The Insanity Continues

I'm not sure how this happened, but I seem to have another friend, also called Rachel, who is codependent (okay, I was a bit codependent with Rachel One, myself).

There are times when I just can't mentally/emotionally deal with my neighbor and her neediness. When this happens, I don't respond to her texts/phone calls. I know she doesn't know when I do this, how could she when I'm in my apartment and she's in hers? But after I've ignored a call and/or text, I'll get a text asking if I'm 'mad' at her (I put mad in quotes because I can't stand when people say mad when they mean upset or angry).

I get that this woman doesn't have a lot of people to lean on (and I think I know why), but I can't be at her beck and call.

She wants me to come home from my parents' this weekend and then take her to get a money order and to the post office to mail it. Um, no. I'm tired when I get home from spending all day at my parents' house. And driving her around to do her errands is putting too much wear and tear on my car.

I'm doing this here because she has a TikTok but I don't know if she's found mine or not. I guess I could always block her, but that hasn't worked with my daughter. Someone she knows keeps finding my videos where I talk about how I'm feeling and sending them to her which is causing strive and putting her under stress she doesn't need this close to her wedding.

An update to this post.
( Feel free to skip )

I know I haven't posted in like forever, not counting the Snowflake challenge responses, but I found TikTok (same username, if you're wondering) and have enjoyed being able to just make a quick video whenever I have something I want to talk about.

But recently, something happened that is making me not want to post over there any longer. And since I don't know how it happened, I refuse to allow it to happen again.

My daughter got engaged in October and quickly settled on March 2024 for her wedding date. Her fiance is an HVAC tech, and she's a hairdresser. Her busy time is around the holidays (September to December), and his is summer.

At Christmas, I asked her if she still wanted me to walk her down the aisle (back when she was considering going no contact with her father, she said she wanted me to walk her since I'm the one who actually raised her). She turned to me and said, 'I will not have anyone walk me down the aisle because that is an outdated, misogynistic custom. I am not property to be given away' in a very nasty voice. I feel like if we had been alone or outside, she would have screamed it at me, that's how forcefully she said it.

I backed off and didn't say anything else about it. Later in the day, I saw her talking to my sister-in-law (a woman she has stated to me that she does not like). When they finished talking, my daughter approached my dad, and when I looked back at my SIL, she winked at me.

I later found out that my SIL had talked her into asking my dad to walk her down the aisle.

She did not ask him at Christmas. She asked if she could take him to lunch on New Year's Day. She asked him then.

I made a post on TikTok about how this hurt my feelings because we had previously discussed me doing that and how adamantly she stated that she was not going to have someone walk her down the aisle. I never once said she owed me anything or that she couldn't have my dad walk her down the aisle. I merely stated that I was hurt that she all but shouted me down about this tradition and then went and asked my dad to do it.

People came to my comments and told me I was being selfish. How? All I did was tell a bunch of strangers how it hurt to know my daughter didn't want to have this special moment with me. If, when I asked, she had said, 'I think I want Granddaddy to walk me' I wouldn't have been as hurt. But I went online because I was not going to let her know my feelings had been hurt by this because I didn't think she should know.

Before I go on, I should mention that when we went dress shopping (my mother, his mother, and one of his aunts (I want to say his sister, too, but I can't remember), we went to lunch after. During lunch, the conversation turned to what she was going to do for her something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I mentioned that I have something for her something blue that I've had since 2007 (we went on a Disney cruise and got a couple of sapphire chips). I planned to have them turned into earrings that I would present to her on her wedding day as she gets dressed. She snapped, 'I'm not removing my earrings' (she wears a pair of sapphire studs that are the first gift he ever gave her, as well as a pair of opal studs he gave her for her last birthday). So, there are now two special moments that she has shut down before they could even take place.

She has stated numerous times that she'll be getting ready at another of his aunt's house because she lives close to the venue. Both she and my mother have said that my mother and I will arrive at the venue fully dressed. She also told me that I have to do my own hair and makeup, not that I expected her hair and makeup person to do me (although I got my hair done at the same time and by the same person who did my SIL and I wasn't in the wedding party).

I made another post saying that I was beginning to feel like she didn't want me to be involved in her wedding. By this time, I had also offered to officiate, but she asked her therapist instead.

There was also a comment I made about the cake tasting. She seems to be under the impression that the pieces provided are going to be just one or two bites each (I think they're usually enough for three or four bites especially if everyone uses a fork and takes just a small amount). I said that if there is a flavor I don't think I'll like, I won't taste it, leaving more for everyone else. She blew up; demanding to know which flavors. Then she hung up on me (but told my mother she thinks I hung up on her (I have moved, and my new place is in a bit of a dead zone (I rarely have more than one bar)) so my mother says the call must have dropped).

Someone (his mother most likely) found my videos and showed them to her so she canceled Mother's Day plans. When I called my mother, she yelled at me for 'airing our dirty laundry on the internet'. I was supposed to go to my grandmother's (she lives much closer than my parents now) to do my laundry a couple of days later but didn't want there to be any tension, so I said I'd find somewhere else to do my laundry and hung up.

My mother sent me several long winded texts, pretending to take some blame but really not because she is emotionally abusive. I didn't reply because I didn't (and still don't) want to argue about this.

I did not text or call my daughter during this time because I was respecting her boundaries.

I have allowed my daughter and her fiance to have my Hulu and Netflix passwords and decided that if my daughter had not texted or called by the end of the month, then I would change the passwords and remove them from my accounts and consider myself uninvited from her wedding.

But she texted me yesterday. So, I called my mother.

She forced me into the argument I had been trying to avoid. I told her that she does not get to tell me how I use my social media accounts. She tried saying that she understands that I use it to vent but said that I shouldn't turn off comments or block people (only people I have blocked are my soon-to-be son-in-law, his mother, and the women I work with (I do not friend coworkers on social media)).

The colors my daughter has settled on are sage green and lavender (she had originally said sapphire blue since sapphire is her birthstone but changed it since it's a spring-ish wedding). I had already made a wishlist of sapphire blue dresses (I'm in the process of losing weight so won't be buying my dress until much closer to the wedding). I now need to find sage green or lavender (she has not said which color she wants me to wear).

Today she texted saying that we need to start looking for me a dress. I told her that since I'm buying my own, it will be one I can wear again and will be bought from a regular store (AKA off the rack). She said she didn't say it had to be tailored, but she wants the dress issue settled by Christmas. I didn't reply, but I will not have my dress by then, and she can just deal with it. Especially, since I don't feel like this is something I have to adhere to since my size will most likely change between Christmas and her wedding. In MARCH!

I've been extremely lazy about sitting down and writing this post (I started it on 10/26). And because I put it off so long I have some ranting to do along with the squee I was originally going to post about. So I'll start with the rants and end with the squee. Everything is under a cut so you can pick and choose what you want to read.
( Fucking anxiety )
( Fucking coworkers )
( Fucking brat )
( Halloween! )
( Squee! )

So I've been having a rough time of it lately and that's making this post rather difficult to write. Added to that is the fact that there isn't anyone ( save maybe one person but I have no idea because we haven't talked in a while) who will even remotely care.

( I'm putting it under a cut so that you won't feel guilty for skipping over it )

I was determined to not come back online but I need to talk about the shit that's been happening in my life and the people around me are tired of hearing about it.

If you read the post I made about the issues I've had with my apartment then you'll have heard some of this already.

This all started back in 2013 when I went for my housing voucher renewal and was told that the housing authority no longer covers two bedroom apartments for two people (there are exceptions such as a parent and child of opposite sexes where the child is over a certain age) and so I would have to pay my portion plus the extra. I struggled to pay it, even after my raise. So I began looking for a one bedroom. Of course I had been wanting to move for a while anyway.

My voucher is from March to February every year and so I didn't get serious about moving until December 2014.

I found what I felt was the perfect apartment but fucked around and didn't go put in an application until near the end of January. By then they had decided that due to the renovations they were doing that they weren't going to accept any new vouchers until April or May.

I had been using an apartment locator site and contacted the agent working with me asking that he give me any apartments in my county that take housing and have an available one bedroom for the first of March. I stressed that I needed the information right away.

Because I had to give thirty days' notice, and with February only having twenty-eight days, I had to give my notice January 30th. He didn't get back to me until after February 1st. I had to make a decision before that so took an apartment that I didn't feel sure about (I wasn't allowed to view one prior to signing my lease).

The apartment has turned out to be horrible. My neighbors smoke (for a while I thought I was mistaken about that but the smell has gotten worse again and now my throat hurts from the exposure to the smoke) and the floor slants horribly. I could get used to the slanting floor but not the cigarette smoke (still recovering from pneumonia (more on that in a bit)). And just yesterday I discovered yet another reason to hate this place.

No cable company (except for Time Warner) services the complex. I had to get DIRECTV and Verizon 'high speed' internet. I use the quote marks because the speed is barely one step above dial-up (it is in fact dial-up but it's a bit faster than normal dial-up). I don't mind the satellite TV but no one told me that I had to have extra equipment to access any OnDemand programing; only that I needed the internet for it. I went online last night to order the needed equipment and was told that 'due to [my] payment history [they] had to add an extra fee'. On top of that it's a self-install kit but they want a professional to come out to install it. AND they want to charge me $198 for it ($99 for the equipment, $40 for what I'm guessing is the fee they had to add and $59 for the professional install).

Luckily I have Amazon Fire Stick (was planning on not getting cable at all but changed my mind) and can watch most of my shows that I missed over the past two weeks on Hulu or Netflix. But with how slow my connection is the playback freezes at times and the sound will continue without the picture causing me to have to back out and try again. It took me five hours last night to watch two SPN and one Grimm episode. I'm hoping it's not always that difficult.

And work. Don't get me started. Although that's what this is all about so.

Back in December 2014 my supervisor, E, announced she was leaving. Her husband decided that she was under too much stress and told her she could quit without having another job. So she did. The Friday before Christmas was her last day.

The new cash manager didn't start until sometime in January and he is from outside the company so he doesn't know how to do my job. How am I supposed to get assistance from someone who doesn't know how to do my job? It makes no sense.

As soon as he started here he started changing the way things are done. Some are for the better, some not.

After working major overtime from Thanksgiving through most of January I was mostly caught up. But somehow ended getting behind again in February. This was compounded by me getting sick in the middle of the month.

I thought it was just a cold and treated it as such. After a week I was almost back to one hundred percent. But then I woke up the morning of February 21 feeling like I'd been hit by a truck complete with fever chills. I bought more cold stuff and settled down to spend the weekend feeling like crap. The next day I threw up despite having nothing but water in my stomach. I decided that it must be something more serious than a cold so I went to the urgent care place.

Turns out they don't take my insurance. Luckily I still had most of my income tax otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go to the doctor.

I was at the clinic for over two hours. I feel asleep every time I was left alone in the room to wait. I'm not sure why the doctor decided to take x-rays but she did as well as a CBC and discovered that I had pneumonia. She gave me several prescriptions and told me to come back the next day.

I already had the day off because I was supposed to move but when I got up that morning I saw that it had snowed/iced overnight. I called the movers and rescheduled for the next day.

When I went for my recheck (the roads were mostly clear by noon) he told me more than the doctor the day before. For one thing the pneumonia was only on my right side (explaining why she didn't admit me to the hospital) and my heart rate had been 120 (normal is much less than that). He said I was recovering fine and to keep taking the scripts, plus refilled my cough syrup (I went through two bottles in just over three days). I should have asked how long he wanted me off work but I didn't.

Tuesday my mother came over to direct the movers and pack a bit more. They had me out of my apartment and into my mother's in about four and a half hours. That took a huge chunk of the remainder of my income tax.

I all but collapsed after they left because I was going to try to go back to work the next day.

While at work I fell asleep at my desk (something I do nearly every day ever since and I'm afraid it's gonna get me fired) so I asked to go home; where I slept the afternoon away.

The next morning I got up and was watching TV when I fell asleep in the chair. And slept until time to get ready to go to work. I decided that was my body telling me I wasn't ready to go back to work. I didn't go to work that Friday either because I didn't see the point at that stage.

I was staying with my parents because my new apartment wasn't going to be ready for me to move in until March 13th. I kept expecting to get a call telling me that it had been inspected but I never got one. I figured that was because of the weather (we had several days of ice). When I called March 9th I was told that the inspector wouldn't be able to inspect until Friday. I began begging that they do so (I really needed my own space despite my mother basically leaving me alone). They didn't inspect it until the following Tuesday.

That Wednesday, March 18th, I was finally able to get in to see it.

I was appalled at first by the stench of cigarettes (the leasing agent that tagged along said it was fresh paint), then by how small it is. I didn't even notice the slating floor until later.

This apartment is not a peaceful place for me so my anxiety levels are still high and that is not good.

I emailed my case worker to tell her about the issues with the apartment (minus the issues with cable/internet because I didn't know about them yet) but then it appeared that my neighbors were not smokers (the smell wasn't as strong as it had been). I told her that I think I can live with it but now I'm not so sure.

For the past several days the cigarette smell has been as strong as if a smoker was sitting in the room with me smoking a cigarette (I've had several people ask when I started smoking again) and my throat is scratchy. Seeing as how I'm still recovering from pneumonia I think I need to move.

But before I do that, I've asked that the air filter be changed. If that makes a difference then I will just grit my teeth and make do with this crappy apartment. But next April is a hell of a long way away.

Update: They changed the filter today and the smell is better, absolutely none when I first arrived home. But as I've sat here this evening it has begun to smell again and I can almost taste it again. We'll see how it is in the morning.

As most of you know my apartment flooded Saturday night. Ever since then she has told any and everyone who will listen that she's appalled at the condition of my apartment, as if it's my fault the upstairs neighbors' toilet overflowed. Vic and I are having to stay with her and my father this week, yay! *very sarcastic*, and they will talk about me like I can't hear them. I've also been ill since Saturday, as in physically ill, and they don't seem to care. Yesterday I started feeling better so we went over to my apartment and got some stuff done then had lunch. While eating I got to feeling bad again. When my father came home I'm not sure what my mother said at first but all of a sudden I heard my father say something about not caring then my mother said that I had done some stuff but after I ate lunch I got to feeling bad again. My mother also told the apartment manager that she would personally make sure my apartment never looked like that again, once again as if it's my fault the toilet overflowed. She told my father, knowing I could hear her, that the manager said 'You have no idea how much I appreciate that.' I know I'd never be able to handle this on my own but I really wish they'd leave me alone when it comes to how I keep my own fucking house!