I've been dealing with fallout of deciding to go into massive incredible debt to, oddly enough, avoid losing my home. It's been a fun week.
Back story. I decided I needed to quit letting bad situations get worse and just f*%#ing deal with things, which sounds all adult and positive. I closed the checking and savings accounts I've had for so long that my account number needed extra zeros at the beginning because the new (created after like 2005) accounts are much longer. There were a lot of screw-ups and increasingly bad customer service which was not doing my anxiety any favors. So I researched banks with actual physical buildings in town and that have existed longer than six months and that don't have names like Billy Bob's Bait & Banking and switched everything. Which also wasn't a fun fair for anxiety. But then it was done and yay. Moving on.
My car insurance rate did a huge jump, which I could understand in 2020 and 2021, the deer incidents. But my insurance didn't go up until 2023? So I emailed my perky positive agent (at least that's what she looks like in her pic but I've never actually spoken to her I just inherited her when the previous agent sold her business and while I had talked to her a few times she also just came with office when my original agent retired abd now that I think about it there might have heen one more brief agent somewhere in there) and got a positive perky reply (read it, you'll agree it is aggressively perky) of yup Kentucky rates are going up. Then a follow up email from her which was actually a forwarded reply from a higher up agent agreeing that yup Kentucky rates are cray-cray. (To make it as confusing as possible both agents are named Michelle, spelled the same, which is my legal first name/spelling, too. So Michelle emailed Michelle about Michelle's rate concerns. Michelle replied to Michelle, who forwarded that to Michelle. This is seriously what all of elementary and high school was like for me and why you should never name your child the current trend name.) Anyway, I researched insurance companies, ultimately going with the one that let me do ever online as local agents never returned my phone calls and it was getting down to renewal time.
Yes, I did both of these things in the sane 2-3 weeks. I think I started the insurance switch first. . . Whatever. It's just an anxiety-filled blur now.
A couple of weeks ago the new insurance got around to sending out an inspector (it's a home-auto bundle policy). And he started a whole new chain of anxiety by noting three things I absolutely must repair on my home or the new insurance company will drop the home policy which the mortgage bank requires while I still have a mortgage. So no repairs = no insurance = mortgage default = no home.
panicpanicpanicpanic
And I have to prove I had all of the repairs done by legit licensed people by mid-November.
panicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanic
So suddenly I'm researching local roofers and general contractors and leaving voicemails and clicking here to schedule a free consultation and no one is responding. I finally had two roofers come on Friday and both made "oh d+%n this will be expensive you're f*%#ed" faces when they climbed around. And they were not kidding. It could be worse, a phrase I really despise but it's true in this case; Bestie's roofing project is close to 6-digits while mine is upper 4-digits.
So I did what any responsible adult would. I hyperventilated all night, called in sick Saturday morning, and begged a desperate last-minute weekend meeting with a loan officer at my new bank. (You remember. The one I've been with for a whopping two months. I haven't been overdrawn -- I was only overdrawn at old bank when they made a big booboo like bouncing a check neither to nor from me on my account.)
And realized a home equity line of credit is the only way I will be able to afford all of the repairs. And if, like me, you aren't entirely sure what a home equity line or loan is but think it sounds kinda maybe like a second mortgage? Yes, it is a second mortgage. Which is a term I heard grownups use when I was a kid in the 1970s and 80s, and it was always said in the same hushed tone as "cancer" and "AIDS". So I totally get why finance people decided they really needed to change the name.
Since approximately noon on Saturday, I've been waiting to find out if I have cancer (or maybe AIDS). But hoping-waiting, not dreading-waiting. The bank and some other company called an underwriter (unless the underwriter is part of the bank, but I don't think so) are thoughtfully keeping my spirits up with an advanced scavenger hunt. I surprised them by (unfortunately) having most of the odd document requests already in an electronic format and knowing how to upload saved files to a website. Which I still have plenty of time to pencil in impromptu anxiety.
I crescendoed to a full blown "I'm having a heart attack call 9-1-1" panic attack Wednesday night. I took one of those really nice, mild pain killers they gave me for my pancreas while I was waiting for surgery in the spring. Because if course I ran out of cbd oil this week. I barely felt the effects, but after an hour or so my heart rate was down to, oh I guesstimate about 1,000 beats per minute. Since I was finally starting to calm maybe a tiny bit I listened to one of the "short guided meditation for sleep with ocean sounds" that I usually fall asleep with. I did not fall asleep, but my heart continued to chill fown to just a couple hundred bpm. I could almost take a sorta raspy (not terribly) deep hreath after another hour, hour and a half. So I played a slightly different ocean waves meditation by the same group (the speaker has a nice mild English midlands accent). And got almost two hours of non-REM sleep.
It's Saturday again. Since Wednesday's panic I have:
had another panic attack
taken another prescription pain med to maybe shut up at least some part of my brain because turning even one voice off is something
listened and tried to deep breathe along with five guided meditations (I really need to subscribe to their website because there's always a loud and enthusiastically perky commercial after the meditation on youtube and it's disturbing. "Glad you're relaxed and chill AND IT'S BACK TO SCHOOL AT OLD NAVY!!!!"
almost od'ed on coffee
obsessively played a free (glitchy) online game. And I don't mean some cool cutting edge freeware that only unix know about. No, this is a totally mindless Facebook puzzle/hidden object game. I'm so obviously just trying to have any sense of accomplishment, win at something. Anything.
bought cbd oil because I am aware that misusing prescription medications can lead to very big, serious problems
eaten a pint of ice cream for second breakfast yesterday
been suffocatingly hot but under the surface I'm f%cking freezing, like my skin is practically blistering from heat while my organs shiver themselves silly.
Yes, there has been stress eating and a stress rash along with the panic attacks.
Tomorrow is supposed to be hot and sunny with absolutely no chance of rain. I'm going to layer on so much sunscreen you'd never guess my original skin color, sit (/sleep) in my inflatable pool, and read a very funny book by another blogger.
And probably have at least one more panic attack for the week.
p.s. I only needed one pain pill during my three weeks of chronic pancreatitis. I used zero pain pills (never even filled the prescription for the full-dose pills) after surgery. But all of that pain, bad as it was, was absolutely nothing compared to feeling my heart beating so hard and fast I'd swear it actually bruised against my ribs. It's almost 48 hours since the second follow-up panic attack and my muscles are as tensed and unyielding as they were during the worst of the attack.
If you've never had one, I'm glad for you really and I truly hope you never do. Please don't make things worse for someone who is. "It'll pass." "It's not that bad." "Let's look at <whatever you assume is the cause> logically." You want to help, but you're not. No, don't argue with me. I know your intentions are good. I really do. But I have minimal control of my body and zero control of my mind and I just can't worry about reassuring you.
"Stop crying" is, of course, the worst thing you can say, but "I know how you feel" is just as bad. If you really knew you wouldn't say that, you'd ask me what I need to do and then let me do it.
Many people need to move, walk the room, whatever. Others (like me) need to sit very still. Very very very still. I have to start reasserting control. I move and it's like everything comes out of my head. (I picture it like the flying monkeys jumping out of the window and the background sky is full of monkey silhouettes. Oh no, Dorothy, the monkey army is coming!) So still.
Quiet is good, but again, ask. I've been shamed enough that I just can't have people around. Even kind caring concerned people who just want to offer a hug and tissues and water as needed. But other panickers (I like this word, it's so close to picnickers it seems positive and chill) might welcome someone dear holding their hand.
Just ask. We might not be able to coherently articulate it, but we know what we need to get through it.
p.p.s. That is totally not the postscript I planned. And I know I had others, too. But I'm getting too jittery to follow my breadcrumbs of thoughts -- which, let's face it, are just wandering all through the forest and are, at best, just going to get us back to square one. And I really need to pee. And then try to sleep.
I'm sorry for any typos or sentences that just do not make sense. There's no way I can proofread tonight and if I try tomorrow I'll probably decide to delete the whole thing. So I'm hitting Save & Publish now
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