Handing Over The Debit

A big part of managing mental illness is knowing what your limits are and drawing deep lines in the sand for other people to see and not cross.*  It doesn't always boost one's ego to have to say "Hey, I know you'd like me better if I could join this night fishing group of yours but I can't because if I don't try to get myself to bed early enough I might never go to bed again." or "I am no longer capable of managing the household bills." or even worse yet "I'm not sure I'm the friend you need right now."

What makes it even harder is when everyone around you thinks you're capable of moving mountains and loves you so much they are willing themselves to believe that if you really tried hard you might be able to fart 24 carat gold gas.  The love is so necessary, to have people always rooting for you, but it can backfire as it emphasizes the shortcomings you know for a fact that you have that no one else wants to admit to. 

I have now handed over the exciting task of doing all the bills to Philip, the dreamy headed artist with supposedly no head for figures and a phone phobia.  Some people might not think he's the best candidate to take over our family finances.  For some time now since everything has become so financially messy I have become nearly paralyzed by the amount of paperwork and double bills we get.  I have gotten to the point where I see the pile of mail and feel very thirsty for a festive beverage.  I get panic attacks just thinking about the tangled web of impossibility that our obligations have created for us.  I get dry in the mouth and then I ignore the knot in my stomach and do something completely unrelated to bills.

I do this all the time which is not a very proactive way to protect one's credit.  It is also the main reason why even when we have the money for the electric company it remains unpaid and we get 24 hour final notices.  Every month.

My pride says: tomorrow I will tackle this pile of crap that my life has been reduced to.  I will whittle away at it and take care of it all.  I will do this tomorrow.

But when tomorrow arrives and I make my first call to the mortgage company, with whom we are deep in trouble for being consistently one month behind in our mortgage, and they won't let me make a partial payment because they are ass-wipes who would prefer to keep charging us late fees (which makes such good sense: charge the poor people more money even though they're already in the hole and can't pay all at once) and I tell them how ridiculous it is that here I have some money and they won't fucking take it. 

So I go and do nothing in particular in a daze, trying not to fall apart before the kid gets home.

Philip is mentally ill too.  But every once in a while I become incapable of things I have always done and he can either step in and do a better job than me or he can join me under the rock I currently call my brain.

He has stood up to take the pain.  He is going to be completely in charge of our family finances.  I'm going to be a real June Cleaver and let him give me cash from his paycheck and I will give him my debit card.  The credit cards are already unusable.  (!!) 

Some women find this sort of arrangement uncomfortable.  It makes their feminist spirit rise in indignation...WE WILL NOT BE TREATED LIKE CHILDREN INCAPABLE OF DRIVING OUR OWN DESTINY.  Sit down ladies!  I do not want control of money any more.  It has become the dirtiest word in my head.

I would like the constriction of not being able to just whip out my debit card to buy things on a whim.  I'm not particularly a spendthrift but I do not budget myself wisely with the groceries and I let us go out to dinner much more often than we can afford and I constantly buy beer with my debit when we both know we can't afford it any more.

Letting go of things like control can open up parts of ourselves we cannot otherwise access.  There are other things to do in life than to be in control all the time.  I loved being a housewife.  I loved letting Philip bring home all the bacon.  I never once felt that I wasn't an equal partner.  His money is my money. Now we are both earning and my money is his money too.  I don't need to be in control of paying the bills to feel like a fully independent woman.

Reins...handed over.  I will give him my debit card tonight.  Goodbye convenient card and constant invitation to buy whatever I want. 

It's funny how I have ended up with a worse phone phobia than Philip and when we first married I didn't have any issues with the phone at all.  I no longer answer the phone if I can't see that it's someone I know. When I was a kid my chief joy in life (besides Barbies and books) was getting the mail from the mailbox every day.  A good dream always involves getting mail.  Now I go weeks without checking the mail because there is so rarely anything good in it.  Nothing but more bills and more invitations from credit card companies to dig myself a deeper quicker hole to hell.

Sometimes I have to insist that I have limitations that others don't (or don't want to) perceive.  I sometimes wonder if people in wheelchairs ever feel irritated by everyone trying to pretend they don't see the chair when obviously it has an impressive impact on their life.  I think it's harder to be mentally ill because if you aren't dragging your fists on the floor and drooling people just don't see the big deal with brain disorders.  I think most people who don't have them don't believe in them.  Not really.

No one will argue that Sylvia Plath was crazy depressed because-well- because she succeeded in killing herself.  But did anyone give her slack before that or was she just an irritatingly dark person who wrote poetry and dated maladjusted men?  Was everyone always thinking "Why doesn't she just get over herself?"

Mental illness can be insidious exactly because people can't always see evidence that it is getting in the way of a person's life.  Or that they have limitations.  The limitations always seem so imagined.  "If you just do it, like Nike says, just tackle that pile of bills every day you will get through it!"  (I slap that thought for the obnoxious sentiment that it is!!)

I've got a lot of limitations and I'm feeling them impose their will on me more each day.  Things that most of you can handle with a groan and a little push. 

Life has got to get a lot more simplified before I find my way back to where I want to be.

Life has got to become more elemental.  I need boundaries, like my child, and constant reinforcement of simple firm routines.  I need a budget and no access to distracting cash.  I need to cook, to clean, to exercise, and to write.  I need to take exactly one step at a time and not have to constantly anticipate the road ahead. 

Letting go is the mantra of my late thirties.  Let go of expectations.  Let go of hopes.  Let go of the past.  Let go of my head.  Let go of old thoughts.  Let go of old disappointments.  Let go of the rope around my neck.  Let go of the primal scream.  Let it rip across the universe like a tide of pain older than the ocean.  Let it reverberate endlessly away into the universe- away from me.  Outward traveling pain. 

Letting go of other people's expectations.  Letting go of other people's hopes for me.  Letting go of other people.  Letting go of the dirt I grabbed and held tight as though it would forever anchor the unanchorable.  Release the shock, the hurt, the bitterest taste.  Let go the old ribbons in dusty boxes.  Let go the things you thought you needed.  Letting go to feel the air wild on your ageless face.  Let go of the ghost town of words you have collected in your hollowness.

Asking someone with anxiety (especially OCD) to let go is a lot like asking them to die.

I am asking myself to let go and each fistful of crap I let go of leaves me a little more free to breath again. 




*It's ironic that this is one of those things that mental illness can make more difficult than it is for the average person.