I’m trying. I really am. I’m working on a meditation course. I’m doing the affiliate thing. I’m dashing at night, when I can stay awake long enough to do it. I’m being a caregiver, unpaid, to my in-laws. I’m working around the clock. Very literally.

I’m a chauffeur, a cook, a maid, a mom, a writer, an affiliate, a crystal healer, a delivery driver, occasional butt wiper, and so much. I am so much.

And I am drowning. I’m making no money. My kids are suffering because I can’t get it together. I’m losing my mind. The brain fog is so thick some days that I’m not sure how I continue to function. My depression medication isn’t doing much, but as my oldest told me the other day, there is only so much in can do in the face of so much ongoing trauma.

The hits just keep coming, and every time I think we might be reaching stable ground, something or someone comes along to sweep our legs out from under us again.

My mother-in-law (mil) fell in the shower about three weeks ago and hasn’t walked since. She tried, later that day, and fell again. Until Friday, she hadn’t left the front room where her bed is. For almost a week, my middle kid, my father-in-law (fil), and I got her up to mover her from her bed to her chair and back again. This included helping her change her and cleaning her up. She did eventually gain enough strength to do the basics on her own. On Friday, we got her into her wheelchair, a new purchase, down the new ramp, into the car, and to the doctor’s office for x-rays, where she fell trying to get back into the car. We are hoping for an easy repeat, without the fall, for her appointment later this week.

During all of this, my fil had to have a PET scan. That went about as well as you’re probably thinking. His cancer is back. Only this time it is in his spine. Can’t remove that like they did his kidney. He will be starting a six week radiation treatment in the next week or two.

I am the go to person. I am the one taking people to and from appointments (most but not all), taking people to work, and school, and theater rehearsal, and anything else. I’m the one doing a large portion of the errand running. I’m the one who can’t leave the house for long periods of time, because the in-laws can’t be left, and it should not be my middle kid’s job to take care of them. And then, at night, I go door dash, because there is no money. Because SNAP isn’t happening, and we just got a denial letter anyway – because I’m an able bodied adult that “isn’t working.” And because I’m trying with all my might to not be my parents.

I don’t want my kids to be the one’s that get looked at differently because they can’t partake in the overnight, or have the catered dinner with everyone. So, I pay for those things, and then have to scramble to make sure the bills get paid. Please understand that my kids do get told no, get told we can’t do that because there is no money. They don’t just get everything handed to them. That doesn’t mean I don’t do extra to save them embarrassment where and when I can. I remember the feeling all too well. It’s bad enough that the youngest has had to start occasionally going to the food pantry at his school so that we have food. He has scholarships for all the theater things he does, so I’ll be damned if he’s the only kid eating food from home during tech week.

I don’t know where to go from here. I can’t work during the day, because there is no money to pay for home help for the in-laws. That makes is my job. Because it doesn’t pay, it doesn’t count as a job. So, instead, I have to door dash 20 hours a week – overnight, since those are the only hours I have left in my day.

I’m going to break. I know I am. I can feel it coming. I just wish I knew what that break was going to look like. My guess, knowing I don’t have time to break, is that it will look like sobbing any time I’m alone. In the bathroom, in my car, between deliveries, when the kids get out of the car. And today, it looked like crying as silently as possible in the middle of Starbucks while enjoying my splurge and trying desperately to finish my mediation course.

As usual though, I will pick myself up, dry my eyes, and keep moving forward. I will distract myself with a chapter or two in whatever book I’m reading, I’ll take the next delivery, I’ll go pick someone up, I’ll do what needs to be done. Somehow, I just keep going. It is what I’ve always done. Probably some sort of trauma response, but that’s a post for another day – or maybe for the therapist I don’t have time to see, and couldn’t afford even if that time appeared.

I feel like I’m alone. I feel like I’m fighting this battle without help. Not just without help, but with those who should be helping me actively working against me half the time. I can’t fight anymore. I have enough battles happening, so I’ll let this one go. I will swim on, doing what needs to be done.

And I will figure out who I can sell my soul to in order to get my life together enough to save my kids and myself.

Sorry for the rambling. But this is Emily’s MindDump Madness for a reason. Some days, I just need to dump it all somewhere. And you lucky people get to read it. And for those of you that may be concerned, I am ok. I will not do anything drastic, and I will not ever consider taking my own life. I can’t do that to my kids.