How do you know when the reason you're letting something roll of your back is good or bad? If it's because you've accepted it, or simply because you've become despondent and apathetic over it? This is what my therapist wanted me to think about this week, because I've just been letting life slide past me, not really caring one way or the other what was happening. She asked me pointed questions to see if I was just coming to terms with our situation and ad accepted it, or if I was so overwhelmed by all the events that I've become pathetic. Given the sheer weight of everything on my shoulder's, we determined I was simply shutting down and it was apathy dictating my behavior, not acceptance. I want to be clear here, acceptance is not approval, it simply acknowledging what's going on and doing what you can to improve the situation. Apathy is your brain shutting down to protect itself from more stress...not literally shutting down of course, but hopefully you get what I mean.
I've mentioned our issues with the IRS a few times over the course of this blog, and I'll probably mention them a few more times as this blog goes on. They're complete douche-bags...well, the entity as a whole, I've talked to some really kind and wonderful people over the course of dealing with our tax issues. Now, if you want a sincere douche-bag, that would be the state tax commission. Those bastards REFUSE to work with us, and instead continue to get some sick pleasure out of garnishing our wages...stopping for a few months, and then saying "JUST KIDDING!", we really want another couple thousand. In addition to the $3000 they've already taken. And that has nothing to do with the $50,000 the IRS thinks they're going to get from us. We don't even have $5,000 in assets, paying off an incorrect debt of 50k will never happen.
I've talked about this a lot in therapy because it is a HUGE stressor that literally makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it. I've talked to tax lawyers, and they all want at least 5000 as a retainer before they'll even take the case on. At the advice of my therapist, I contacted a few CPA's, and they want 750 to just get the years not filed done. Once those years are filed then I can take over and hopefully get the OIC that I originally sent in reconsidered. I had no hope at all until I discovered CPA's and that they could help too. It resparked my hope that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel because while $750 is a lot of money, it's much less than $5000.
All this stress with the IRS has led me to be very apathetic in other aspects of my life as well, I've lost interest in my marriage at times, I've felt hopeless about the future, felt like things would never improve, and it's even led me to contemplating suicide at times...what right does the government have to have so much control over my life like that. I think they have more control over my emotions than I do somedays. It's not right. I shouldn't have to feel so despondent over this that I can't function on a day to day basis because I've just given up on life. What right do they have to harass people to death?
Oh the trials we mortals have to suffer through. I'm sure some of you are reading this and thinking "I wish that was all the problems I had', but it's worse than that. When our wages are garnished it pulls us down to the poverty rate of a family of three, and there's 6 of us. We don't live a lavish lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination, and we can't even pay our bills when this happens. We've been together 6 years, and because of this whole thing, we've never been on a family vacation, we don't have our kids enrolled in any extracurricular activities, and even going out to dinner as a family is a luxury we can seldom afford. My husband and I try to go out to the movies at least twice a month, because we value date nights and realize how important they are to a marriage, but that's the extent of our entertainment for the month usually.
Take right now for instance, we have $40 in our bank account, and 4 days until payday, and both our cars are on empty, and there are bills that still need to be paid. Part of this shortage of disposable income is my fault...I have so many medical bills that we're trying to pay off, and it's really eating into our income as well. We'll be paying off medical bills for at least another year, unless by the grace of God we find another job that pays more and we can pay them off sooner. And speaking of jobs, to make matters even wose, my husband was informed last week that his job will be relocating to Oregon as of June of next year, so he is frantically job searching for work here in our area. It's so hard to stay encouraging during this trial because he gets so down over every place that declines to interview him, and it breaks my heart. I don't know how to comfort him and really show him the confidence I have in him.
I hate living like this. I pray that things will improve, and I have hope for the future right now, but it's a long, cold, depressing path I'm on when I get overwhelmed by all this. Sorry for the downer blog, but I had to vent somewhere about what was going round in my head, and since this is my blog, what better place to do it then here?
So, apathy or acceptance? Where do you think I'm at with all the stress going on in my crazy life? And what's going on in your life? Cheer me up with the good news in your life right now.
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