From April to July - what a disaster my life has become. Depression and anxiety have totally take over my life again. My antidepressant was switched to something cheaper and I have been on a downward spiral ever since: money out of control, housecleaning and laundry not done, animals neglected, eating fast food with a resulting 50 lb weight gain in 6 months; my health physically and mentally has really been suffering.


I think I may try to set up a flow chart to analyze what happened. I need to break the circle and get out of this spiral.

So-
I actually took out a loan to pay off most of my high-interest credit cards. I very carefully set up a budget, analyzed how to best utilize lower interest rates and created a plan to get my debt under control. Then I went and spent the cards back up! This is exactly what you are warned against in all the debt consolidation programs I've ever read about. Some of the money was spent on things I needed, household items and prescriptions and such, but most of it went to fast food because I'm not cooking at home. Why? The gas stove leaks and I a) didn't have the house clean enough that I would let anyone in and b) I frittered away most of my available cash and credit. I think I may try to set up a flow chart to analyze what happened. I need to break the circle and get out of this spiral.
Medical bills from car accident and heart tests need to be paid-
I set up payment plans with 3 out of the four collection agencies to the tune of $200 per month, a bit more than I should have. I don't know what happened to the fourth, I thought I had made arrangements with them too, but nothing is being billed to my account. This was in November 2007. I cancelled my cleaning lady temporarily thinking I should be able to manage for a while.
Cleaning lady not coming from November 2007 to the present-
I was able to keep up with things for awhile, but not as well as I should. I am tired all the time and far too often looking at the dishes that need washed and laundry that needs done just overwhelms me. I have been either going to bed, playing stupid games on the computer or reading. Now the house is so bad that I can't let anyone in. Stuff is piled everywhere, it's actually unsafe for me to walk through because I loose my balance too easily after the knee transplants last summer, the house is filthy and I have a rat infestation. I can't have my grandchildren over to spend the night because of it.
Gas stove needs repair-
It started leaking gas sometime in the fall. I thought it was a burner. My daughter said the stove was leaking gas also. The usage went from 1 CF to 4 CF in one month. I quit using the stove thinking that would take care of the problem until I could get it fixed. The next month the gas usage was just as high. My middle daughter told me to turn the gas off at the floor connection and I did. The usage went back to normal. I haven't had it fixed, and I realize while I'm writing this that this has been since last October maybe. 9 months. The money I've spent eating out could have bought me a new stove at least!
House air conditioner went out in the second week of June-
Again, the house is so bad I don't want to let anyone in to fix it. I had planned on buying a room air conditioner for my bedroom to cut down on cooling costs. Why cool the whole house down to 72 at night when I only need my bedroom that cool? I actually had bought one with my rebate money, but never installed it. Now I have and it works fine. I went and bought another one to put in my kitchen/dining room/den area and it really has helped as well. I'm wondering what the difference in the electric bill will be. My father offered me a third one that came out of their sun room when they rebuilt it. I think I will put it in my office or in the other den window.
Prescription change?
I'm wondering when that happened. I have cycled through Alexia and Cymbalta and finally told the Dr. that I wanted to go back to the Lexapro. I'm looking at a lot of things happening or starting back in the fall around October. The Cymbalta really helped with the pain from FMS and the knee transplant surgeries, but the depression became worse. The Alexia just left me feeling fairly grim, not as well as with the Lexapro. I am beginning to think that I should never have let the drugs benefits program choose a medication. They wanted me to switch because of the cost of Lexapro. I said okay, but this was a serious mistake as events showed.
I have started therapy again, and went back to the medication that was working. I've only been back on Lexapro about a week and I feel somewhat better mentally. I think maybe a higher dose might be needed. I am thinking about discussing this issue again with my doctor.
The intake appointment was last Monday. Dr. Farmer is very nice and actually spent some extra time with me. I feel relieved to have restarted the process of getting well again. He also gave me some instructions - since I don't want to risk poisoning my cats and dogs with rat poison, I am to go on line and look for "green" methods of rat removal. I did this, and reordered some repellent that I tried previously. It turns out I didn't follow the directions so no wonder it didn't work. I also found a poison that shouldn't bother cats and dogs. If the repellent doesn't work I will try that next.
My old cat is loosing weight again. He is 16 years old. I am feeding him with wet food and keeping him in the house. He's put back on a pound. I will take him to the vet next week. I am also going to take care of the dogs needs. We need shots and licenses, heart worm testing and preventative medication and flea treatments for everybody. I have a little money and I decided that the animals will be first, then the gas stove, car air conditioner, and the house air conditioner. I will be getting my stipends this next paycheck and am going to use them to pay down the credit cards that I spent back up.
This analysis has helped quit a bit. I need to do some more investigation about my anti-depressants. I have spent most of this weekend working on cleaning the kitchen and getting the laundry washed and put away. I may make it!

Unfortunately, this is just the "small" stuff. The long term stuff I haven't even touched on. Another time.