I'm so close to losing hope

[SeekingAfrica]

The last year has been hell. So much loss. Jobs, electronics, pets, people, natural disasters all around me, something every month. And for a brief, just a brief few weeks in the summer I was on top of things, starting to take care of health issues I've been ignoring. Starting to take care of myself. Starting to believe I can change my life for the better. And then I've had something I can only describe as mental breakdown at some point in August and since then everything's been falling apart. And I am so close- I was so close to a solution. And now the ground is crumbling underneath my feet and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
I don't know what to do.
Life is so painful right now, and everything... it's like I'm a house full of leaks and things that need repairing. Every part of my life needs change. It's all cracking and crumbling at the same time and I don't know how to keep strong in ALL this.

I don't know what to do, how to start.
I can't stop crying.
Everything is such a mess.

 

[Teasel]

I'm so sorry, and I don't have anything useful to say but I wanted you to know I hear you. Wish I could make it better

 

[Ecdysis]

Sorry it's still so hard @SeekingAfrica

Have you finished your current work contract or are you close to completing it?

 

[SeekingAfrica]

Have you finished your current work contract or are you close to completing it?

Thank you everyone for the support!
To answer this; Yes. It's freelance work and I finished it on Sunday evening.
Usually I get paid almost immediately. This time I don't even have a response yet.

THAT is the scariest part. I know it's freelance but I have worked with that client for years.
She pays literally the next day always. Few times she took a few days. BUT couple of times, she took a week or longer, because she was on trip, which she didn't announce, and just didn't check email. I'm scared that can be the case now.
To be fair, I still have no one to blame but myself: if I hadn't broken down mentally, if I had finished by 7th instead of this Sunday, maybe this wouldn't have happened. But here we are. And because she never announces it, I don't know if the lack of response is slight delay or something worse.
I mean she's human. In any other situation, fine, pay me later, but...

I'm like a stranded island.
All the left food I have is rice, pasta, oil, some spices and ironically coffee.
The food kitchen I found works 3 times a week.
I don't have money for bus or for mobile for seeking job, I just have internet. If I do my drawing gig, I don't have a scanner at home or the mini cash I need to go scan things. I am running out of shampoo, cleaning supplies, detergent, tp... Everything in my life is hanging on threads of baseless hope.

I worked Sunday til late (2 weeks of working 10h days), so Monday I allowed myself to relax a little, take a moment off. Get up late.
I had hope still. I contacted the client in any way I could possibly damaging further relationship by pestering her. I checked in with friends, but they are also in tight situations. That's over.
Today I am losing my mind waiting to see how the landlord will respond to still not getting money (last-last deadline was yesterday, extended to today somehow). I have nothing I can tell her besides that I'm waiting, nothing I can do. She decides I need to go I have no money. I found free online therapy from therapists in my city, I planned job ideas I can try once my pay got through. In my anxiousness today I can't think so I cleaned the mess in my apartment from working all day and depression, I put laundry, I cooked rice- something's better than nothing.

Tomorrow it's time to start seeking more opportunities money wise.
I don't know how with all going on.
There is a part of me going over insane ideas I'm not brave enough to do (give up my only phone for any cash, do job like OF which because of my past would trigger me like crazy...).... I'm losing my mind trying to manage normal life- small home things, food, main meds I need, bus, not getting evicted. I'm not even thinking of the things I can't touch yet (dental work I started this summer not covered by insurance, debt I have).

And even all those small daily stuff, the cleaning supplies, the lack of meds, other things, I can handle creatively.
But my landlord has been patient and from her point of view- I'm treating her like s**t with all this postponing. Or I'm evading. It's an ugly thing to do and yet I can't change it. It's horrible, and I keep having to tell her I'm still waiting. Like I have legit done all I can to contact the client. I keep sending occasional messages.
There isn't much more I can do. To my landlord I am irresponsible and treating her horribly. I can't defend that because it's still true.
For a brief moment I thought, fine, I'm pushing it, but I'll get paid, then invest in some side work, find better stable work, get everything straight. Take care of my health too.

Now I'm waiting and waiting. What will happen is literally a gamble.
So today I clean and tomorrow I have to find more online opportunities, regardless of how.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I hear you, @SeekingAfrica, it's been hard for you. Really hard. You have survived another hard spot and made your way through. If you were in America, I would offer places to go to get things like shampoo or household supplies and food but I don't know how it is where you live. Are there charities or churches that help people? You don't have to belong to get help. There are websites here like Pay it Forward where people post what they need and others post what they have. Facebook is a place to look for free stuff. When I was living at my last place, I was able to get so many free things just by looking. My heart is with you and I think of you struggling and wish I could be more helpful

 

[Sideways]

And now the ground is crumbling underneath my feet and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

everything's been falling apart.

Every part of my life needs change.

It's all cracking and crumbling at the same time

Everything is such a mess

Hello, catastrophising!

Not homeless. Still have rice and pasta and coffee. Still moving. Still breathing. Still have running water and electricity. Still not homeless.

Language can be a powerful thing. The way you describe your life is extreme. That’s almost completely uniform for you, through the ups and downs. I can’t help wondering if that’s feeding the perception that everything is hopeless, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it (helplessness).

Hopelessness and helplessness are symptoms of depression. The thoughts they create aren’t facts - they’re symptoms of an illness.

That’s not me saying that your life is great. But with the language your mind throws at you, I wonder if there’s any way to practice thought stopping (thought diffusion), so that the narrative your depression keeps feeding you stops being fuelled by the metaphors and similes about armageddon, which must be making everything seem more hopeless/helpless, rather than offering a realistic check of the situation.

Practicing gratitude journaling would definitely help longer term. Specifically, gratitude journaling on a regular basis teaches our brain how to stop struggling with things out of our control, so they don’t distress us as much.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

Still moving. Still breathing

True. But also the worse the practical situation is the worse my brain gets and I'm spending time crying on the floor rather than taking any action (within my current limits) to change anything. All I keep thinking is 'I'm too late, I'm too late, I was lucky few times to survive certain things, but this time I've run out of luck'. And I know it doesn't help me, but the more times I have to postpone bills or explain to my landlord why I still don't have money, and beg her to be patiend, the worse that chatter gets. Tonight I'm taking double my sleeping pill I even had stopped for a while, because otherwise I can't even make myself feel like there's point to sleeping.

But with the language your mind throws at you, I wonder if there’s any way to practice thought stopping

I don't know, I don't know how to stop it. Usually it snowballs and snowballs until something gets better. Usually that thing is external.
Only once when I was not-wanting-to-live did I manage to do something, and it was just rigorous combination of meds, weekly therapy, yoga, journaling and meditation daily, gratitude log... I think I also had a notebook with 'reasons to keep going' where I wrote daily and a checklist calendar where I would mark any day that past, to look next to my bed how many days I had lived through beyond what I thought I would handle.

How do I stop it?

I need to be looking for other job opportunities to stop this from happening again- once I get out of it.
But the fact that every day I'm lacking another thing I need is putting me exactly in the hopeless mindset that I should avoid.
I mean it's a bad enough situation without the catastropising, I know.
But I'm depressed in general (for 2 months already) and from the situation. And the situation is bad enough that it doesn't need catastropising in addition to it.
Much in my life needs change, just the feeling that I'm crumbling because of it is because I don't feel capable of handling much more than day to day right now. Or hour by hour sometimes.

I mean I can say it's partially childhood learned behavior from when I had to calm down my mom from doing that all the time... But does it matter where it stems from? I think the question how do I change it is more important. Especially that feeling I get leading to all the crying doing nothing right now. I seemed to have gotten it together while I was working the deadline, despite my fear I was working towards something worthwhile. Now that I\m not yet paid from it, I feel somehow in doubt about my abilities for the other jobs I was planning to do after deadline. Some I still can't ( bus/phone money, scanning money), but I\m guessing there is something I can do. But in this state I can't focus somehow.

How do I change thoughts? I\ve tried CBT thought sheets once upon a time, but somehow I don't remember that ever working.

 

[Sideways]

How do I change thoughts? I\ve tried CBT thought sheets once upon a time, but somehow I don't remember that ever working.

The ACT approach, which helps me a lot, is to stop struggling with the thoughts. They’re there. They’re unpleasant. They’re distressing.

But they are just thoughts. Not facts, thoughts.

There’s a number of different ways to practice thought stopping or thought diffusion. Both ACT and DBT offer different techniques.

Rather than mess it up with my own jargon, maybe it’s something the AI therapy forum could help you practice?

 

[Teasel]

When things feel completely hopeless, this has helped me sometimes. Big hug

 

[SeekingAfrica]

I'm starting to work on my thoughts. It turns out it was more than just catastrophysing but a full blown PTSD catastrphyzing breakdown.
I get paid today so I'll have money tomorrow. That doesn't rule out having to move, but makes it manageable.
I have so much stuff to pay that I need a list so I don't forget.

But for all the days I worked on the deadline I was afraid I'll be evicted because I was late on the deadline (or worn't get paid on time).
And then when I didn't get paid for 2 days I lost it,. I mean REALLY lost it.
It's been 4 days, but I wrote the client 2ce per day, wrote her on Messager too... updated my landlord daily. I really was SURE everything is OVER, I was sure.
4 days, not even. From Monday until this afternoon. 4 days of losing my mind thinking about how I'll be on the street, I have no savings and I've played every card life presented me with, and then some. And therefore I had no more help to get, no more options to use, except my words- with my landlord and my client, And in all fairness my trust in my words, not high on my list. I isolated from people, I avoided everything but work and when there was no work and I was just waiting to get pay I couldn't think straight.

I know it's 4 days, but it feels like months, genuinely.
I have a lot to work on myself, but for now, first I have a whole lot of things to pay off tomorrow and see where my frank discussion with my landlord face to face with lead me to.

But the thing is, I KNEW I WASN"T getting paid today. All I'm afraid of had gotten so much darker. I thought I had no options. I was crying on the floor out of sheer frustration. It was a whole lot I'm happy no one saw.
And you'd think getting paid is a relief- and it is in practical sense. In anxiety sense- so much was waiting on getting paid for me to move forward that now it's like my body is buzzing. Like everything that was getting stored is now coming from and center to get attention. But I'm making notes and taking things one thing at a time- tomorrow is admin day for payments and decisions for example. Other days will be for cleaning, and re-socialing.

And when I got the money, I swear it was like a heart attack.
I couldn't breathe from relief washing over me, my ears were ringing, my body was in shock. I feel like a truck ran over me.
I'm not sure if I'm moving (but if I am I'll have the funds for something at least). And yet, my body is in full blown shock. I know I was waiting on this money for also some side work- related stuff, but today I'm just in shock. I guess after I pay some overdue bills and rent and bus tomorrow, perhaps that will free some brain space for everything else. Now I'm just... in shock. I keep rechecking my email making sure I withdrew the money I'm waiting on for tomorrow. I keep making lists of all the things that were waiting on this money. I keep sending updates to people. Every muscle hurts. My head fills like someone hit it with baseball bat and filled it with cotton, like I'm incapable of doing more than one thing ahead and all I was to do after 2 weeks of worry every minute is to sleep.

This isn't plain depression. This is shock coming in and out in waves because I almost gave up and I guess my prayes as a non-prayer were somehow heard.
It was me going through 2 decades of memories and nightmares in the last 2 weeks. I'm not sure what set this off.
I can say sorry for being dramatic, but I know I would have been anyway.
So it's time to work on my thoughts regularly. Adding it into my calendar, which I have also not updated in weeks. Wow. Who knew relief can feel like this? Everything feels blurry and spinning like I can't accept if this is reality because I was so sure it won't be.

I have a lot to work in myself.
To everyone still here for me, genuine thank you for all the kind comments, the useful comments, and everything in between.

 

[Ecdysis]

Hey... that's such great news - I'm very happy for you!

I know the relief must be overwhelming and it's important to give yourself a break and soak in the much needed positive feelings.

At the same time, I'm asking this out of concern: Do you have a plan for when rent is due next month?

 

[Teasel]

So pleased for you. All the best