friday or early Saturday each week, and leaving Sunday or so. So basically, we'd only have a roommate some of the time. Good for privacy, if you know what I mean. *wink wink*

Having Ben and John here at the same time is weird. Though John seems to be acting nicer towards me in front of Ben, so I guess that's kinda win. Win-ish. Sort of. But yeah, the murder mystery thing yesterday was so much fun! I had zero idea who did it (I guessed on a theory that was very Fight Club-esque), but I knew that was going to happen. I have read every single one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, and never once even came close to solving the mystery before Sherlock told Waston how it all happened. I did get out some good jokes, though, so I'm quite pleased.

I'm trying to write in this more, so that I write more period. I need to seriously start working on those articles again. If I stick with psychology articles, maybe I can sell a few more. And I'm a bit of an expert on psychology, from the patient's point of view at least. Seems to be a decent enough market, because a lot of people in that chair aren't knowledgable enough, or very good at writing articles. Yay being among the minority! Means monies for me, hopefully. I want to write one of insomnia, and one on Borderline.

Ben goes home tomorrow, but at least I go with him. Unfortunately, on Saturday, I go back home but he stays at his place. The end of April can't come soon enough. And for anybody in the Dayton, Ohio area, we either need a one or two bedroom on the bus line, with a washer/dryer hook-up and that allows pets. Suggestions are more than welcome. Oh, and it's gotta be in a safe neighborhood. The place I lived with Jim in, my car got broken into. Then there was that time that a car caught on fire in the parking lot. Oh, and the murder that happened one night. Safe neighborhood, please?

Unemployed

I'm terried to get a job, but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to get one soon. I can't stay on SSI my whole life. I'm sure they're just itching to kick me off it. Having panic attacks, severe anxiety issues, paranoia, and suicidal tendencies while at a job just doesn't seem like enough to keep me on. I don't know how I could survive a job. Literally.

I've had nothing but bad experiances at my jobs. I've had horrible and/or incompetent managers (Marti at Arby's once chewed me out in front of an old couple that were customers that they looked like they were about to cry, all because her boyfriend's nephew didn't make the food that was on the screen and lied to me about it), terrible coworkers (they were pretty much all racist stoners at Dairy Queen), I've been stuck doing jobs that were impossible for a new person (being literally the only employee in the entire garden center at Home Depot during busy hours), I've cleaned up some of the foulest smelling poop in existance that almost made me throw up (when I worked as home health care at RMS of Ohio). I've had horrific jobs. Nothing good about them. And of the last four, I had to admit myself to the psych ward from three of them. I can't handle jobs. Not and stay healthy, at least.

But if we want an apartment and marriage and children, we need enough money, and on minimum wage job's worth of money and my little SSI check each month ain't gonna cut it. Babies are expensive, and the older they get, the more expensive they get. I don't want my kids to grow up on Welfare. I'd rather not have kids at all than make them grow up on Welfare.

Even if I could take the stress of a job, I don't know what I could do. I'm not fast enough for food service, i can't stand for very long to do cash register at a store, my typing speed is only 38wpm, so office work is right out, and I mess up words waaaaaaay too much when I talk to do anything related to phone sales or customer service. I do bellieve that I am fucked.

Just what I need with over a week until I see my damn therapist. Bleah...

Not His Day

I went and picked up Ben yesterday, because he's staying with me until Thursday. It's always nice to have him here. I just wish it wasn't while John was here. Or that John was here ever. >_< But John being here isn't the problem this time, amazingly enough. It's the fact that Ben has a stomach bug or something, which sucks for us both. I feel kinda inadequate because I don't know how to help him. I've offered Tums, ibuprofen, a bit of everything. Some of it has helped a bit, but he's still feeling bad. Gyah! I want, like, a magic wand or spell or something so that I can heal him. Or at least one that makes me feel more bad because he's sick and less bad because I can't help him. Bleah...

I almost forgot. The reason he's here instead of me being in Dayton is that we're going to Columbus tomorrow for a murder mystery party thingie at The Spaghetti Warehouse. It should be interesting. It'll be me and Ben, my parents, and my brother Toby. It's supposed to be really fun and pretty funny, too. I kinda hope they pick me to be one of the characters (the site says they pick audience members for the really small parts). I kinda wanna act real suspicious, so that people will think I did it. Bwahahaha! Cuz who's to say that I didn't. ^_^ But yeah, tasty food, fun times, great company not including John, it'll be great. Now I just need to get that wand and heal Ben.

I've started to wonder if maybe we could move to a town that isn't as close to Dayton as I would've liked, so that we could get something cheap. I wonder if any of my Dayton friends would visit me if I moved to Springfield? I know it's cheaper than most of the Dayton suburbs, and as long as we steer clear of the bad area of town (like Weldon Park), we should be okay. I'd get to see my half sister Barbie and my niece Kaelyn more often, and maybe I could reconnect with my childhood friends Rose and Joanna. I dunno. I just really want to be close to the biggest majority of my friends possible, and that would be Dayton. I think maybe we need to get off our butts and start looking up apartments for rent. I'm sure we can find something cheap in an area that's safe if we try hard enough.

I need to get off my butt for something else, too: writing. Now that I've sold that one article, I want to write loads more, but I haven't really been doing much of anything, let alone anything productive, in the past week or so. Saturday, I slept almost all day. I slept til late afternoon, woke up to eat, took a nap, woke up to eat again, took another nap, then woke up to take my meds, eat a little, and then back to bed for the night. Seriously, it was that bad. One of the only remotely productive things I've been doing is reading, but I haven't even been doing much of that lately. Bad Amber, no biscuit. I haven't even touched my novel in months, to make matters worse. Why must you curse me, muses? Did I piss you off or something? Let me write!!!!!!

Heh heh heh. I feel a bit sick myself, to tell you the truth. Mostly just sleepy and a little sniffly, though, so it's not too bad. The acid indigestion is what's killing me the worst. I've been out of Nexium for a week or so, which is baaaaaad. The fact that one a day isn't enough is woooooorse. Stupid stomach. I'm pretty sure it's stress ulcers, mostly from John. UGH! I want a new body, or a refund on this one. Can my next one be skinny and work right? Please?

Busy Little Bee

I think I'm just about content with my blog layout now. Which means in about five days, I'll hate every last inch of it and want to tear it down and start from scratch, but then two days after that, I'll regret having done it because I liked the way it was now. Let's hope that doesn't happen, because it sounds exhausting. But yeah, sticking with this version for awhile. It's nice and simple. Cool. And I do have a weird thing for pink lately. *shrugs*

This, by the way, is a call out for a blog roll. Any of my friends reading this who don't see their links over thataway *points to the right* that wants to be in it should tell me somehow. I want a nice big blog roll. I'd also really like to be on other people's blog rolls, too. *hinthint*

But mostly, yeah, I'm content. Still stressed as shit, but now I have Catharsis Land to play in. Wheeeeeee! Expect a lot of posts. And maybe some candy. Just gotta find some that'll fit through a UBB port. I shove and I shove, but it never wants to go in. *sad face*

GIVE ME LINKS!!!! OM NOM NOM!!!!!!!!!

Shutting up now.............. *hides*