PTSD

So, I've been having a hard time with my PTSD lately. This morning a woman knocked on our front door. My body immediately started shaking like a leaf. I have no reason to be worried, I haven't done anything wrong, but the instant someone knocks that I"m not expecting I go into this horrible fear.  My family has dealt with Child Protective Services several times. Our house hasn't always been to the point of clean that someone with kids would be expected to have.  My house isn't immaculate, but it's not dirty either. I still wouldn't have company over. I feel like, I start to make progress to organization and then it all manages to crumble down.

The other part in all of this is that financially we're truly struggling. We've been getting help for child care since April 2013. Both my husband and I were working. Things were great, until I lost my amazing job in June 2013.   Everything started crashing really at the end of May. We got a notice to quit from our last landlord. We spent from June-October looking for a place to live, thankfully we found the place we're in. Our landlord here has been amazing! He's worked with us since day one. Not only do we owe our security deposit and last month's rent, but we also owe rent since we've moved in here. Were you working you ask? Well yes, when we moved in here I was working at Target and my husband still had his courier job.  Then I started getting really sick. I had some nasty digestive issues for 4 days. So I went to an urgent care and found out I had issues with my gallbladder. Turns out I had to have surgery. So I let work know that I needed to be out of work the week of surgery and then 2 weeks post surgery.  I was getting 30-40 hours prior to surgery, but when I came back to work they were only giving me like 10 hours a week. I'm sorry, but that sure doesn't support a family of 6 (2 adults, 4 children). 

So, since I knew that I was unhappy and I wasn't getting what I needed for hours, I applied on my days off at temp agencies. I had a job lined up, didn't give my notice and just straight up quit. I got a job in the field I wanted, it wasn't the ideal position, but it was something. Then.. I lost my job 3 weeks into it. They said I was "too slow" but they absolutely loved me. If that's not a contradiction and confusing... So then, we went to visit my sister while we still had our Jeep and when we came home we had frozen pipes and no heat. Weird, when we left everything was fine.  So I called the landlord because it was after midnight when we got home. Not something one wants to come home to.  Mind you this was all the in the same weekend that I found out I had lost my job. This was the icing on the cake. So the next day, my husband called out of work so that we could get things taken care of.  We got in touch with our landlord, he called the oil company to get oil and to get the furnace restarted. He also had to call a plumber because the pipe in our laundry room/storage area burst. In it doing so our washer that we had paid off stopped working all of a sudden. When we left it worked fine.. weird don't you think? Even after the pipe was fixed, our washer STILL wouldn't work. 

When the oil company came we found out they had filled the vacant side of the building... if they hadn't done that, we would still have our washer, and things as you see trickle down.  It's been one thing after another.... my husband lost his job, we lost our truck, and now we're about to lose the NEW washer that we've been renting from rent-a-center. We're also renting a bunk bed set from there for our boys to sleep on as well.  At any rate, with no money we're not able to buy the things we need. 

Thankfully we have an amazing church, they've helped us in so many ways, unfortunately I don't know if they're going to be able to help us with this rental issue from rent a center. For us these items are wants they are TRULY needs.  Can I do laundry by hand, definitely yes, however with a family of 6, I'll never get it all done!  Anyway, last week while our pastor was visiting when brought some necessities for us our house was what I considered to be "trashed." Clothes, toys and ripped papers from the kids all over the floor. We hadn't cleaned up the dishes from the night before. We had just cleaned the living room 2 days prior, but it had already fallen apart.  So just two days ago in preparation for our pastor to come, we again started cleaning the kitchen, living room, front hall and so on. Really it was just maintaining. No matter how organized we get it, it seems to fall apart as soon as the kids come home from school. Our 3 1/2 year old daughter is always home with us, so she's always coming in behind and messing everything up anyways. 

  So that is my venting for my PTSD today. Still my chest hurts, at least I'm not shaking like a leaf like I was this morning.

Signed,

MistyRose-