Acceptance. I'm working on it.

I told my sister on Christmas Day. She seemed to understand and asked to know more about it. I told my best friend today. She said it sounded like a good fit for all of my struggles and encouraged me to seek counseling and keep journaling. I hope I don't regret this.

We Are So Poor

I have to cry some days.  We have to make the most ridiculous choices.  Heat or car insurance.  Tank of gas or laundry soap.  But never about food.  I always find a way to make things from what we have, or what we can get from a food bank or on food stamps.  I pride myself on coming up with meals... but now I know that that's part of the compulsion. 

Justin got hit by a guy at work, yesterday.  I thought for sure he would get fired, but he says the guy apologized and he had a really good night at work.  I hope that's true. 

We pay out an easy 2k a month in bills, food, and incidentals.  We only make about 2k.  There is zero flexibility and no room for errors or savings.  We will never get ahead here. 

Justin Make Bad Days Worse

The holiday bubble has burst and real life roared in, today.  The car doors were frozen.  I missed Gabe's PT hen he second time. Justin swore that he could watch the baby at 730am so that I could take Gabe to his PT and then Evie to Urgent Care (suspected bladder infection).  Of course, I meant that he would get up and play and change and feed our lovely infant.  NO. 

JUSTIN IS A FUCK UP.

He thought that it meant to let the baby scream in a soaking wet diaper and starve while Justin yelled at him to lay down.  Justin wanted to stay in bed.  Oliver wanted to be dry, safe, and fed.  Fucker. 

So, I just took Ollie with while I took Gabe to school (missed his PT because of frozen fucking car).  Later, at 1130, I asked Justin to watch the baby while I took Evie to her doctor appointment and ran 2 small errands in town.  He said he'd get up.  He did, but insisted on taking a shit while I was walking out the door.  WHY THE HELL CAN'T THE BABY JUST BE IN THE BATHROOM WITH YOU???  I don't get privacy while I pee.  Or bathe.  Or shop.  Or clean.  Or sleep.  Or watch tv.  Or ANYTHING.  Yet Justin gets his 3+ hours each night to do fuck-all childless.  He gets to sleep half his night childless.  He gets to bath and shit childless.  Fuck him.

Anyway, I made it to Evie's appt 12 minutes late.  She's mostly fine.  No meds, just better hygiene.  I get home and it's 15 minutes until Evie's speech therapist gets there.  Justin has not bothered to clean ANYTHING from  the party the day before.  I race around like a chicken with my head cut off cleaning up and trying to feed Evie all at once.  Then Justin comes downstairs and says, "Ollie's been crying for a while.  Why didn't you get him?"  He was showering.  I didn't hear the baby, but my hearing sucks.  Justin then hands me the baby (soaked in his own piss, Justin has changed Oliver's diaper maybe 12 times since birth) and asks if I washed his fill-in-the-blank-work-clothes. 

He actually thought it would cheer me up to tell me that he understands that I work too.  I'm the housekeeper.  I'M THE FUCKING MAID.  He actually thinks of me that way.

FUCK HIM.

So, then I start to tally up bills vs. income for the rest of the month.  I spent $45 too much while holiday shopping and in the mad dash to cover expenses, both of our rent checks bounced.  So uncool.  But between Justin's many family members, we were handed $630, so I thought that surely all would be well.  

Nope. 

Justin insists on keeping our joint savings account open.  He wants to pool monthly monies there to pay bills half and half, theoretically so that we can both keep extra money in our own accounts to spend as we see fit.  Well, there isn't any extra.  Never is.  And now we live 25 minutes away from the bank and money never gets pooled in this account.  This account that automatic withdrawals are set to.  So we haven't properly paid insurance in months and this pooled account BS has cost us $250 in fines this year.  That's more than the Renters policy, itself. 

Bull shit. 

And he's going on and on about video games that he wants and "I know you're going to be mad, but I spend money anyway" on extra games.  Instead of buying windshield wipers (his don't even make contact anymore) or transmission fluid (he has mentioned it for weeks.  I bought fluid and told him how to put it in.  he hasn't.  his car guzzles gas.  justin in a fucker)

Holiday Stress

I think we are going to have to find a polite way to un-invite Val and her family to all future functions.  She tries to be the center of attention at every single party, without fail.  She proclaims her sex life, loudly for all to hear.  She rips on people as a form of conversation.  She is a gossip harvester.  At every single event she attends, she hogs my couch and my actual family members have to sit on the floor.  My mother never gets to sit on a couch, not to mention NEAR me, when Val is around.  I am embarrassed at how she tries to claim my mother as her own and tries to get cutesy with everyone that she runs her mouth about any other day.  UGH> 

And yet I have like no other friends.  She can only visit on a friday or saturday, when the weather is good and when she gets Doug's permission, not that he'd ever tell her no, she just somehow gets off on being "owned" by a boyfriend.  She used to claim that Rick, her ex-guy, didn't want her to cut her hair or wear certain clothes.  The guy never said anything about that stuff.  He didn't care.  He broke up with her 10 years before she realized it.  She just weedles her way in and insists on having things a certain way until you think it was your idea.  I HATE hugging people and yet she always gets a hug from me.  Maybe because I feel sorry for her.  She has this pathetic way about her.  She even suggested that I get irritated with her sometimes because I'm jealous of her and Doug's relationship.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Anyway, we had our annual party and it was fun.  I love having the party, but secretly can't wait until everyone is gone so I can stretch out on the couch, eat leftovers, and watch television.  The weather was if-y for a week before hand.  We canceled on the Duffords due to ice.  Cindy was very upset.  When I thought that we might have no one show, I had the opposite reaction; I was elated that I could spend the whole party alone on the couch with food watching movies.  But the weather was pretty good for winter and we played all the games.  Margie and Chucky left early.  Like way early.  When they had shown up, they had brought an entire bag of booze and were playing with the kids and thinking of staying.... and then suddenly they left.  I asked Margie if we had offended her, but she insists it was just worry over the weather.  But something must have happened.  They had even gotten a dog sitter and Chucky was going to call off work... and then suddenly they HAD to get home.  I have no clue. 

The lead up to the party is always chaos.  Its the worst stress of the year.  It's anxiety over being poor and not buying the kids enough, even though both grandparents drown the kids in gifts.  I swear we need a bigger house, already.  No, seriously.  Building the extension and maybe an awesome enclosed porch on the back would be a blessing.  Anyway, there's the yearly worry that house isn't clean or organized enough.  Justin makes fun of me, but inevitably, someone ends up in a closet or a cabinet that he told me, "No one's going in there, stop worrying!".  Every God Damned Time.  There's always the worry about food.  Food is TIME CONSUMING.  It took me two weeks to get baking done and then three days to cook everything as I volleyed between kids and appointments.  The dog is a pain in the butt.  I'm hoping he's more enjoyable in the summer because otherwise I'm calling dog ownership a DUD.  He's expensive, chews everything we own, tramples the kids, barks and jumps, he's torn up the side yard and he's just a giant non-stop eating beast.  All while I'm cooking and wrapping and organizing. 

In the end, it was fun.  Although I dumbed down my trivia this year and it was STILL way too hard for people.  I may resort to just christmas carol lyrics from now on. 

Journalling is my Favorite

Just a note to say that since starting this writing habit, a lot of forgotten crap has come up, but the writing helps.  It helps me figure out the core of some anger and pain.  I have only binged twice in 2 weeks.  That is outstanding!!!!

I love my Food Addiction support group and my OA (Overeatters Anonymous) group. 

When Santa was my Overworked Mother

I don't remember when I realized Santa wasn't real.  I was there when my brother found out and it crushed him.  He sobbed after finding presents in my mother's room.  That damned house was so small that we couldn't help but go in her room.  I have nightmares about how small it was.  Anyway... I eventually calmed him down by pointing out that the tags did NOT say that they were from Santa.  They were blank.

To this day, my mother does not write Santa.  She leaves them blank.

When I think of Santa and those uber early Christmas mornings when my mother would be sacked out on the couch in her work clothes, I get sad.  I wonder if I was dismayed, like my brother, when I found out.  Probably not.  I was probably guilty.  She worked so hard and rarely could hire a sitter.  We were alone.  She liked to call us monsters, but really we were 5 and 8 and 9 and alone.  Yes, the house was a mess.  How was I, at 9yo, supposed to be a super-mom?  I was busy being a kid dealing already with depression and binge eating and being teased and bullied at school for smelling like cat piss and having fleas.  None of my clothes fit and my hair was a rat's nest.  We didn't have conditioner.  Impossible. 

And yet I feel guilty that I didn't do more for her.  I only remember 2 gifts that we ever got from Santa.  One being a Teddy Ruxpin that we had to share.  She even wrote a note from Santa saying that Teddy was so special he could only give one to each family.  How that must have hurt her.  I remember the year I got my Nintendo.  That was great.  I was supposed to still believe in Santa, but I remember hugging my mom in the hallway and telling her to let Santa know I was SOOOO happy. 

Very few good things happened in that house, but playing Nintendo and watching Star Trek are some good memories. 

I Think I'm Ready to Buy the Book

I think I am ready and curious enough to buy 'the big book' that everyone in my FB support group is talking about.  Still not sure that I want to start yet.  It's hard.  What if there is a cake or a party food that I want?  I have chocolate that I want to eat and I'm not sure if there is a diet involved.

In FA, they really push a sugar and flour free diet.  Sounds like low carb.  I'm not sure I will be successful if I deprive myself.  Diets are a trigger, for me. 

If I had to pick something, portion control or at least reduction would be a goal.  Stopping binges too. 

Anyway, the book is like $5.  pretty cheap. 

Maybe. 

Making Lists

Food addiction, I'm coming to read and find, is not only the compulsion to eat.  It is the compulsion to collect cook books and kitchen gadgets.  It is the compulsion to watch Food Network (when I'm anxious, I binge watch it.  I gave birth watching Food Network, twice!) and peruse Pinterest recipes.  It is making shopping lists divided up by aisle and section.

Some of that list making could be in response to financial insecurity. The first grocery list I ever made for myself was in Pittsburgh.

My stomach just flip flopped at the word Pittsburgh.  There is some heavy stuff there.  It spilled over and consumed my 20s with bad judgement and impulse control issues and stupidity.  Naivety.    School and Jay and sex and pot and tears.  No voice.  Tears. 

Whew.... deep breath. 

After my roomate left me alone in Pittsburgh.  After I was failing in school and no longer attending.  When I couldn't pay rent and was shamed for eating my roomate's food.  (STILL have no clue how going to school in Pgh was supposed to work for me.  I was enrolled in a tech school, made to sign a lease, and dumped in Pgh with a stranger.   I attended school for 1 month.  Then rent was due.  Then I needed a bus pass to get to school.  Then I needed to do laundry and buy toilet paper.  And I had nothing.  No one ever told me I needed to get a job.  No one ever TOLD ME THAT.  Everyone just told me to go to school and a living grant would be given to me.  Well, it never came.  I was supposed to be a full time student.  I was supposed to be done in 18 months.  I was supposed to be good.  And instead of helping me, the dorm demanded rent.  My roomate's family demanded that I pay for my own food and the phone bill.  I had nothing.  I was too scared to leave my apt in case I needed a quarter for the phone or something.  I had no clean clothes, no heat in my apartment, no bus pass, and only a massive bag of potatoes to eat.  So I stopped going to school.  My roomate blamed it on the internet, but that wasn't it.  My computer was my only friend.  I didn't know what to do.  NO ONE EVER TOLD ME WHAT TO DO! They just shamed me for my grades failing.  My mother drove to Pgh and asked me why I was getting so thin and why I had bad grades.  Um... You prepared me for NOTHING.  I have guilt and shame to this day about everything that happened to me in Pittsburgh and I'm here to say, NONE OF IT WAS MY FAULT!!!!!!!!  One day, I might believe it enough to get over it.)

Anyway.  One thing I'd packed for my dorm room was a cookbook.  I poured over it when I was hungry.  I made elaborate meal plans and pairings.  I made dream grocery lists, down to the ounce needed of each item.  I kept it on the fridge.  It was pristine.  Meanwhile I cut and boiled a potato each day.

I was alone and starving.  I had a computer, a bed, a recliner, and a 21" tv with a broken remote.  I could only get like 3 channels and one of them aired Seinfeld a lot.

I made a lot of lists.

My mother decided to invite herself and Charlotte to brunch at my place.  I was too afraid to answer the door.  Someone else buzzed them in.  I had no food.  I was in dirty clothes.  I had no where for them to sit.  It was mortifying.  And still, no one helped me.

I ended up staying with a boyfriend who dealt drugs and forced me to have sex daily.  He threatened to kill me every day.  He'd tell me, in detail, how he was going to murder me.  I stayed because I could bathe once a week and they fed me dinner.

I was tormented by his sister.  I was too dirty and fat.  He would invite his ex girlfriend over and they'd have sex while I waited in the living room.  They'd go out and leave me there.  He'd tell me to leave because I got my period.  I'd starve until he called me up again.

Once, I pretended to lose my keys so that I couldn't leave.  His mother shamed him into letting me stay, that night, but drove me to home the next day.

It was horrible and humiliating and I was in pure survival mode.  Do whatever you want to me.  Say whatever you want to me.  Until I believed it.  I was worthless and dumb.  I was a leech, so I had to give him whatever he wanted to pay him back.

I made lists. 

I Couldn't Go Grocery Shopping

There was a mix up with Justin's paystubs and so our Food Stamps were shut off this month.  Our insurance and LIHEAP too, but that's another matter.  We've made the calls and printed the paystubs and all should be getting reapplied for tomorrow... however we have no food money. 

We are not out of food.  We are out of the good stuff.  Cookies, chips, microwavable snacks.  Fresh fruit, string cheese, popcorn.  Easy stuff.  That sort of thing.  We have rice and potatoes and seitan to make mock meats.  I can make soup and sandwiches and whatnot.  We are not starving.  We have real food. But when I couldn't stroll the grocery aisles to my leisure today... When I couldn't randomly pick up any fix that occured to me in that moment.  When I realized that we would have to postpone some of our Solstice baking... I wanted to bawl. 

I have been moody and sluggish all day.  I just want to sleep.  I want to cry and sleep.  And it seems like lots of little things are going wrong.  Our light strings are all wonky and burnt out in various spots.  Our front porch looks sooooo ghetto.  But after spending an hour in the cold climbing the step stool and trudging through mud and banging the crap out of my fingers with the hammer (and being forced into conversation with a passing neighbor, ICK) I was just DONE... and they didnt work. 

I hate looking helpless and poor.  I hate messy, unorganized, broken.  I hate my porch lights, but I am leaving them up in defeat and protest.  Kinda hoping Justin giggles.

We have $56 in the bank and I'm telling myself that I can buy 50' of rope lights, 3 sweatshirts, a tank of gas, and emergency groceries with it.  Then again, Justin gets paid friday.  I hate being poor.  i spend so much energy keeping a mental count of things and worrying.

This brings me to December.  We are budgeted so tightly this month that we cannot use cash to purchase food.  We are relying completely on the $321 in foodstamps.  And we have parties to attend and throw and special nights like Krampusnacht and New years... and we have no cash and no food stamps.

My addiction to food is not just eating.  It is making lists and watching food network and obsessing over recipes.  I made my VERY intricate list for this month.  I menu planned and thought of Justin's work dinners and all of the holiday stuff.

AND I CANT GO SHOPPING.

Shopping, I realize, is part of the addiction.  It's either part of the food thing or part of the OCD list making part.