The Mental Debt Struggle...

Sarahwithlove

Hope it works out at work with your friend getting promotion it can be hard getting the balance right. But just remember to communicate 

AntoMac

Keep battling away Keedie 

Aimingforthegoodlife

So much going on Keedie! I am hoping that it all goes well and in your favour! I love reading about your relationship with your son, you are such a wonderful mum

Makingabobor2

Hope all is well @Keedie

Keedie

Thank you everyone for thinking of me and for checking in. I've been... struggling.

My head and mood have been all over the place and I've been finding the changes at work very unsettling and stressful. I'm burnt out from taking care of my son post surgery. I ended up doing some emotional and impulsive spending. And I just crashed a few days ago and I've been lying down and thinking of all the things that I want to change in my life and what direction I need to go in. I'll summarise a bit of a life and then do a finance update tomorrow or something as this is going to be long enough as it is...

Health & Home
Something inside me broke in the last few weeks. I was so distressed, overwhelmed and burnt out and I just didn't know how to navigate everything so I just shut down. I've barely spoken to anyone, haven't socialised, my house has become an eyesore and I just couldn't get on top of working and helping my son recover. So I just felt really depleted and didn't really go online or do more than the minimum to scrape by each day. The dark cloudy fog that I was existing under is starting to lift a little, but it's still rather emotionally painful to keep bumbling along. But I keep trying to plod on.

I start hydrotherapy on Thursday for my right shoulder and I'm hoping that it will help. I'm tired of being in pain. It's so draining. And trying to push past my body's limit to help my son with his recovery left me really exhausted and tearful. But he no longer needs the wheelchair so I'm not pushing him around (which was more of a struggle than I let him see as I could see how conscious he was of needing it). Today I got a bit over confident and was up and down too much and now my back is hurting. I think I carried too much weight in my rucksack going up the stairs when I got back from Lidl. As my son can't carry things for me, as he's struggling with the stairs and his crutch, I've been trying to do more and overdid it. So I've put myself on bed rest.

I cancelled my carer this week, as I just couldn't face her coming to my house as I'm still not that comfortable with her and I felt a bit raw and vulnerable. My kitchen was a mess and I didn't want to provide her with any instructions all the time as I've still not got around to doing a timetable/schedule of stuff. But I'll get that done soon.

It's my birthday on 8 October and so I've finally managed to track down my pre-pandemic hairdresser via one of my sister's old friends. I've got an appointment booked on Saturday 5 October for a steam treatment and trim. That will set me back £60, but I'm so so excited! She was doing my hair before I got pregnant with my son and I don't trust anyone else to work the miracles that she does. So I'm very happy that after 4.5/5 years I get to go to the hairdressers again. I tried to go to a different hairdresser in 2021, as the place that my hairdresser was working in, never recovered from covid. The lady was twice as expensive as my normal hairdresser and gave me heat damage that took a looooong time to recover from as she damaged the front of my hair and I lost my curl pattern in that patch of hair for a while.

I got referred to an NHS Tier 3 weight management programme, and that didn't make me feel too good about myself as they said that category was for people with "complex obesity" and I'm still not 100% sure what that even means as my BMI is below the threshold they kept talking about. Anyways, they made me very conscious and said that they had two programmes on offer and one of them was total meal replacement diet for 12 weeks consisting of an 800 calorie daily allowance via shakes and soups. Then they reintroduce food over a 4 week period. Wasn't even free! It would have cost nearly £600 and I reckon I would have been a proper hangry b*tch to be around 😂. So I've asked to be moved to a more sensible programme. I'm not skinny and I could definitely stand to lose a few pounds as I'm so short. But I'd rather concentrate on being healthy and how to manage life with conflicting health issues and get the nutrition I need and how to make food that will help me and keep us both healthy. Getting on top of that means weight loss is a byproduct anyways, instead of being the main goal and starving to get there. I've already lost 2.5kg from doing not much aside from reducing portion sizes and going out more. So I don't think soups and shakes, even if they are teaching you about nutrition etc whilst you're in ketosis is really going to work for me. I actually like to chew food, I just need to make better choices about what I eat.

Study & Surgery
My son is down to 1 crutch now, and aside from a setback this week where his brace was accidentally moved to the wrong setting on one side causing his knee to become swollen and sore, he's been making good progress. We've no clue how it happened, maybe when he was changing or sleeping or something as he's stopped using the knee cushion to sleep at night. Anyways, he's doing okay physically and that has helped his mood and adjusting to college life. Speaking of which, he decided not to go to the local college as the course level was too difficult, so he's going to college in north London and I drop him to the tube station in the mornings and he's found a step free access route that doesn't take too long and then it's a 5 minute hobble to the college from there. He seems to be taking it in his stride and doing the lower level course along with the GCSEs seems to have boosted his confidence.

Financially, it's taken some manoeuvring of the budget to accommodate a travelcard etc, but he seems very happy with his decision and seems to be very focussed on his studies. He needs to have a dyscalculia and dyslexia screening, as he admitted that the words and numbers dance around on the page. I felt so guilty as I don't know how I overlooked this. But anyways, that test has to be done privately and it's about £500 from what I can see/research 😬.

18 to 18
My son turns 18 on 7 October, and didn't want a party and now that he's had surgery, he's ruled it out completely. So I did a thing, and hopped on a TikTok trend whereby you get little presents in the run up to a special birthday, with the age of the person being equivalent to the number of days you count down and how many presents. So yesterday was the 18th day before his 18th, so I surprised him with a Lynx set I got on a Tesco Clubcard offer for £6. He was so confused, overwhelmed and excited when he realised that he was going to be getting little presents. Today I gave him a personalised mug that had his name and said '18 years of being awesome', and he was very happy and almost shy looking at it. Tomorrow he's getting a big bottle of Lipton Iced Tea peach flavour, as he loves that drink and doesn't get it often. I've got a few different things like t-shirts, Lidl cocktails and pre-mixed drinks like vodka and lemonade so that he can try them. And I got a few things off Etsy. I've been wrapping them in some nice paper I got in Asda, and I made little labels on canva to count down the number of days. He's very excited about it all 😂. And it's worked out so much cheaper than giving him a party and less stress too 🥳.


Work & Wages
Despite increasing my hours on 2 July 2024, I'd not been paid the increase in July 2024 or August 2024. So by the time I returned to work following my son's surgery, I was livid and incredibly frustrated as I kept getting the brush off from them that the paperwork was "with Finance". Why approve me to increase my hours and confirm that I can go ahead if you've not got the financing in place?? Anyways, I told them that I wouldn't be increasing my hours further and I wanted the money that I was owed, and if it wasn't possible to further increase my hours, to be honest and let me know, so that I could make arrangements to increase my income elsewhere. I don't think any of the senior managers appreciated my email, but lo and behold, will you look at the speed in which everything was processed after that? So the original agreement of staggering an increase in hours still stands and they have paid my salary arrears this month. It was around £600 gross, hence I was so p**sed off with them.

Having my friend as a manager is still a work in progress in terms of boundary setting for both of us. I don't think she was very happy that I said I refused to be her second in command or right hand person. My days of doing more than I am contracted for are well and truly over. And I'm not going to be guilted into helping more, with the possibility of a pay award in October 2025. I don't intend to still be employed there at time, and why would I take on extra work for a year, ad stress myself out, on the possibility that I 'might' be compensated. With these things being decided by the same people who showed no sense of urgency to get my pay sorted and left me underpaid for 2 months? Yeah right 🙄. 

My sickness will drop off my record in February 2025, and that will make it easier to change jobs.  When I get a new role, because of my disabilities, I have to see Occupational Health and to get reasonable adjustments put in place. So I don't want to turn up somewhere as a flashing red flag, with such extended sickness absence. I also need to think about what field/career I want to go into. I can't be creative on command, and so the copywriting kinda flopped. I hate HR so once I leave my current job, I won't do it as freelance either. I've toyed with the idea of accountancy, but I'm not very sure about the intense study required. I'm still figuring it out. I'm considering doing the AAT Bookkeeping course and taking it from there... I think I'll have to watch some YouTube videos from accountants to see if it's something that I can do, or if the stress of the busy period is just a recipe for a bipolar episode to kick in... 🤔.

Cherryfudge

Thanks for the update @Keedie, it's good to hear from you though I'm sorry it's been such a miserable time. It does sound as though you are coming out the right side again now.

That mini presents idea is really nice! And how good that you've tracked down your original hairdresser! And that you've finally been paid what you were owed. Some good stuff is definitely happening. 

February isn't that far away, so I think you're wise to start thinking about your career change. You seem to be able to turn to either words or numbers, so there should be something somewhere. Or perhaps a couple of things, because that way you have more streams of income and it doesn't all depend on one thing.

Cherryfudge

PS Just seen you are 66.6% of the way to paying off your debt. Well done!

KajiKita

Hi Keedie 😊
Good to have you posting again. 

I’m sorry you’ve been having such a rough time. I’m not surprised really, as you have, in effect, been nursing on top of work and looking after yourself, whilst one of your main support systems / helpers (your son) has been ‘offline’. I’m hoping that posting again means you are starting to see a way through. 

I’m glad your son is owning his college choice as it seems to have really helped his motivation and engagement. Good luck to him in his new course. 

The comment about your work friend was interesting. Good on you for holding your boundaries. You are absolutely right to not get sucked in again to doing more than you are paid to, especially if you don’t plan to be there long term or progress there. 

You didn’t mention the insects in your kitchen so have they gone now?
Absolutely love the presents every day to the day of your birthday … ❤️ Don’t tell Mr KK though as he is 60 soon! 😂 Thinking of that many presents for him would blow my mind! 😳😂😂😂😉
It’s lovely that you have reconnected with your old hairdresser 😊 I’ve been going to mine, after trying so many over the years, for longer than I have known Mr KK (so maybe 25 to 30 years now? 🤔) as my hair is very fine, thick and and a stubborn wave that does not respond well to being cut wrong! So I totally get why that relationship is so very important to you 😊

KK

beanielou

Good to hear from you. Sorry to hear that you have had so many challenges but glad you are coming out of the other side. 

Great idea on the 18 presents! 

badmemory

I wish I had thought of that when DS was only 18 (then 21).  I am not doing it over 40 but great idea.