Rusty & Wolf 2019

A Few Notes about this blog

Right now, Wolf is heading back to court for a second order of protection based on new information recently learned.

That leaves me to be concerned for our mental and emotional wellbeing. The primary reason is we are both triggered and a number of unpleasant feelings arise for each of us, individually, and as a couple. We share trauma from his father. Inflicted upon us during 2017 and 2018, when I mistakenly moved in with Wolf, who was living with his father. It has not stopped, clearly. This is the second (2nd) Order of Protection Wolf is seeking.

With that, I choose to be vague not because I want to hide the names of people doing great work. It is because I need to hide our location as much as possible. We are living in the age of technology, or Internet, and with that comes built in inherent risks.

Even medical and legal forms are beginning to be more clear about the risk of a breach. There are few things every victim can afford to protect themselves online. I, nor Wolf, can afford them. We take some risks anyway and minimize the potential as much as we can.

Feelings of …, II

I hold feelings of shame, embarrassment and humiliation over my financial lifespan as well. It is terrible. As are, likely, any reason for feeling these three emotions.

So, Rusty, write about them.

What better time than when your stomach is grumbling, you realize you are out of coffee, it is cold, damp and lightly raining as you write about this. While you wonder about how little you can, and will eat, to make the money last a bit closer to next month’s SSI fixed income payment arrives. In addition, you hold hope. Hope, which by the way ebbs and flows with each loss. This week’s major loss. Wolf’s unemployment stopped.

We knew it was coming. We tried as hard as we could to save for it. No matter what, it is a loss. Financial, yet again, it seems.

On top of what we need already. We call home our truck. Home needs: tires, a couple of switches, an oil change, shocks/struts and a deep cleaning. Yeah, I have to include the silly stuff. It helps me keep some feeling of ‘normal’ . [Normal, here, being days when I had a roof over my head, money to get the car washed every couple of months and could make coffee, myself. At times, I even had a social life. Different degrees and types, of course. Still, the good days …. ]

But, how good where those days?

Really? How good? Tough question to ask yourself, Rusty, for sure. Let’s explore at a different moment.

Financials is the point.

I did not learn how to manage money and advocate for raises and many other important life skills necessary to be a productive participant in society and have long-term self-sufficiency.

I thought I had. As the years went on and the mistakes piled up, became more costly and took their tremendous toll on my entire physiological wellbeing, clearly, not so much.

In 2019, we went to my mother’s in the hopes of learning better financial management and wellness, amongst other things. It went south, seven ways from Sunday, in a colossal shitshow! Those four months were the worst ever. (I assure you, I have comparisons that will make you really wonder.)

Now, I am on SSI. I have retroactive monies due me. Yet, I learned it will be difficult for me to obtain them. While I live in a truck barely making ends meet and short on cash due to not understanding how tough the area we are in is on loitering. We do not want. Nor do we want police interaction of any kind. So, we must move constantly.

This is surviving. Not living. Not existing. Simply surviving. When you are surviving this way, knowing your role and responsibility, even within the context of enduring severe abuse throughout the past fifteen plus years, the feelings of shame, humiliation and embarrassment seem normal and valid just as deeply as the negative sense of self this topic, among many others, leaves me with.

Be well!

Healthy was missing. I did not know.

How can I know, healthy is missing, when I was not taught healthy?

As I write those words, I realize they are incorrect, partially.

I have had healthy people in my life since birth. What I did not have was either enough of them or they did not have the knowledge to see what and who my father was. He is a psychological abuser whose primary form is narcissism. He was like this is entire life from what I do know and understand.

It is his children and grandchild who bear the brunt of the pain. His wife, my mother, washed her hands of him immediately. She washed her hands of me for a husband no one seems to see for who he truly is either. A predatory narcissist.

A Dissector and a Fixer

Wolf is the Fixer. For sure.

Recently he told me I am a dissector. “Not a science type.” We both laughed because there is surely truth in that.

Depending on how you think of science.

I am a soft science person. Roles can be dissected.

Wolf is hard science through and through. Parts can be repaired. Sometimes fixed.

An example of how we differ. Also how we complement each others weaknesses.

Certainly makes for an interesting relationship and dynamics. Add in shared trauma, trauma bonding and day to day life, it can be as bad as it is good.

It is our normal. For better or worse.

Stay safe!

Bored. Now what?

Dear Diary,

I am bored! For years, I struggled with anxiety and it resulted in so many problems.

I fought to have the cognitive capabilities and inner strength to stop avoiding, summon up enough internal strength and courage to face the problems. (Read my posts about student loan debt for one prime example.)

Speechless, over Strengths Perspective

In disclosure, I have my Master’s Degree in Social Work.

This did not stop me from being speechless in couples therapy when our therapist said, “Wolf sees you from a strengths perspective.”

It is true. We spoke about it. He does see me that way. The quintessential core of social work and until she said it the way she did, I did not truly get it. Thus, how could I understand?

I cried today.

Sometimes, it is all I can do. Other times, it is a release. Every time, it is needed.

I cried because no matter, the systems I deal with are not meant to help people get out. They are meant to keep them in.

Don’t agree?

That is a luxury I do not nor can I afford to have. At all. Ever.

Strong words, probably. Well, yes. Yet, they are my raw, real truth.

After all, diary. I can’t even afford to dream right now.

Or can I?

“I can’t afford to dream right now.”

Those may have been the toughest words I have spoken in a while. How come?

Because they flowed out of my mouth in conversation. They hurt to, both, hear and say. They did.

How can one afford to dream when our home is a truck, our credit is poor, our shared trauma consumes me, and when we thought we were correct, we learned, it was only correct IF a person understood how we thought or felt? Again, context is important.

When you do not learn good, healthy or functioning properly, any person is hard pressed to make good decisions. I believe that is fair to say.

Further, hindsight is always a broader view. There is so much more information. Yet, until a person can look back, with a different perspective or view, then hindsight is still limited. Or, less comprehensive. I think that fits better.

Hindsight has shown me much. Too much perhaps. Not enough, maybe. Truthfully, it varies too much for me to bother tracking that. Even I, now, can see that point.

With that point, and a bit of progress, I will return to working on being able to dream.

Right after I beg Social Security to release my retroactive monies so I can get tires for the truck, pay off my debts, secure housing and purchase a propane burner so we can heat up hot water.

This, mind you, Reader, is not exactly what I consider a storyline for a modern rendition of It’s a Wonderful Life.

I’m just sayin’ ….

My Pyrotechnician Internship

First, a pyrotechnician is a person who is able to work with professional grade fireworks.

Wolf has been one for over a decade. It is not a full-time job. It is a fun side gig! Over the years, I tried to go to shows and was not able to. (The reasons are beyond the scope of this post.) Eventually I made it to a show. It was a necessity for Wolf I attended. The night drive with his then sleep apnea was the reason.

Over the years, we had great times and bad times, of course. People we met and laughs we had. Finally, I attended a yearly training. And the show I attended with Wolf was spread over two nights with one complete day in between. Yet, I loved the show we did. The following year, we made arrangements to stay there for the weekend.

We pitched a tent with the staff who work at carnivals. “Whoa. Um, okay.”, was my first thought. Different. Interesting.

We got on the highway to go back and tears rolled down my face. I did not want to go back to anything we were headed for once we left the shop for home.

I felt different. I felt whatever I, and we, were enduring needed to stop. More so, it HAD to stop. It was wrong, unhealthy and abusive. No person ought to be made to live in fear. We had a choice. Each of us had a choice. We simply did not really know what else to do except go back and try again.

That was likely the first time I “revised” differently, I realized as I wrote this. Good to know, Rusty. Nice observation. Explore it further in therapy.

December 20, 2020

It is interesting to me how homelessness is similar to death. For those who are actively experiencing it, it is the core of their being while around them, the world goes on.

Many years ago, I took a college course about Death, Dying and Grief from a multicultural perspective.

United States culture minimizes death as we do almost everything else. (The current global pandemic notwithstanding of course, yet, too early to tell.)

Grief and homelessness are lonely to begin with it. They are often isolating also. Yet, we endure. What else can we do?