Depression Worse

And now my depression is just worse. The other day, I asked my husband to pick up some toilet paper on his way home because we were down to won roll, and I figured it would hold us over until we could get to Costco later this week as we haven't done our shopping yet only to be told there's no money in the checking account and we're down to $700 in the savings.

I just... can't do this anymore.

I immediately had to start thinking of ways to extend the food we have since we can't go shopping again until next payday (Nov. 5) and what about the candy I promised the kids for Halloween because we can't go out and what about my meds that need refilling this week that cost $50 and what about the freaking toilet paper?!?

I then had to take an anxiety pill to calm down. Probably should have taken two and gone back to bed.

I ended up telling the 20yo to get it. She had a wad of cash she pulled out of one of her old accounts just sitting there so she went to get toilet paper (and paper towels because she uses so freaking many of them). I was still stressed out, though, because we have a bunch of food, but just random stuff. It's going to be hard stretching it. Like we have a bunch of random meat (including enough chicken for 2 meals, some ground turkey bunch of ground beef, pork chops, a pot roast and some ribs) but the only side dish I can make is rice which the 10yo won't eat (doesn't like the texture) and we're almost out of vegetables. Usually, it's the other way around, and we have tons of veggies and rice but no meat to put in it. Ugh.

I canceled the refill of my prescription and decided to break all my 40mg tabs in half and wean myself off while I wait for my appointment which is the day before payday. I had 4 pills left. If I only take a half dose plus the one 20mg pill I had left from before, that is 9 days which leaves me with 1 day without a pill before my appointment. Guess I could break the 20mg in half and take two 10mg days?

And now I'm worried about Christmas. It's a contentious subject in the house. I feel like we failed because we haven't given the kids many Christmas memories, especially the youngest. When the older three were little, I would spend about $50-$100 on each of them (including stocking stuffers) which got a lot of cheap stuff for little kids. Now that they're teens/adults, we can't afford the kind of gifts they want. As for the 10yo, we can't even afford the $50.

I asked the 20yo if I could have $100 of that cash she has in the kitchen. That would be $20 each for Christmas (which means she's be giving herself the money) and she said fine. My dad usually sends me $50 for my birthday in December with explicit instructions to spend it on myself, not the kids. So naturally, I always use it for Christmas gifts for the kids. That would bring the total to $30 per kid for Christmas.

My problem is even if we have extra money at that time, my husband won't let me spend it on Christmas because he thinks it's a waste of time and money. It takes money (his money) away from things he wants to buy for himself. He might buy something for the grandkid and be okay giving a $20 LEGO set to the 10yo, but I have to fight every year to give them anything special. I used to go to Kohl's and use my charge card to get a bunch of deals on clothes or to Goodwill. But with the pandemic, I can't really shop anywhere.

Last year we had nothing. We spent what tiny bit of extra money we had buying ingredients for Christmas Eve dinner and cookies. My gift to the kids was baking all day while we played board games. Christmas morning, there were exactly seven gifts under the tree--one for each kid and grandkid. Four of the gifts were handmade by me, the other two were games I bought with my birthday money. I was so sick Christmas after all the work Christmas Eve that I didn't even get up to watch them open them. I also made each person an ornament for the tree.

That was it.

The way things are going, the only gifts this year will be the $20 from my oldest. I'm not guaranteed the money from my dad. Sometimes, he doesn't have any extra to send. I don't know if I have the energy or time to make gifts this year. I was staying up all night and working 12-15 hours every day on gifts last year. I didn't go to bed Christmas morning until 4am because I was still putting the gifts together.

I just want them to have those magical memories of waking up to a bunch of gifts and all the fun of playing games and putting legos together and stuff, but there hasn't been any of that in the house in years. Now they're lucky to get some crackers in their stocking and one gift. Pathetic. Their memories are going to be so sad, especially the 10yo.

I was hoping to use my emergency credit card and maybe spend like $300 all together on an outfit each and some legos or something then cash for the older kids. But then the cat died, and I had to put that on the credit card so there's already $600 charged to it. I can't afford more when we're probably not going to get much of an income tax return next year (which is the only way we can pay that kind of stuff off).

It's just adding to my depression because I can't give the kids the Christmas that I want to give them. And the middle daughter's birthday is November 8, and just like every year, we've run out of money just in time for her birthday so she gets nothing. Every year she brings it up how she doesn't get gifts and I want to cry. I was hoping to give her a little money, but there won't be any.

As for the food. I have nearly $1200 in food stamps saved up. It was part of the pandemic relief package earlier this year. Our kids were on the free/reduced lunch program so they gave everyone on it a certain amount per kid to cover the meals they would have eaten had they been in school. It was supposed to help cover the cost of having the at home since March. We got it in August, lol. I haven't used any of it yet because we always run low on money at the end of the year then have to decide between Christmas gifts or food for the month. I don't want to use it yet and want to divide it between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If I'm not careful, we'll blow through it in two shopping trips. Sigh.

I just don't know what to do. After last year, I was hoping things would be a bit better this year around. Last Christmas was just depressing. With the pandemic, it's going to be even more depressing instead of better.

If I could work. If I had the energy to hold down a job things would be better. I could contribute to the family. We'd have extra spending money. But I can barely get out of bed most days still. I'm exhausted all the time and barely able to stay awake for an entire day without a three-hour nap. There's no way I could work. I couldn't even manage to do the dishes this morning--I was too tired, and I'm out of coffee creamer so there won't be any coffee to perk me up for over a week. :(

Oh, I did manage to get through Parent-Teacher Conferences yesterday without feeling like I was going to freak out. I did take an anxiety pill before (that's becoming a daily thing to deal with the stress). The 10yo is doing good, but his works slipped last week because I got sick so wasn't there to make sure he was putting actual effort in. Then I found out they've been doing small groups in Zoom where they go over the homework and do it together. Which is what I've been doing. They suggested he do the small groups instead which will get him interacting with his friends more and take the pressure off of me because I was getting very stressed dealing with it. She's also going to contact tech support or something about his ipad being junk. It probably needs a complete reset or he just needs a new one. He's been using my phone for all of the meetings. Trying to do his homework on the ipad is annoying because it's so slow switching between things. You end up wanting to throw it out the window by the end of the day. The teacher thinks we'll all be less stressed if his ipad worked because right now, if he does the two small groups for homework help, I won't have my phone from 8am until 1pm. I have stuff I want to do on it, too, you know.

And next week I need it for my Zoom meeting with my doctor at 10:30 on Wednesday.

And another update. Finally heard back from sleep med. I go next Thursday at noon to pick up the machine for the home test then have to return it Friday morning. After that, I have to wait another week before I do a Zoom meeting to get the results. Sigh.

I feel like my whole life hinges on these results. I honestly want them to show severe sleep apnea because then I have an explanation for all of this exhaustion. If there's no sleep apnea then there's something else still wrong with me that we have to figure out. And I don't know how much more I can take. I can't live the rest of my life with chronic fatigue like this. It's awful. It's not living. I'm watching other people live while I sit here, too tired to do anything.

And now I'm crying.

Better go take an anxiety pill to calm down and try to do something.