Bad day

I am so on the edge here. Feeling very overwhelmed with too many things coming at me at once. I spend so much time trying to block everything out and pretend everything is fine, but when one of the balls I have up in the air comes crashing down it seems like it brings everything else down with it. I know that I'm making a bigger deal out of things than I need to, but since I haven't been allowing myself to deal with anything, it makes dealing with the little things that much more difficult. I feel like everything is closing in on me and it's making me anxious and slightly nauseous. I'm having trouble concentrating and I'm trying desperately to hold myself together and just breathe because I know that it's not as big of a deal as I'm making it. My husband has finally closed down the fledgling computer store we worked so hard to start up last year. I've known it was coming for quite a while because he really has no business trying to own and operate his own business. His business practices are questionable at best and he absolutely cannot manage money of any kind (or taxes, bills, responsibilities, etc. for that matter) He somehow thinks it will all just work out magically and he'll never be held accountable for his actions and decisions. Usually when he starts a business, which he does a lot, he does so with a partner so he can have someone to dump the mess on when it invariably fails, which it always does. Anyway, things were okay for a while, as it usually is in the beginning, and we were getting some regular income. I, of course, made the mistake of getting used to a regular income, even though I should have known better based on our previous 10 years of marriage, but that's my problem. So when the income started dying out to almost nothing with any kind of regularity, and the bill collectors really started to get serious, he asked his parents to help us out by taking a loan for us which they've done once before. His real reason for this was that he had a couple of bank accounts in collections and couldn't start a new one (for a new business, of course) unless he paid off the bad ones first. So we got a $5,000.00 loan (and a new $230.00 a month loan payment bill) which we used to pay off some big chunks of bills in collections and to put in our own account to live on and get us a little ahead for a while. The idea is that since I get a regular income, then the money we left in the bank would give us extra padding as we added more of my income to it every two weeks when I get paid. And the bank account was to only be used to pay our bills and necessary household expenses. The money that he was still bringing home sporadically would be used for any of the "extras". Well, since that has pretty much dried up, he's started using our personal account to cover his "extras" (usually eating out and paying for his friends too) and some of his business expenses, saying that he's got money coming in from here and there and it would be put back very quickly. Well, I've still been paying the bills and buying the groceries like usual until I get the bank statement yesterday which showed our balance to be MUCH lower than it should have been, so I log on to our online account and realize that we now have a negative balance, and I've got the $230.00 loan payment check in the mail as I type! Apparently he's been using his debit card without regard and not bothering to tell me about it. Luckily we've got my latest paycheck that still needs to be deposited (TODAY!) so that will cover the loan payment and the car payment that needs to be paid. But after that, then what?! Where's all this freaking money he keeps saying is coming in to replenish the account? All that extra padding is now completely gone and since I don't actually earn enough to pay all the bills myself, it looks like we are screwed. This money was supposed to last so much longer than this, and give him a little time to get some money flowing again. So now what?! Yeah, I'm freaking out a bit. I know that it will work out somehow, it always does. But for someone who thrives on knowing what to expect and having a plan, well, this is just too much for me. I absolutely hate never feeling a sense of stability and security when it comes to finances (or with anything else for that matter). This just doesn't work for me, I'm not the type of person who can easily go with the flow and hope for the best, obviously.

Plus, on top of that, Em is having more frequent meltdowns. To say she doesn't handle stress well is an understatement to say the least (gee, I wonder where she gets that from?!) She's hating and dreading school lately, which I know is typical, but then she informs me this morning that she's having some major difficulty with Social Studies. She said she's just not getting it and hardly ever knows the answers when her teacher calls on her in class. Now my daughter is extremely intelligent and a very good student, but she's also a perfectionist and the fact that she doesn't feel like she's excelling at this is completely messing with her head. To be quite honest she's freaking out about it and allowing it to affect how she feels about the rest of her school experiences. She's too proud to ask the teacher for some extra help and I'm worried that this is just going to get her even more behind. So I'm going to try to schedule a meeting with her teacher to see if there's anything I can do to help her, or if there's any extra work we can do together to help her to "get it" better. I'm sure Em wouldn't want me to do this because it would embarrass her, but I feel like I've got to do something to help her so she doesn't stop believing in herself. There's got to be no shame in asking for help when you need it, and she needs to know that.

Anyway, my mind is just racing with all this and sooooo much more, and frankly, I'm feeling completely overwhelmed. I'm so glad I have a place to get it all out instead of just holding it in like usual, because I can already tell that it's helped just to write about it. Except that my urgent need to get it all down has caused me to put off some of my morning exercise and now my schedule is completely out of whack, which, of course, stresses me even further and causes more anxiety! Good grief, why am I so freaking high strung?!! It's like I can't even function without my regular routine, and when things happen to mess it up I completely fall apart. I only seem to be able to handle it when everything is running along smoothly and I can know what to expect ahead of time. Something's gotta give here, I just can't keep on like this. I have got to learn different ways to handle stress and unexpected problems, 'cause this just isn't working for me.

Plus, they still didn't have my goddamned cereal at WalMart so I ended up having to go elsewhere and pay way more! Alright, that's it, I give up!! Okay, not really, but I'm still not a happy camper! >:(