I have almost stopped placing entries in here. I am very demoralized and losing ground in my life generally although I keep thinking there cannot be more places to lose ground.
There are so many ways to be wrong!
The CCTV cameras have stopped working. The monitor acting as the central peg in the whole system has ceased and will not let me enter any commands. It will be hard to replace because the company (Uniden) is one of those corporations making things in constantly changing and short lived styles and fittings. It is as big a problem for us in the face of the problems with the global waste stream and is another factor driving people like me deeper into poverty. We cannot afford to replace entire systems every year or so.
When I do an ink drawing I wear arm length gloves to keep it clean and prevent scuffing. The work space is one of the few places cleaned every time it is used and the drawing is kept in brand new clear plastic sleeves. I have been ill for most of the summer so far and everything has been stored away. The drawing I took out a few minutes ago has dirt stains and scuffs on it. It gives a sinking feeling in my stomach. It is just supposed to be an easy casual ink work but to continue means drawing it again and it becomes intensive work. I don’t understand.
On the up side the nights at this time of year are beautiful and the air by the coast is almost delicious. On the rare night I can sleep the bed is dragged against the double doors so the breeze flows over me. It is scented with the flowers and the clean grass and even the ocean which is not too far away.
This place is too small. It is one of my constant complaints. In order to walk between the furniture and piles of paintings and materials I have to take part steps. Little steps. My legs are crippled though and I find it painful and difficult to make them work that way. The furniture is forever catching my feet and they are just healed from broken bones in both of them. With bad diabetes the constant damage to my feet is more than just painful. It is terrifying. A few nights ago I had to turn around in a cluttered hall and my legs could not make the complex move. I tripped and fell through one of the large canvases being prepped for an attempt at a large painting. I had really struggled to free the money to buy it and then struggled more to get enough gesso and so on. Demoralizing!
There is a medium sized canvas where I ripped off the cheap material and replaced it with pure cotton duck in a heavier weave. I have not felt strong enough to try putting gesso on that and may not have enough anyway. In this world the stress of finding out there was only enough material to part paint a coat of gesso is as exhausting as scrubbing the kitchen.
I have managed to find the energy to do some of the urgent chores like vacuuming beneath the bed and cleaning the tiles in the bathroom. I am very proud of myself there. Cleanliness is important.
Things aren’t too bad although I need help badly. I don’t know what to do about that. After the behavior of the housing staff, the inbreds at Budgewoi, the local contractors, and the support coordinators I would have to be mad to knowingly bring anyone into this space without expecting them to try and have me charged for threatening language or sabotaging the cameras or worse “accidentally” damage the work. The problem is also I cannot relax because if they come when I am ill I can be triggered. When someone starts arguing with me I relive a fist smashing the bones in the front of my face. I can hear it and see it and immediately begin defending myself. One of the delights of Complex PTSD!
I suppose it brings us to the Psychologists.
On the radio there was a story where the heads of the mental health finally decided to do performance reports about the way this form of mental health care is working. It isn’t and I hope their attention does not get buried by the politics. A large part of the problem for me is one where culture wars combined with my defending me against government agencies as well as being harmed by being driven from my apartments and losing big chunks of my health each time. I have been driven deep into insanity and had my mind and ego, my memory and intellect scrambled. For them all this is an immense hot potato and they don’t want me to benefit when they despise me so much nor do they want to have the fact that the system is cruelly ruining men’s lives formally documented.
The culture wars do not exist for many of the people suggested as victims. There is an inclination for people with prestige and entitlement to bully and rob people without entitlement. People without money and prestige cannot defend themselves because the agencies built to guide them and protect them are populated by the entitled who work as packs if the non-entitled person looks like making a successful defense. Often low income people have low academic grades and can barely understand they are being preyed on. They certainly don’t have the tools to survive in a room full of suits. That is not to say there are not dedicated and capable people within the agencies but they have to act below the radar once the pack sets its mind on harming someone
The GP was informed I have given up trying to get sense out of the mental health doctors but I may try another approach. Apart from that I don’t know what to do.
My body’s level of fitness declines rapidly in this place.
The electricity bill came for the summer quarter and it was $300 which means it is going up by 100% in the last few years despite me removing many of the systems and changing the others to power saving types. I don’t even cook with electricity any more. That alone should have saved me a lot of money.
I arise every morning in the grip of terrible grief and anxiety. I feel every effort I make will be wasted. I feel homesick and it unmans me and forces me to fight for hours to gain back mental alertness
We are selling Barbara’s little scooter on GumTree. I bought her new batteries because she had no transport without her scooter and that seems to have prompted someone to buy her a new machine so my considerable expense was wasted. Anyway I hope someone gets use of this machine. Gum Tree seems to be put together very well and the process is easy and friendly. The scooter is a tough little thing and runs really well.
That was the third sleep I needed to get through the process of writing the post. It is a bit boring and whiny.
The Coastal Brown Ants (Pheidole Megacephala) have invaded. They are a tiny little ant with several different sized workers and soldiers. They are an invasive species and incredibly hard to destroy or stop. There are Ant-Rid baits and Ant-Rid indoor liquid and some proprietary bug killing dust which the ants have universally ignored and continued to thrive. They are mega colonies in massive multi-queen cities and without an overall attack with special flakes impossible to kill. The bank account is pretty low but I have ordered some other granules for outside to kill them. I will have spent about $60 all up trying to get rid of them.
They get into the water and food put down for the skinks to find. The skinks have been sitting on my feet when I am on the computer and it gets cool outside. For a long while it freaked me out to feel something crawling on my foot where I couldn’t see it but I have trained myself to sit still and slowly check with a torch I keep handy. I figure if it is a snake or big spider my feet will be alright if they don’t move. That last image is a baby skink sitting on my foot a few weeks back
The photographic ID allowing me to use disabled parking spots has run out. The paperwork says I must hand it back immediately until I get it renewed. Nuh. It is the only ID I have that banks and other agencies will accept apart from a license or passport. I went down to renew it but they need a doctor’s certificate. I am sick of that. I have updated several documents in the past few months and every one required a new doctor report.
After several months NDIS has not reviewed my plan nor have they contacted me about the chair I need.
The carers I use to assist me with shopping and transport are nice but they regularly refuse to eat with me. That means they often sit like stuffed dummies watching me eat. It is uncomfortable and another thing that makes me feel worthless