Hello lori!

Bipolar
#21

Hi Lori,

Sorry things are not too good for you re- your living situation. I am still here at my friends…was due to ‘move out’ today but have not got things properly organised. I need a car because I will not be able to carry shopping, so I am going to be here another week or so. Plus, I need to see my GP for more meds before I move.
Had some bad news yesterday, apparently the next door neighbour to my house had RATS a few weeks ago…I am now terrified. He said the last one he saw was 6 weeks ago and he thinks they have gone now…but its knocked me for six!
If I see one I will be moving out as soon as…I am so scared of them.
How did it go at the low cost housing place is there any chance you can get a place of your own? It must be difficult for you not feeling secure…I can relate to that. I have not felt secure since I lost my house 5 years ago!
Hope your job is going well and that you are enjoying it…let me know.
I’ll write again soon…take care, Lori.

love

Anne x

#22

STOP SENDING THIS RUBBISH

-----Original Message-----
From: emptysoul bipolar-cpt8200@lists.careplace.com
Sent: 01 May 2008 06:50
To: canning799@btinternet.com
Subject: Re: [bipolar] HELLO LORI!

#23

Whats your problem? No need to call our messages ‘rubbish’ you can choose not to be notified of them by e-mail.

Anne

#24

Hi Lori,

Looks like ‘someone’ is upset by our messages. Just checked and if I go to your profile I can send you a message that way. Have done that so hopefully we can stop sending messages through the public forum.

love

Anne x

#25

Hello Lori,

I am worried about you…please reply if you can and let me know you are ok!

love

Annex

#26

Hi Anne!
I don’t know what has happened, but any messages you’ve sent directly to my mailbox aren’t going through. It would seem someone on here is highly annoyed about our messages…& yet they should just delete the email notification of these, as you said!
Please try again to send an email directly to my “Weber” mailbox.
In the meantime, my life has been in much turmoil, too! I had to quit my job, as SS cut off my checks due to an estimated monthly income which turned out to be far higher than I actually made! I spent more money on gas to get around & find a job & then back & forth once I was working than I had funds for.
Since Jul broke up with Cache, life has also been strained here. He got drunk the weekend after she left, got into a fight with his friend & broke his ankle. He’s had surgery & has been at home since April 26th, or so. I have become a slave to his cooking, cleaning, & driving him everywhere! I really need that low income housing to open up…but they still haven’t. I’m so not happy here, but I think once I get out on my own I will save up to move (again!) probably to a warmer climate by fall or winter.
Have you moved yet?! I hope it’s working out for you, that there are no more rats! And I hope you get a car soon. (I may end up having to live in mine again…so I treasure it!)
I love you, think of you often, & hope everything improves for us soon! Please try writing to my mailbox again!
Take care!
Love,
(Lori) Weber

#27

Hi Lori,

I cannot send a message to you privately…I went to your ‘about me’ page and it is not displaying a ‘send message’ sign.

So sorry to hear you are having turmoil. It is a shame about your job, typical SS to get the figures wrong. They mess about like that over here also!
I’m sorry also tha things do not appear to be working out with living with Cache. I hope some low-cost housing becomes available to you.

I had the environmental health officer down to my house last week, with a long list of things that the previous tenant had reported. Mainly, damp and the rat infestation…I feel ill with it all. The environmental health officer had wrote to the letting agency listing the work that needed doing last Decenber and they did nothing and just papered over the damp!
The rats had been coming up in the kitchen (think they have blocked the holes in now) and under the stairs. Although there is no evidence of them now, I am so frightened of rats!.
I should havepaid the top up rent on the 28th March, but have not paid it yet. I feel pretty low with it all.
So things are not working out for me either Lori. Surely we both deserve a break.
I am going to see if I can legally get out of the contract.If I can’t I will have to pay the top up rent until September.
This means though that all my furniture needs to go in store!
I am so confused and quite honestly lost.

I am pleased to have heard from you and think so much about you, my friend. I hope that things will come right for you.

take care

love Anne x

#28

Hello again my friend!
Yes…what is up with the problems that seem endless for us?! Every time I turn a corner I hope to be leaving the past (with it’s own set of shame/problems) behind. Then I find an entirely new set of dilemmas arise.
I’m terribly sorry about your place. It’s just another situation that prolongs forward progress for you. Will you stay with your friend then? Will you look for another home? I suppose it all has to do with waiting to see if you can get out of the lease.
Since Jul left, Cache is stuck with a very expensive lease & although I’m sure he’ll get back to work before the end of the month, his friends that are doing the job now are not bringing in the same kind of business he’s accustomed to. He’s clinging to his past relationship…downright begging her to come back to him, & not even thinking about the legal aspects of the lease she broke. Then, since SS has cut me so far back on payment, I don’t even think I can help with rent for the month of June. It will be August before they have my records straight & hopefully back to the maximum I’m entitled to. So, I don’t know what I can do except to continually call the housing authority & beg them to find me a place. Then…if something opens up, I have no idea how I’ll pay the deposit & 1st month’s rent.
Anne, I’m seriously so upset. I don’t think Cache is mature enough to handle his own affairs, let alone have me living here. I forsee living in my car again…I really do, & I think about leaving Colorado all the time. It’s just so expensive here. Where would I go from here? I have no idea! I think it would be best to stay put until this state gives me back my full benefits. But by the time October hits…I don’t think I can make it through a winter here. I’m already trying to think ahead…but because there’s really nothing I can do at the moment…I feel as though I’m just spinning my wheels.
I had a difficult time even getting a job here (something on my background check comes up…making me think whatever I did while being manic has been put on a record.) It’s going to take me a couple of years to get my finances straight since my divorce last year. My credit is shot! And who knows how long it will take to find employment that’s enough to support me?! I feel old, tired, & used up!
I want to write to you & tell you all of the good things that are happening…but there’s nothing like that right now. All I can say is that I suppose we are being made stronger somehow by our present circumstances. Keep hoping for better days & try to believe that they will arrive!
Take care, & let me know about your living situation. I’ll keep you posted as well.
Love,
Lori

#29

Hi Lori,

So sorry to hear of all the things that appear to be ‘going against’ you at the moment. I don’t think life is fair! Have we not been through enough?
I wondered how Cache would go with the lease now that Juls has gone. Will she not come back? I bet you miss her, you seemed to get on so well.
Why do you think you will end up living back in your car? Surely you can stay at cache’s until you get your own place. I don’t like to think of you lviing in your car!
I think you’re brave to think about moving to another place come winter. I must admit if Ben and Emma was not here in Hull, I would think about moving to another town.
I don’t know what I am going to do about my house…it is such a shock to hear all the things that are ‘wrong’ with it. I am truly terrified of rats. We have set the traps 3 times now and have not caught one so maybe they have gone.
I think I will move in 1st of June and stay until the lease is up in September, then hopefully find something much better!
Every morning I wake up I am thinking of my ‘old life’ and feel so very ‘cut up’ inside. Wish I could lose my memory…it is all too painful!
I know if things do not work at my new house I can always come back here to my friends…so I will probably ‘live’ between the two until September. My life feels so unsettled and as for 5 years another 6 months or so does not really matter.
I think after what we have been through that it will take a long time to feel settled again, if ever!
Keep in touch Lori and even if you can only write a little…it is good to hear fron you. I am thinking of you my friend and wish for us both better times ahead.

take care

love Anne x

#30

Hello Anne,
Well…I just worry about living in my car again in the event Cache would get evicted. He will have to pay $900 at the first of June for rent. If he chooses to leave & break the lease, it will cost him $1700. So, even though he has welcomed me…I worry about his financial situation. He has much more debt than I do, although he does have a constant income. Great news!!! Today he went back to work (driving his delivery truck) & having a helper do the pick ups, lifting, & delivering. His next Dr.'s appt. is on Wed. & hopefully he’ll get the splint taken off & be back to wearing the big plastic boot. I don’t like the thought of him trying to drive with that contraption, but I am pleased that he’s getting off the couch!
I do miss Juls, but I’m confused about the way she left & maybe even a little angry.
I called the housing authority & will have to go back down there tomorrow to make adjustments in my income now that I quit my job. It turns out to be a tax credit for them to find places for people who are working. My employer got a tax credit, too…yet I was penalized (financially.) I now found out that it may be up to a 9 month wait here, & still a yr’s wait in the nearby town. I so badly want to live alone…& yet I know living with Cache keeps me somewhat sane because I’m cooking, cleaning, & doing laundry for him as well as myself. Just the routine of it all. Nonetheless, I feel very down & lonely. It’s nice to have you to write to!
I hope the rats are gone from your new place now. Maybe just seeing out the lease (& staying with your friend sometimes) will work out okay. I hope so! In any event…let’s hope by Sept. that you can find a better place & that I am in a place of my own, too!
I’ll write more soon!
You’re in my thoughts & prayers!
Love,
Lori

#31

Hi Lori,

Computer was off-line for two days!
Hope you are ok and things are improving for you. I understand what you are saying about wanting to live alone, but must admit I am envious of you when you say about the ‘routine’ of looking after Cache…cleaning, cooking, washing…I so miss that Lori…looking after Ben and Andrew. It gave me a sense of purpose and now I have none…looking after myself is not the same and I quite honestly don’t really do that. I don’t bother with myself, I have ‘let myself go’.
Because of all the ‘trouble’ I have had with the house I do not feel the same about it and I am having a hard time to just motivate myself to plan moving in. I am angry at myself for being so scared of rats.
I have to get a car next week and even that is hard…I have the money but I am not excited about it I just feel ‘flat’.
I am scared Lori, scared of failing again…here at my friends I just ‘exist’ and I’m not sure I know how to ‘live’ anymore.
Sorry if this all sounds so negative, but that is my mood at this time. I feel like you said you do old and used.
I look in the mirror and do not really recognise the person anymore!
Its good news that Cache is back at work and I truly hope he can make the lease payment. Do you still see your friend who you were helping move in her apartment? I hope things are inproving for you Lori and I hope I can get a large dose of courage from somewhere!
Take care and know you are in my prayers.

love

Anne x

#32

Hi Anne,
I wrote to you last week, but the signal was weak & my message got deleted. Tried again last night & after a really long email…the same thing happened. So I won’t stop today until I see this message sent!!!
I’m sorry to hear about your new place being a disappointment. You were so anxious to move out on your own & I know what that’s like. I’m glad I left my old room-mate behind, but I face a whole new set of problems now. I suppose everything will take time.
Have you decided to move into the place for a short time, or are you trying to get out of the lease again?
Nothing is available here for almost a year…& I worry about having a life of my own, too. I adore Cache, but he is spending less time here at the apartment & more time sleeping at guy friend’s or new girlfriends’ homes. He has a problem with drinking & having his ankle broken & girlfriend leave him slowed him down temporarily…but lately he’s been on a binge. So…I sit back & just wonder when something else will happen to him that will somehow hurt him even more. I worry about him so much.
I’ve gotten the run-around with Social Security. I received a payment for May last week (when it’s supposed to come at the beginning of the month.) Then today I was supposed to receive a payment for June, & nothing posted to my account. I received notice that I wasn’t supposed to get a check for June because I was working in May. When I quit my job…they didn’t update my records. When I’ve gone in to the office, they told me it was in the computer that I’d receive a smaller check this month, but I received 2 different letters stating I’d receive either $48 or nothing. Looks like I have to go to the office again today & set them straight…again! I’m getting tired of all of this. It’s hard enough to survive on full benefits (which aren’t much.) Now that they seem to have decreased them & want to withhold them altogether…I’m beyond frustrated!
Looks like Cache wants to move at the end of June. I have to go with him since I have no where else at the moment. I dread living in a much larger (dirty) city. I have only the one friend nearby (about 10 miles away) & when we move I’ll be about 60 miles away from her.
I’m struggling to get on an indigent co-insurance program for dental work. I lost half of a tooth with a filling in it. Found a dentist to put a temporary filling on it, but it will need a crown in a couple of months (3 if I can stretch it out that long!) Without insurance, the only work I can have done is to have the tooth pulled. I’ve had braces as a teen-ager & adult. It would seem a waste to me to not be able to keep my teeth! I’m 51 & it would seem that I’m falling apart!
I sometimes think I’d like to work full-time & get off of disability…but only 15 hrs a week wore me out physically. I’m not kidding! My back, shoulders, & neck were always sore & aching. I wanted to cry, but struggled on. Now that I’ve quit, I think I would need a desk job instead. Just can’t be on my feet all of the time.
I hope you are finding a way to keep positive during all of the moving details. I’m having a difficult time of adjusting to a new place & the new resources…& then I’m just going to have to do it all over again.
Well, please let me know what you’ve decided to do. I care a great deal about your welfare. I guess because we seem to be having a string of bad times together!
Take Care & know that I’m thinking of you!
Love,
Lori

#33

Hello my friend,

Good to hear from you, sorry things are still not good for you. It is terrible that the social security are messing you about. Money is very important and when things go wrong with that it does not help our mental health!
I don’t know exactly what I am doing about the house. I am so dissapointed with it. I have bought a car now…get it Monday or Tuesday…then I am going to go to the house on a daily basis and if I feel like staying over I will…what a mess!
I am feeling quite ‘vulnerable’…not sure if that is the right description, Lets just say I know I have a ‘mental illness’. I do not feel strong and worry that I will become ill at the house.
I have been through so much and cannot really take much more!
I will see the lease out because to try and get out of it is too complicated and I don’t have the fight to do it. I guess that is a kind of passive resistance. It will cost me but I guess it is the ‘easy option’. Thinking of having to fight to leave and then have to put all my stuff in storage is too much…I don’t think my mind can take much more!
I will probably try to spend days there and nights here…what the hell my life is a mess anyway and I don’t see it being sorted anytime soon!
I hear what you are saying about the ‘pain’ you had in your job, that is terrible. I am also in a lot of pain when I walk around and know some is from the arthritis but honestly believe it is with not being active for so long. I have also put ‘loads’ of weight on and asked the Dr about it a few days ago he said it is the Olanzapine and Effexor. I hate it and feel disgusted with my body!
Why is Cache moving? You sound like me, my friend, being ‘tossed’ about on a sea of uncertainty. I am sorry also that you will not be near your friend.
I keep wondering when my ‘luck’ will change. I feel ‘cold’ and also ‘stuck’ in my past. I cannot forget the home and lifestyle that I had and know I will never have again! I cannot describe that pain. Perhaps you understand for you have ‘lost’ also.
I am very negative Lori, I’m sorry. I want to be strong and positive but I am failing.
On a brighter note I am going to the cinema with Emma one night soon to see Sex in the City I think thats what it is called? I have not been to the cinema for years.
I am also writing a book about my life and being mentally ill and homeless. It is only two pages long at the moment but I will work away at it!
I spoke to my Father the other day on the phone and he is very dissapointed that I am going to live in the area I am. He said he will ‘help me out’. I don’t know what that means and I doubt he can help me out in the way I need!
I am going to the house today with Emma and will unpack a few more boxes. I do not really know what I am doing. There have been no rats in the traps and I honestly believe they had been living in the rubbish outside. The damp is still bad…I was there the other day. Now the smell of new paint and varnish is gone it smells of damp!
Lori, it helps me so much to write my thoughts and feelings to you knowing they will be understood.
I wish everything would turn and work out for us…you are in my thoughts and prayers.

take care

love Anne x

#34

Again,
I wrote a long email yesterday & the computer service went out. I just want to let you know, Anne, that I’m okay. Not very pleased with the hardships I’m going through (feel as though I’m being tested!) But trying to be feel positive that things will get better.
I’ll keep this brief so it won’t get deleted, but I’ll try to write again tomorrow!
Love,
Lori

#35

Hi Lori,

Hope you are ok? I am once again worried about you, but understand how at times it is difficult to keep up with writing. Let me know you are ok.

Love
Anne x

#36

Hi Lori,

So good to hear from you!
Where are you moving to and why? I am pleased to hear you have met a man you would like to get to know more, but what happens when you move?
Congratulations on getting your credit cards paid off some…that must feel good.
I appear to be ‘stuck’…I have not yet moved to my house because I came off my olanzapine and my anti-ds and made myself quite ill! Totally my own fault and the reason I did it was because of the weight I have put on! I have not been to the house for over a week and it feels like a big effort to even go there. I know I have to make a decision soon and thought qwith the nice weather I would feel more like going to the house on a daily basis and seeing how I felt…but the weather is pretty lousy and so is my mood!
I have had the house 3 months at the end of this month and so only have another 3 months left on the lease.
I think the rats scared me off and I don’t think I will ever be able to ‘settle’ in that house now…so it seems ‘pointless’ going there and ‘making an home’…if you understand what I mean. I feel let down with myself and wish I was ‘stronger’ but I am not and really all I am doing is using the house to ‘store’ my furniture. I feel very low and very lost!
I wish I too lived many miles away from my past…it is my constant companion and does not help me at all!
Due to my ex community psychiatric nurses inability to pass my note over to the local mental health team I have had no support for my mental health for almost 1 year now. other than seeing that psychiatrist in October last year. I really need some support and help with getting my lithium dosage right. I feel like I have just been ‘left’ to get on with it myself and I am struggling!
What would you do in my situation Lori? would you move in to the house? Maybe you are not frightened of rats…I am in a mess Lori and don’t know what to do.
I guess it is easier to stay here at my friends and do nothing but sit and smoke all day…have I ‘given up’?
I though by now I would be in my house and facing my fears, instead I am, it feels. running away from them.
Wish I could be more positive but this is where I am at right now!
I have not written anymore on my ‘book’ but will do when I feel more able to.

take care

love
Anne x

#37

Hi Anne,
I’m in a bit of a jam, too. Last night Cache asked me if I could stay the night at my frind’s so Jul could come over. I was offended. She was a phony girl & got that restraining order on him & he would just go running back to that. He was so worried that nothing come between him & Jul before I moved in…& I told him, "she was gone 6 weeks after I got here & made a mess of you emotionally. Now you should be more worrried that she will come between the relationship you have with your Mom!"
I’m just not in the mood to move with him to Denver. He has a tendency to be disrespectful & rude. I called my Dad & asked his advice. He said basically, if I can stay with my friend, I should do that & wait out the low-income housing list (not have to start all over in another city.) So I took a bunch of my things over there last night & am all boxed up to take the rest, but Cache is not working today & at home. I wanted to sort of sneak out of here to avoid conflict. We are supposed to move tomorrow & Saturday, & I just don’t want to go! I came here because I thought it would be a little family situation, but Julianna proved to be a deceitful girl…& Cache just isn’t emotionally mature enough or stable enough himself to provide me with a place to save & work on becoming self-sufficient. I’m very hurt by all of this. I have paid him rent for 2 of the 3 months I lived here. I have cared for his dog, done his laundry, shopped & lugged groceries up 2 flights of stairs, prepared meals, done all of the housecleaning, & have waited on him hand & foot while his broken ankle has had time to heal. Now…I am tired. I’m an old lady & I feel like I’m living with a 10 year old again!
There are problems living with my friend of course, too. I don’t have time to go into all of that now, but since you live at your friend’s…you know there is always a downside.
I want to live alone so badly…& I bet it will be next year before that can happen. However, if I were in your situation…I don’t think I’d move into the house with the rats either. I’m not necessarily afraid of them…but they disgust me & make me feel unclean. (And clean is something that I will have to quit worrying about if I live with my friend. Well…she’s clean, but her apartment is stacked with boxes of old clothes & knick-knacks from flea markets & yard sales. She’s a pack-rat & there’s no room to move around. I have no idea what I will do with my boxes!)
She doesn’t have a computer…so if I go there, I forsee having to use one at the library. To keep in touch with you, of course…but also to pay my bills, since I do all of them on-line.
Hang in there! You’re half-way through your lease, & maybe what you can do is begin looking for another place in the meantime. If it were me…I’d stay where you are & not lose sight of getting out (only to a nicer place) in 3 months.
I have to get to the post office (I’m going to have to open one of my own now!)
Why is there so much chaos in our lives at the moment???!!! Hopefully we’ll have better things to write about in a few months!
Take care & know that I love you & am thinking of you! I almost wish we were close by so we could help each other get our shit together!!!
Love,
Lori

#38

Hi Lori,
My 27 year old son Andrew rang me yesterday his g/friend is messing about and he is coming ‘home’. I no longer have our ‘home’ but he is moving in with me to my ‘new’ house…don’t know how it will go and I have told him we will only be staying there for 3 months. I am all at sixes and sevens I was going to ‘move in’ gradually now it is tomorrow. I just hope I can cope. I have only seen him twice in 5 years and he was ‘angry’ about my smashing the house up. So it is going to be challenging to say the least. I love him so much and of my two boys he was always the closest to me. I am scared Lori I have changed so much and I am not sure how he will react to that. Will write soon…hope you are settling in at your friends.

love

Anne x

#39

Hi Anne,
I have no computer at my friend’s, so have gotten a library card & am using the computer there. I only have 20 minutes & have to check my bank acct. too…but I’m doing okay at my friend’s. I’ll write more about that tomorrow or the next time I get to the library.
I’m anxious to see how it goes with Andrew!!! How wonderful for you (but change isn’t always so grand!) At least it will be company for 3 months so you aren’t alone. If after that time you & Andrew don’t see eye to eye than perhaps you can get your own place. Of course, maybe having him with you, you will make a joint decision to find a better place!
I’m sorry for Andrew! Cache is back to dating Jul, although he has moved to Denver. I am trying not to state my opinion, since it’s contrary to what Cache wants. However…I don’t want to be involved when they get to arguing…& that’s just a matter of time.
I have a few problems at my friend’s…but nothing that I can’t live with for a short time. If I have to stay there longer, it may become uncomfortable…but I’m not homeless…& I’m not dealing with a drunken male room-mate…so it must be an improvement!
Better close for now. Thinking of you often!
Take Care,
Love,
Lori

#40

Hi Lori,

Andrew just stayed the week…I advised him to go back to the good job he has. He had rented a room in a shared house the w/end before he came back so he rang and checked it was ok for him to go back and it was.
I felt quite sad that he was going back…but that is what is best for him. I love him very much but know that he worked hard to get a good job and I did not want him to throw that away!
I am very depressed I stayed at the house for a week with Andrew and the rats are back. They have gnawed all the door frame in the understairs cupboard!
I am not happy here at my friends I feel she was pleased I had moved out and disappointed that I had come back1
How is it going at your friends?

take care

Love
Anne x