u/Comfortable-Bus-182

I have a combination of EDS, POTS, and some other physical issues along with a lot of mental ones, so that might be why it's so severe but wow. I was always warned by my neurologist about stress levels, but now I almost get why this disorder is mistaken for psychogenic (almost).

I've been under extreme stress lately and had a lot of mental issues. I'm crying hard multiple times a week. When I cry I always get a fever. Then I get air hungry and am left with a headache. I try my best to drink a lot of water after to get back those fluids, but it doesn't seem to help. The next day I am in so much pain, not even just joint pain from the EDS but all over body pain (not sure this is the POTS or EDS or something else). Then, in addition to that, I'm blacking out as soon as I get out of bed, no matter how long I sit and wait there at the edge of the bed. For multiple days after, I'm physically useless. I have to sit down any time I reach into the cabinets. Showers are extra hard to recover from, and a bath would help with the stress but I just know I'm going to pass out in there.

Right now I'm kind of feeling worse mentally because I can't do anything but sit here being miserable because I can't handle standing for more than a few minutes at a time. My POTS is very well controlled normally, but this situation and stress is killing me.

I think a lot of AA people are boring by choice but even aside from them a lot of sober people just seem to experience a boring life and are boring people, I've had some of them confess they even prefer it that way. But I feel boring right now and I hate myself for it.

To be clear, I don't think all sober people are this way. I've never been the type of person that thinks you need alcohol to have fun. I'm not even the type of person that thinks I need alcohol to have fun. But right now alcohol might let me experience fun. Or a drop of happiness. Or just relief.

There's fireworks going off. A place nearby does their fireworks on July 3rd so tonight is the night for parties. I can hear the neighbors having fun, probably drinking. Maybe not. I don't even want a drink. I don't have the energy to even want a drink I'm just miserable in how fucking boring I am because sobriety just means no escape from my boring fucking mental illness.

I really can't untangle this web and I'm not really expecting anyone here to either - my medical team is also somewhat aware of it and doing what they can. I'm just wondering if I'm alone? Do I have an entirely different brand of nuts than I'm aware of? I've been through so much and so many misdiagnoses and so much trauma from those misdiagnoses. I feel like I need to know what's wrong with me and also like I don't even want to know.

I got put on vyvanse shortly after I got sober 2 months ago. I was a binge drinker who at my worst was drinking a bottle of vodka every other night (I was also a masochist who forced myself to sober up every other night and never built a physical dependency). The vyvanse is definitely helping with executive function, focus, anxiety, and anger. It's good for me I think but I'm also still miserable.

I'm in luteal as we speak so maybe it's just at its worst right now, but somehow despite all the above I feel less stable. I'm suicidal which is plain typical for me at this point, especially during luteal, but now there's this like constant low-level fluctuation of I'm fine and then I am so depressed, a hollow feeling in my chest that feels like an entire black hole punctured the bottom of my sternum.

With these fluctuations, I'm not talking from week to week, day to day or even hour to hour. I'm talking minutes at a time with no apart cause. It's not something triggered by an event or a thought, it's all very physical. I still get upset the same way I always did and I have been crying a ton, but I'm going through some really awful life shit too, like my husband constantly threatening to leave me since I got sober. But then also sometimes something that used to upset me just won't and I'll be very calm about it. It's not just anger but other emotions too but to add I never realized just how angry I was before the meds even though I didn't really show it much.

I don't know? Am I alone? I'm not seeking medical advice just any personal opinions or experiences.

At my baseline I'm already unwell but my husband drives me actually insane and the warm and cold (never hot anymore) is too painful for me to go on with. I'm coming here after some other redditors heard some of my situation and suggested I check it out. I'm lurking mostly. I can't really relate to everyone though because a lot of times I feel like the villain. I'm certainly no angel, but I'm trying to improve and finding so, so much resistance in my marriage. There is so much to this that I know I can't explain it all, but here goes.

From the beginning our relationship was intense, but I thought we both liked it that way. The chemical attraction between us is wild. I know that's not the end all be all of a good relationship but the romantic side of me finds it very important which is probably why he makes me so emotional. I never wanted it to be the toxic kind of intense though and over the years I've really tried to improve things with myself and us. I still have this hope that things can be intense in attraction and also healthy, but maybe I should let that go.

A couple months ago I had a complete mental breakdown shortly after I decided to go sober. I very narrowly avoided yet another psych stay and realized I had to quit my miserable job because every drive to work was becoming risky and filled with suicidal ideation. Obviously I have my issues, but I have for years been the patient, measured, emotionally supportive one in the relationship. I can't even hold down a job but somehow I always find it in myself to tend to his emotional hurts (most of which have to do with his own job).

When I had this breakdown he went on this whole spiel about how I had support not just from himself but our friends and family and also that what he cared about was my wellbeing, but since then I found out he's been hiding money (and this was after I was sober and months after I got my spending under control) and he's been telling everyone in our social circle horrible things about me (he won't even say what he told them, he just says that they hate me and then takes it back and says no one hates me? - total mindfuck). Now he's threatening to stop paying for my meds. I literally cannot get on disability because of his income. My state and our government sees that money as just as much mine as his, but to him it's all his and I have no right to even the most basic necessities. I've tried to explain that if I'm forced to go the legal route, they will not see it that way.

I have tried every approach to get us to work together on the finances. There have been so many blowouts where he's screaming at me until I cry and I still just try to calmly, softly talk him down and somehow in the end I feel simultaneously like I'm the bad guy and like I didn't stand up for myself. And I admit back when I was drinking I would just leave him alone and cope with far too much alcohol Incredibly cheap, gut-rot stuff). The alcohol use is not on him. Picking up the bottle is my action and my responsibility, but also I realize that realistically if this sobriety is going to be sustainable I need to leave or things need to change.

I'm getting desperate, even what might be considered manipulative. In my mind I'm trying to figure out ways to get my own money and keep it secret (which would be fair but still feels wrong and I am terrible at lying and keeping secrets). I plead with him, I try to be persuasive, I try to be firm (and I do feel like after a decade I'm finally standing up for myself a little), I cry - not a manipulation I just cry a lot these days and he just doesn't care. I've dropped a lot of the communication styles I was not proud of a long time ago: the keeping fights going until late and yelling and insults weren't helping anything and I really didn't feel good after. It seems like no matter what I do I always feel awful and he doesn't care, he'll even say so.

I swear he wasn't always like this, but then when I look back he kind of was. A part of me thinks I poisoned him, but then thinking about the past it's always kind of been this cycle where when I'm doing better he's doing worse. I think he (maybe subconsciously) hates when I'm doing better. Things are way downhill since I got sober. He seems to be having emotional affairs. There's no affection. He has no desire for sex.

I'm basically nuts, but he's making me worse, to a point of scary symptoms and psychosomatic illness, but is this codependence? Something else? Should I talk to my doctor? (genuine question)

8 weeks sober.

Hard liquor always slides down in a way that makes me feel like I'm actually loved. I had a fellow alchie friend who said it "feels like mother's love" and I'd say "cheers. can't relate" (woe is me, abandonment issues)

Anyway I'm supposed to have a partner who loves me. But he hides money from me, has financially abused me our entire relationship, talks to women behind my back (I don't think he's cheating but he neglects me in favor of them and they definitely want to fuck him), yells at me and insults me. Plainly he doesn't respect me and it has gotten even worse since I've gotten sober. I feel pathetic that I can't leave him (for emotional as well as financial reasons) and I'm only just now barely standing up for myself.

Before this all I defended was my right to keep drinking because without that there's no way I could have coped. Alcohol saved my life on many of those occasions where I would have killed myself otherwise.

But I'm trying to be better than that. I'm tired of taking out all this shit on my body. I'm feeling pretty weak right now though. I feel like I need to be around people that aren't him and the fucking clinic. The only social space I have is a bar and while in the past couple months I've been capable of walking in and having something non-alcoholic, I know I'm not strong enough for it right now. I want something hard and I don't want to stop until I'm unconscious.

Plus, my husband won't care if I have something non-alcoholic, he'll just scream at me for spending money. Even though the alcohol has undoubtedly hurt him and a part of me wants to be better so I don't hurt him anymore, the sobriety is a negative on our relationship without a doubt.

I'm so tired of feeling so fucking bad and for what?

I'm really trying to stay focused on solving the problem here instead of just feeling shit or making excuses. I need advice and I'm not sure I have chutzpa to lie on an application about it. I've even tanked an interview that was going well by just blurting it out along with my past mistakes. The interviewer was very nice and seemed to like me but the company was corporate and I could not go further in the process per their rules.

I've had a decent amount of jobs but have never really made connections. Some jobs I screwed up. Some screwed me over. Many I just left because burnout/illness/life. I can't get a read on who liked me, I never made those connections, and I honestly don't even know how. How can I get a decent job? How do people make these sorts of connections? How do you know who to ask, and importantly when? Are there certain types of jobs that don't tend to care about that stuff? I got extremely lucky with my last permanent position which was in healthcare administration, but after that my only options were temp customer service roles that I really struggle in.

Important information: I am disabled and neurodivergent (hence the struggling in customer service roles). Manual labor and anything that requires me being on my feet for long hours is off the table.

Thank you so much for any advice you might have.

Basically what the title says. I had a mental break and had to leave my job. I have never been able to hold down a job for more than 6 months despite being fairly intelligent and a hard worker. I was on disability since age 16 before I got married and made the shit decision to get off of it because romance (and also it's really awful to be kept from marriage because of a disability imo). I'm not sure exactly which condition would qualify me but I have a long combination of them: Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTS, ADHD that was until recently untreated, several mental health conditions that have landed me in the hospital several times, and suspected autism (which is where I think a lot of the burnout and issues are actually coming from).

I want to work. I even tried to work as much as I could when I was on disability (just got to be careful to report your income)

Everyone I've been in contact with sine the mental break can see I need disability and cannot work, not without burning out and endangering myself further or endangering my physical health (being on my feet all day stocking shelves might be easier on my mental health but is impossible with my physical issues).

Welp, my husband is thinking of leaving me (and I have been thinking of leaving him) but we have been trying to work it out because we really do love each other. I had a substance use problem but have been sober since before all this started and to be clear never, ever lied about my use or the money. Booze is cheap at least in the way I used it so while we've had financial difficulties and I have overspent in the past it wasn't on alcohol and in the month before he locked me out I didn't spend a single cent more than he would have wanted (never ate out, bought nothing but the barest of essentials). And the drive to overspend (mostly food related) and drink has been massively helped by getting the ADHD treated I think.

Since I left my job I've looked into disability again, different avenues like SSDI vs SSI. All dead ends and it's been confirmed so by the disability advocacy groups and case workers I've been in contact with. All because he makes $500 more than the cutoff. And a good amount below what's needed just to cover our bills, despite having a decent COL for our area.

Anyway before he said he was thinking of leaving, I was anxiously waiting for his income to hit the account, just so I could go grocery shopping and not worry about the mortgage coming out of an account that would definitely go in the red. It was a week late and I was getting increasingly worried, but he kept saying it was coming. He had been lying the whole time and had moved his auto deposit into his personal account leaving me with absolutely nothing.

He has aggressively defended that it's his money. It's a scary situation. It's a scary situation for both of us but mostly me who has literally nothing. His mental health is not good either and I'm trying to respect that. I'm not saying I have been the perfect partner but isn't this financial abuse? And what the fuck do I do? I've managed to hide away a couple hundred dollars but that's it.

I am looking for a job that I can possibly work (something remote that doesn't involve the phone) and other options (returning to school for a certificate) but options are slim and not immediate.

This story is long and complicated so I haven't included every detail, but I'm just hoping there's something. Is there some option I've overlooked? This situation is having a huge negative impact on me though I'm literally going to a clinic 2-3 times a week to work on my issues. (Thank goodness they offer gas cards or this too would be a massive issue)

Edit: by user here I mean alcohol/drug user

I've made posts here before on my main about my relationship issues and progress with sobriety. People were pretty much in agreement that my husband's a prick or that I was straight up being abused but I deleted those posts. At this point I need to make them on a throwaway for fear of making things worse.

I've been sober over a month now (longest and by far most confident streak!) and of course the longer I'm sober the worse things are between us. But I'm still sober so fuck him. He did this whole thing all week of dragging me around, apologizing for things then taking it back., saying he'll work on things, while getting the paperwork for divorce this whole time, and apparently also lying about money he's hiding. He comes to me yesterday saying he's leaving me (when beforehand I let him know I was hormonal and exhausted from cleaning the entire house and dealing with medical companies and insurance all week andI just needed rest). Then he just continued to talk even as I said "okay, welp it's done" but he just sat there staring at me continuing to talk and then wouldn't answer when I said "okay so we're done?" I ask it so many different ways. He just kept and keeps jerking me around. And then he has the audacity to say he's so exhausted and can't talk anymore.

Call me a romantic or crazy (I'm both) but I am or at least was trying to give him a chance. And I think it's fucking stupid to have a relationship fall apart because I'm sober and I'm doing better. All the while he's playing the victim and insisting that's not why and he's just been too victimized (I'm convinced he's just embarrassed the cops showed up). There are things I'm completely putting my foot down on in our relationship. I don't have the booze to rely on to help me when he's insulting me or being generally cruel so that's ending. I can't and won't put up with that shit sober. Which is probably why he hates me so much right now.

Now I'm apparently an abuser not just for the drinking but because my disabilities and mental illness have lost me jobs and I cannot work right now??? (while I'm trying not to kill myself and trying to get sober!) Apparently I was wrong about our mutual respect for privacy because he has told everyone we know every detail of our relationship including the women that are trying to sleep with him (He swears up and down this is not true but I swear I am not a jealous person and even just the fact that I think they are should be reason enough to keep them out of our business).

So that's fun. And of course everyone has sided with him and will side with him no matter the details I share about him ruining our wedding or screaming at me that I'm lazy or constantly insulting me for being disabled. I do think he puts up a good front of the savior role (and gets off on it). He's a likable extrovert and I'm an introverted weirdo crazy person with trauma. Plus a (now sober) alcoholic. Of course I deserved it /s