May 18

 Yesterday my health was maybe a smidge better. Which isn't saying much. The pains around my torso went down half a notch. And my arms and hands going dead went down half a notch - dead and cold, but not as extensive.

Hazel was tricky. And spent a good chunk of the day in hyped up aggressive borderline mode. You can't talk to her like that.

She made a couple of doctor appointments for me, one for the same day to do with my foot. Personally. I wouldn't have bothered. It's on the mend. There are potentially issues with it that need to be looked at. But eh. We had talked yesterday about making an appointment with a "good GP" - which again given her mood, I was overruled about. The doc I like at the GP she doesn't. So my vote got thrown out. And that would be for whatever bullshit is currently going on circulation and eye wise. One last NHS attempt at addressing some of my issues. However. She made an appointment for my foot instead. Then proceeded to say how I had changed my mind. Sigh. Very difficult. I hadn't changed my mind. You just ignored me and then shouted over me.

The GP as it turned out was great. Old school. And despite to be honest my foot problem not being any kind of serious at this point - although perhaps that's the point, and it's arguable what you define as serious - I am still on a crutch, but in the scale of shit going on with me, it's nothing - he was great, suggested a few tests, and opined that it sounded like I had a lot of "post viral" things going on. He said they weren't at the point where they could tell you what CFS was, but, hopefully one day they will be able to run a test and he thought they would find out there were various different "types" of CFS. Run a test. And you will be CFS type one he said. He thought long covid was it's own type of CFS. All related. Different specifics.

He was caring and thoughtful and followed up. Which was nice. My condition was way worse with the foot when I saw the GP last time. And she, didn't do shit. I am doubtful the tests will show shit, other than perhaps elevated uric acid ( duh ). But, the pulse test might show something. It might show the first glimmer to Everyone Else that my circulation is fucked. The GP was concerned that the right foot pulse was negligible. I doubt the test will pick up my issue - I have learned that tests run by the NHS are poor. Their results are often lumped into the worst kind of triage tunnel vision analysis, and, many problems by their very nature, appear and disappear, and so running a test also has to have the luck of running at exactly the same time a problem is kicking in. Which given the massive time lag the NHS is, is pretty much impossible - because by the time they've looked at something, it has galloped far over the horizon. But the test might show something. And tugging at that piece of thread might uncover the rest of it. Ohhh. Did you know your cardio is fucked ? Why yes. Yes I did. I am here living it. But we shall see.

I felt terribly ill in the waiting room at the GP. I slumped. With a CFS whatever bullshit slump. Probably. So tired. I just wanted to lie down on the floor, right there. Hazel grumbled about the wait. How slow the doc was. I said he was probably reading notes. And being diligent. I suspected at that point he was probably a good doc - fuck the times, take the time to do the job right ( my old GP way way way back in the day was like this and was very good, particularly with mental health stuff. Of course, he ended up retiring early. Sold his partnership out. And the practice moved and went downhill fast after that. ). 

Hazel reminded me not to play down any of my problems with my foot. But my foot is on the mend I said. It's a lot better. ( It is ). If it were up to me - which it wasn't - I wouldn't have bothered them about my foot today. Why didn't you say so then she said. I tried. You were very angry. I was not angry she said.

Sigh.

Sometimes getting a borderline to recognise when they have turned into Mr Hyde is impossible.

Also earlier in the day I decided to finally nail my will. And had already on that topic had to deal with the tricky ball of anger that was Hazel. I had done a will last year, but they had flagged some issue - very quietly, and I just never seemed to have the time or mindspace to do it.

So I gave them a call, sorted it out ( there was no issue, they fucked up. Of course ).

I talked to Hazel about it. I know leaving her anything ironically fucks with her life. Her benefits get cut. If she gets a property she loses benefits to do with rent. If she gets any kind of money, she then loses the rest of the benefits.

We talked about trusts, so, I started reading up on my will adviser what trust provisions they had. She wanted the computer. She wanted to do it. For once I put a very gentle foot down. No. I want to read what they have. I know all about this she said. Ok. But I want to absorb it and understand it. I was as calm voiced gentle as possible. She relented angrily. Yes this is ridiculous. I am aware.

After going round in circles online I gave the will people another call. How do you go about trusts. Ah they said, you can't do it online. You have to talk to us as basically it gets "tricky". That's why you can't find it properly. So I did that and talked to a senior adviser type. And it is indeed tricky. And requires several conversations. And fees. And stuff. There are some legal wrinkles, the weirdest - to me - was that you can't set a trust up for just one person. It has to be more than one person. How weird !

After discussing it and understanding the score, I needed to think about what to do, and they had helpfully sent me through information on the ins and outs of it. I asked if they knew of a way to do what I was trying to do, basically, leave someone stuff without it ruining their life. In the end the sort of workaround is to leave everything in trust, but some of those in the trust get a payment immediately, whilst the one you want to actually be in the trust gets it paid out over time. It's a really stupid workaround. But it has tax implications. And executor implications. And oof. I was told it would be very advisable to talk to a financial adviser about it as well as they couldn't give me reliable advice on the ins and outs of the financials. Which makes sense. The person advising me was professional and knowledgeable.

I related the information to Hazel.

Predictably. She was angry.

Flat out said. They don't know what they're talking about. I looked at it before. That's not how it works.

....

These are the UKs biggest will writing firm. I was talking to a legal expert whos job it is. And knew all the legal and tax implications. She certainly sounded like she knew what she was talking about. I don't know what to tell you I said to her. They know their shit.

She sulked. Then I would say they don't know their job she said.

This is very difficult.

In the circumstances I have no alternative to listening to the experts over Hazel. Again, this is something I've talked about before in the last several months where she continually knows better than everyone else. From learning to drive, to legal advice, to everything. The problem is. You're defying her version of reality. And just like a narcissist who you force to see reality, they take an "injury" from it. Narcissistic injury the official term is. Borderline works exactly like that ( in fact some of its things mimic what you get in narcissism ).

Personally. I found the information I got from the will people very helpful. And said so to them. It made it clear what the options were - which I had no clue about other than a vague notion of duh trust.

Hazel sulked about it.

I left her to it, nothing I could do.

And. I am feeling very fragile and shit myself. Having now suddenly to have to deal with a volatile borderline is a lot.

At the end of the afternoon, after we were coming back from the GP, I asked nicely if there was anything we need ( she needs ). No. Ok. Is there anything you want I asked very nicely. IE can we treat you. She wanted a burger. But was not sure she could be bothered with traffic. Halfway there already I said. So I ended up getting her a burger. Her mood lifted. And for the rest of the evening she was better. Her sense of humour returned. She stopped snarling at everything. The monster bit of her had gone for a nap. And she was nice to be around again.

Getting a little bit of care and attention from a GP has improved my mood a shade. My shit symptoms improving by a hair has helped. It makes the difference between a descent down, and a, wait, it can halt its progress. I am still hollow. Sad. And circling the drain. But it's the tiniest of victory in a sea of shit.

Today we roll the dice with Hazel. Monster. Or pleasant. Given her recent track record in the last 48 hours it would seem the monster is back. But who knows.

Amongst the avalanche of getting pushed around yesterday, I did enforce boundaries in the absolutely most quiet nicest way possible. One about letting me read on trusts please ( I had to say this several times to stop her ) - don't take the laptop away from me. And two. Don't shout over me when I am trying to explain how I feel healthwise - I was trying to tell her about the current level of pain and problems, and she was just shouting over me telling me how I should feel. Yes. Insane. And Yes. You should not even need to enforce that boundary. But. Crazy is as crazy does. Enforcing those boundaries in front of the angry leaves you liable to lose your fingers unless you are careful to the utmost degree, and then, even then. Sometimes you might lose.

As I got ready for the docs yesterday it did cross my mind that we were approaching that decision point again. Do you endure the ramping difficulties that begin to wander towards abuse. Or do you cut her loose to seethe, reset.

That choice again.

She has been during the whole Athena thing of the last week. Amazing. And extremely helpful. With no monster in sight at all.

The shock of that has worn off now. And now we are back to familiar territory.

Ho hum. We shall see. I hope it's just a blip with her. It's probably not. 

I find dealing with borderline to be very challenging. I guess all serious mental health problems are also challenging to deal with now that I come to think about it and remember other stuff and other people. It's never easy. And it rarely if ever just "fixes itself". Like a constantly open sore, and depending what it is, it will eat everyone else around it too. Which is another difficult issue with it all. The impact on everyone else.

See - Hazel's dad's refrains about how hard it was, and how hard it was on everyone.

Sigh.

There is a reason these things end up destroying relationships. Borderline or no. They are heavy.