One small step

It was morning, never my best time,and I was trying to launch myself into the day’s to do list when I got a message from H. “rn I feel like unaliving myself,” she wrote, using the online slang people invented to get around restrictions on the word suicide. “I’m not kidding,” she writes next. “I am so overwhelmed.” My to-do list starts re-writing itself, priorities shifting. “I didn’t think you were,” I wrote back. I know where this is coming from. Her life, already challenging as a single parent with major disabilities and a special needs child, has recently gotten even more stressful. Since she doesn’t drive and public transit in their small town is extremely limited, she has to move so that she is within walking distance of the school when her child starts in the fall. The low income housing she lives in now is a development of freestanding little houses, and she will be moving to an apartment building. She’s worried about this because she has misophonia and cannot tolerate noises which are common when you are surrounded by neighbors a building like that. She’s also worried because her child has severe ADHD and is pretty much never still. Among her behaviors is a tendency to jump up and down a lot and H is concerned that this will bother the other neighbors. On top of that, she’s having trouble with the logistics of moving. Someone brought her some boxes but because of her heart condition the amount she can lift and move things around is very limited. Barely surviving on her benefits, she can’t afford to pay for help and she has no friends or family in the area. She also has a bunch of stuff that needs to go to the dumpster which in good weather is only half a block away, but because she would have to follow the path through the snow, it’s much longer and her ability to walk is limited. If she doesn’t get the stuff out of her apartment, they will charge her. They will also charge her a fee if she doesn’t get it spotlessly clean, even though that is beyond her physical abilities. She’s panicking at the idea of even more bills that she knows she can’t pay. “I’m in the bathroom on the cold floor in tears,” she says. “It’s no wonder,” I tell her, “moving is on the list of the most stressful life events there are.” I want to let her know that she is not defective, which is how she often views herself. That being overwhelmed by this is normal. Through her tears she says “every goddamn person or place I have asked for help for the last six months has said ‘sorry we can’t do that, sorry that’s not how our organization works. Sorry it’s not legal for us to do that.. sorry sorry sorry sorry.’ My body is so broken down and in so much pain lately. I haven’t even filled up one box yet, not one and all I want is somebody to help me get the stuff that’s broken to the dumpster.” “I’m about to get my holiday bonus,” I tell her, “I could send you $50 so you could pay someone to take the stuff to the dumpster.” This seems like a small price to pay to take off some of the pressure she’s feeling. “I can’t ask that of you,” she says. “You’re not asking,” I tell her. “I’m offering.” I think of the people who have bailed me out when I’ve been stuck. I don’t have enough to get her out of the entire problem but this little part I can do. I wish I was closer so I could help in person. Part of her sadness is her extreme isolation. Not that I would be a lot of help since my body is not great either and I don’t drive. John, who also talks to her, says that if his shoulder wasn’t injured he would go help. I tell him I think we might be able to help just by showing up and giving her moral support and a break from the kid, and being able to do things with his car, but it’s a long trip to New Hampshire. Interspersed with our conversation are her frequent directions to her daughter. “Don’t bang on the wall!” “Stay away from that!” And then “she bit me!” She sends me a photo of the tooth marks on her arm. Her daughter really needs intensive intervention, but they don’t have those services in the small town where they live. They also could really use respite care, so that H could rest and recover her mental health a bit and also address her medical issues some of which are going untreated because there’s no one to watch her kid if she is hospitalized. “ I just want her to behave,” she says “it would be so much easier on my heart and mentally. Now I’m crying because it’s overwhelming to love a child who doesn’t behave and makes you so mad.” As she talks, I can hear the pressure behind her speech diminishing, and so are the tears. She gathers some resolve, and with me on the phone for support, she hauls out the box for her Christmas tree and starts wrestling it in there. To get it closed, she has to call her kid to come sit on the box while she tapes it and for once she does what she’s told. It’s just one small step, but she is moving forward, stepping out of that suffocating blackness where it seems like death is the only way out.