The Mental Debt Struggle...

Keedie

I wrote a whole update and my MacBook battery died and when I got back online I refreshed my wifi and lost the update. How annoying 🤦🏾‍♀️.

Anyways, I was prattling on about the fact that my mum is now coming to the Phillipines with us, and she has kindly offered to book the flights and I will pay her for mine and my son's. That way we book and travel together and although it's a temporary dip back into Debt Land, it means that I get to create memories with my family and the flights will be cheaper than if I waited until I had all the money. Once I know what the exact fares are and we've booked, I can then work out my savings challenges so that I can pay her back in small lump sums. My mum wants us to go to Japan as well for a few days as geographically, we'll be in that general area. So we have a family meeting between me, her and my brother on Tuesday to look at flights and costs. I need to make sure that the travel timings and duration doesn't send me too mentally unwell as jet lag and changes in time zones makes me go a little crazy. 

I'll definitely be sorting out travel insurance, as I've got 3 holidays this year. I'm going to Turkey with my son and his girlfriend for a few days, and then we have the family holiday to Tunisia in August. I've paid those ones off, so I just need to sort out the Phillipines. I like the idea of matching a freelancing job to the holiday, as it will definitely give me more motivation. At the moment, I've just been lazing around playing puzzles on my iPad and sudoku on my phone and pretending I don't have a very long to do list of mini projects. My procrastination and avoidance is getting really bad now... 😬🥴.

I've given up on my budget for this month. I keep spending money and I don't feel too mentally well. I put some of the cash stuffing money that I had saved in the bank, and it's more or less all gone. I don't remember what I spent it on. I know it was my nephew's birthday, Father's Day and I booked a train ticket to Suffolk to see my friend as she's very unwell and is having surgery on Monday so I am spending the weekend with her and our other friend. 

I realised that I've not been well. I didn't even recognise the symptoms this time round with the bipolar hypomanic episode. It was really insidious. These are the worst ones, as I don't act in time to prevent it getting worse. I don't know if it's because I've been put back on antidepressants and that helps with the depressive side, but isn't really suitable on its own for bipolar as it can push you into hypomania or mania. I'm a tad confused. But I'll figure it out. 

I'm giving myself financial grace for the next week or so. And I'll try and get back on track for July. I'm just a bit confused by it all. And a bit irritated with myself to be honest. When I'm back from Suffolk, I'll sit down and do damage limitation and work out exactly how bad everything is. That way I'll know where I stand financially before we have the meeting about going to Asia.

And I also need to get my invoice sent off, as I'm owed £952 and I don't know how I missed that. I must really not have been all there. We're nearing the end of June 2025 and the invoice is work done in May 2025 🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️. Kinda explains why I don't have that much money at the moment though...

Sun_Addict

Just catching up with you and wow Mrs Globetrotter what a lot of fabulous trips you’ve got planned there 🤩

I hope you start feeling better mentally soon 🙏 You’ve a lot going on to get your head around by the sounds of it. 

AntoMac

We all have months when budgets don’t go to plan Keedie. Your trends and habits have been positive so don’t beat yourself up too much. I’m cursing too as I had to get a replacement car battery and I also ran over the lawn mover cable 

Humdinger1

 Only ran over the cable once @AntoMac? Without wishing to boast,  and apologies to anyone who's read it on another thread here, can I tell you about the time when with my mother, cousin and aunt, we cut through the hedge trimmer cable twice in an afternoon while pruning the hedge at my grandfather's house.  My aunt's comment that 'Privet shouldn't be allowed to grow this tall; in fact,  it shouldn't be allowed to grow at all ' has passed into legend, at least within the family. As ever @Keedie you are doing brilliantly.   Love Humdinger xx 

AntoMac

Haha I don’t feel quite as daft now @Humdinger1

Makingabobor2

Hope you are ok @Keedie

Keedie

I've not been in the best place in recent weeks and so I've not been able to really get online. I'm still trying to recalibrate myself, but thanks for checking in @Makingabobor2 and thanks for your kind words of encouragement everyone.

My brother in law's mum lost her battle with cancer recently, my friend had to undergo a hysterectomy as they suspect she has cancer and she has two small children and I ended up having a bad mixed bipolar episode. So I'm a little bit drained emotionally, as people that I care about have been suffering and I'm running on empty trying to help them and stay as well as I can. 

I went to Turkey with my son and his girlfriend last week and that was really nice. I treated myself to a Turkish hammam bath (which was initially embarrassing as I had no clue I had to get buck naked 😬🥴🤦🏾‍♀️. But my skin still feels great, and I had a one hour deep tissue massage. Which was in all honesty rather painful, but somehow relaxing. Anyways, the spa owner said that the therapist was concerned with how tight my body was and the inflammation and so I had a 90 minute lymphatic drainage massage and hot stone massage two days later. I really do need to take better care of myself, so I'm vowing to work out my budget so that I can do that more often.

I've not booked the Phillipines as yet, and my son has decided not to come anymore. So it will at least be cheaper. I had a bit of a mental meltdown when we were trying to book it and I got extremely anxious about the travelling and how long it will take and I just spiralled and so we had to put a pin in it. My son said that since he's not coming, I should use that money to fly business class so that I can sleep flat on the plane so that I am rested. Not sure about that, but I am anxious about being able to manage 18+ hours of travel on a physical and mental level. So we'll see. I'm meeting my mum and brother tomorrow to discuss it some more. I might push the time back to give me more time to save and work out the kindest way to do things for myself. 

My biggest concern is that flying makes me hypomanic, as does changes in time (clocks changing and change in time zones) and being uncomfortable and travelling makes me have a fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome flare up. So it's a delicate balance. And I'm not 100% sure of how to do it to be honest. So until I'm sure, I won't book anything. 

Anyways. On the financial front, I've decided to try and live a simpler life. So I cleared out all of my individual savings challenges and amalgamated it into the 50 envelope challenge, so I was able to put an extra £300 in there. So the total now sits at £875. I've got £400 to go and then it's all completed. I can then get things in shape from there.

Cherryfudge

Good to hear from you again Keedie. I hope you're feeling a bit better: I'm so sorry to hear about the last few weeks which must have been traumatic and exhausting.

The massages sound amazing: perhaps you could treat yourself once in a while as part of your self care?

As to flying business class, if you can afford it, I think it would be an investment. Or if you are taking the journey in stages, perhaps just the overnight leg of the journey could be business class. I adore flying but the only long haul flights I've had were seriously tiring as I didn't really sleep (I kept seeing amazing things like lightening storms and barren mountains below me, and you don't expect me to sleep and miss them, do you?).

Makingabobor2

Thanks for the updates. Sorry to hear about your friend/relative and how it has all affected you. Think you are wise to push the travel plans back a while. 
Massage is certainly good for you. I try & have one a month if I can & it is very helpful. My therapist is brilliant. She charges £42 for an hour. 

AntoMac

Parking the long distance trip for the time being certainly seems sensible Keedie, especially with so much other testing stuff going on for you at the moment.