Venting Soon at my breaking point

[DaughterOfSekhmet]

Hello everyone.

This is my introduction here, as well as the description on my profile page.
I found this forum just some hours ago, and I am so grateful for its existence.

I am a 44 year old woman from Sweden who have battled depression and anxiety since my early teens, and in 2011 I was diagnosed with depression, general anxiety disorder with anxiety attacks, as well as CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder).
My childhood was difficult, as I lived in a family ruled by my very controlling narcissistic mother and enabling father.
I was severely bullied during my school years, from the age of six, when I went to preschool, and up to when I was fifteen years of age.
At eighteen I married a man with a very rare hereditary blood disease (an unspecified kind of severe hereditary anaemia). He requires regular blood transfusions to remain alive, and during the years, his condition has worsened, so much that in 2002, he applied for disability, which every Swedish citizen has the right to do because of the tax funded social security system, and in 2003 he applied for handicap assistance.
He is wheelchair bound now, since 2003, and now has to receive transfusions every three weeks instead of every fourth month.
We had to fight a very steep uphill fight for his right to handicap assistance, and were met with many obstacles and suspicion, but in 2004 he was granted his help, and could employ me as his main assistant (50 hours a week) and another person who worked half time (25 hours).
We bought our first apartment in 2006 and in 2010, we were told his right to assistance was to be reevaluated.
This is when my accelerated decent into severe depression and anxiety began.
I've seen a psychologist and psychiatrist since early 2011,and have been on antidepressants and anti anxiety medication since then.
And on the morning of the 13th of December (in Sweden, this is a special day with happy celebrating, called "Lucia"), the administrator handling his case, called and told him he had no longer any right to any help from the system, and that he had to apply for handicap assistance from the municipality of the town in which we reside.
He did so, and has received half of the time of handicap assistance he got from the government from the municipality since 2011, and has had to go through extensive and exhausting re-evaluations every two years since then, each time with the horrible uncertainty of not knowing whether or not he was going to lose his help or live with some kind of human dignity for two more years.
This has taken its toll on both of us.
Not only does he have to live with a severe disease and the uncertainty of a significantly shortened life span and his disability, he also has to live with the uncertainty that he can lose his help at any time, but also that if he loses this help, I will have to find another job and leave him alone for hours at a time, during which he is almost helpless.
If I don't find a job, we have no income.
No income, no home, no food, no health care. Nothing.

Today, he received the latest decision on his application for assistance, and he was again denied everything.
Everything.

The municipality even had the gall to offer him home help for the elderly, where a multitude of persons who do not know who he is or what he needs will come at certain intervals and maybe help him to get the floor vacuumed and the clothes washed, for a hefty fee, of course.
We will definitely appeal and do everything we can to make the municipality change their decision, but I am at the point of breaking.
I have fought for him and for me for twenty years, battling the authorities, and since 2011 I've been working much more than 80 hours a week (with pay for 38 hours a week, and no additional help), with no vacation.
Now, we face this.
I am literally at the end of my rope.

I love life, and I am not going to do anything rash, I am a meticulous planner and intend to do everything to get through this, but if things get too unbearable, I will end my life, after having made sure everything is well planned, carried out, and my last wishes written down.

I have considered many different ways of ending my life, and I own two self deliverance books. (I don't know if I am allowed to write the titles, so I will leave that for now.)

I am new to all abbreviations here, and don't really understand them.

I don't know what else to write here, and I don't know if this is a cry for help or just confirmation or understanding of my problems.

Love //
Daughter of Sekhmet

 

[VoidDesirer22]

More than 80 hours a week? How is that physically possible. 40 leads to mind break for me. The world really is dishing you a bad hand there.

 

[Feeding Pigeons]

Bless you for putting up such a fight for so long. You're way tougher than I am.

 

[FuneralCry]

I'm sorry that you are in this situation. It sounds like you have been through a lot. I know that it is hard to carry on when you are suffering so much and cannot take anymore. Whatever happens, I wish you the best.

 

[Callie Arcale]

I want to wish you the best of luck with your appeal. May you guys get the assistance and financial help you should get. I hate how the so-called wellfare state treats some people who are ill. The system is inhumane, it's badly broken.

You're amazing for finding the strength to appeal the decision

Greetings from someone who battles anxiety and panic attacks as well.

 

[DaughterOfSekhmet]

Thank you to all of you who comment on my post. I truly feel a sense of community here, even though I have only been a member for 24 hours.
Today I have contacted my husband's doctor, a specialist in hematologi, a lawyer and a friend from my political sphere of acquaintances who might help us get in touch with media and politicians in power in our town.
I will go through my husband's entire medical history, from birth and up until the last page once we receive all the medical journals from the different hospitals in which he has been treated.
I have spoken to my psychologist and had an emergency meeting set up after this weekend.
I will meet my psychiatrist in a week also.
I write in my journal each evening, about my thoughts, feelings, completed tasks, our animals and their health as well as assessing my mental state such as anxiety, panic attacks, depression, suicidal thoughts, suicidal planning, physical stress induced pain in a scale from 0 to 20 where 0 is puppies and kittens playing in spring grass and 20 is nuclear meltdown.
I also keep track of my medication and their doses so that I can check back on those notes if need be.

I've been crying for hours today, and I feel guilty because I don't want to worry my husband with my emotions and make his situation even more difficult than it already is.

I have devised a system of writing in three notebooks. One is called "Constructive Toughts" and helps me list my worries, questions, fears and feelings. I then write down any possible triggers like lack of sleep, poor nutrition, anything that might have happened to me during the day which triggered me, like a film, an article in a magazine or a song I heard.
After that I write down possible solutions to those problems, any I can think of that might help, both in small ways, and sometimes in larger ways.
Then I revisit the first list and see if my "feel bad score" has diminished to a lower number.
Sometimes it does.
I keep this notebook by my bedside at all times.

Another book I use starts with a letter to myself that I wrote when I felt much better after a very trying time. A notebook in which I try to explain that I will always and in some ways encounter setbacks, sorrow, fear and rage, but that there are lovely, fun and beautiful things to remember when I am down.
Examples in it are what I most remember about going to my favorite amusement park, visiting the adventure swimming pool, riding, good food, holidays that I remember with fondness, that special summer evening when I heard a blackbird sing just outside my window, how lilacs and kittens smell, going skating etc.
I compile these lists like: Summer morning. Barbecue with friends, daytrip to the summer vacation cabin when I was little, music I liked as a kid, and music I enjoy now.
All wonderful tastes and smells, sights, sounds and sensations, like the softness of my husband's cheek when he sleeps, or the feeling I get when I crawl down into a freshly made soft bed, what it feels like to walk in thick snow during a clear winter evening with the sky deep blue, deer walking by, migratory geese flying overhead, honking to each other, the warm light from someones kitchen window as they prepare their evening meal and how the golden light spills out onto the glittering snow...

There are also contact information to doctors, lawyers, help organizations and people I can trust, as well as strategies for coping with the authorities.

The last book is my venom-dripping, sulfuric acid oozing outlet for any hateful, angry curses I want to vent, about the system, certain persons, authorities, and events like environmental changes, poverty, injustices and more.
In that book I let it all out, but with a disclaimer that I will not act on any possible threat to anyone.
The book is for venting and writing until I feel that the negative emotions and thoughts have run dry.

Well, this was a long and rambling post, but I thought it might help you out there understand me more.

If anyone is interested in how this system works, please don't hesitate to ask me and I will do my best to explain.

Again, thank you so much for your words of compassion and understanding.

Love //

DaughterOfSekhmet

 

[Live Free or Die]

I don't know what to say to comfort you. But I want you to know that you are among friends here. Our suffering binds us, even though we are oceans apart. I feel your emotions through your posts. Empathy allows us to take some of the hurt of others upon ourselves and lighten their burden. Don't be afraid to share anything that's on your mind. We will listen and never judge. Welcome to SS. ❤

 

[DaughterOfSekhmet]

Thank you so very very much!
It means so much to me to read this.