|
Today Proved Just how Useless I am
It all started over something as moronic as cell phones. My parents, as a wedding present, gave me and Jim matching cell phones and a one-year Mobile to Mobiel contract that they would pay for every month until the year was up. Okay, so the year was up this past Sunday and we decided to go out today to look at phone plans. Our first trip was really depressing. No plans that we could afford. So, we went to another provider's store and they had a reasonable individual plan. Since I don't work and don't get out much, I figured Jim would be the only one who'd need a phone. I go outside to smoke while Jim talks over plans with the sales rep. I come back in and he's picked the plan for two phones that was almost forty dollars more a month. Along with it came an adorable pink metallic cell phone. He handed it to me and said, "I had to get it for you." Well, I felt like a burden at this point. So I tried to be gracious and thanked him. We get in the car and we haven't traveled five miles down the road when he declares, "I'm going to have to get a second job. We can't make ends meet." I looked at him and said, "I know what you really mean. You'd prefer I worked." He gave me the shrug and half-nod, the "yeah, duh!" kinda gesture. Of course, I'm hurt.
I told him, "I don't know what hurts me worse - the fact that I'm your wife and you'd prefer I financially supported myself or that I am not capable of working to help provide for us." He got really quiet and said, "Ya know, they make pills for people like you." Still reeling I shot back with, "Yeah, get on a pill so I can get a damn job and financially support myself?" He got pissed and didn't speak to me all the way back to the house. He eventually said, "I was only trying to be helpful." I'm not so sure about that. Men tend to be pretty selfish about these sorts of things.
He doesn't get it. There are reasons I can't just take a pill and POOF! I'll magically get better. Agoraphobia runs on both sides of my family. Yes, I prefer being at home because this is my comfort zone. I had to endure the humiliation of having panic attacks at work. Had I not quit my job last summer, I would have been fired. I missed work because I would have a panic attack on the way in and would have to pull over and call my dad sobbing to come and take me home. I had to leave early some days, without notice, because of migraines and panic attacks. It wasn't until after I left that I heard (from a friend who still worked there after I left) that the owners of the company and upper management had a meeting one day the week before I quit and they had decided to dismiss me at the end of that month for being a "slacker". I also heard that when I left, my manager had said, "good riddance". It's not that I am lazy. It's that I can't work and when Jim bitches about how working one job is about to kill him, but he has to work two jobs so he can support me it devestates me. I'm totally useless. He sees no value in the fact that I try and compensate for my inability to work outside of the home by making sure he comes home to a clean place, laundry done, a hot meal. All he sees is that I'm an expense and I'm not working to cover my own ass financially.
I'm tired of existing. My life is pointless. I'm a huge burden to everyone around me. My life is a catch 22. If I get a job I know I'll still suffer from the depression and intense anxiety and then would probably end up fired. I'd be miserable. of course, I'm miserable feeling like my husband resents me for not contributing financially. I'm basically effed either way.
|
