{"id":645,"date":"2016-04-22T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T14:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katrina.effexhost.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/22\/why-things-are-how-they-are\/"},"modified":"2025-01-09T04:16:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T04:16:19","slug":"why-things-are-how-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/2016\/04\/22\/why-things-are-how-they-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Why things are how they are…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The plumber came. The plumber went. Nothing is repaired. Why? Because it’s worse than anyone realized. Someone installed shoddy plumbing and pipes need to replaced. The good news is that it’s only for the kitchen drain, not the whole house. The water heater wouldn’t light and the gentleman who came out only does line snaking. The furnace and water heater vent together and the vent is rusting out. The water heater is ancient…and on and on it goes..<\/p>\n

I’m not going to lie to you. I’m currently sitting on my couch with tears running down my face. Not because any of this is impossible to get fixed, but because I worked so hard to get the house to a place where I could let someone come in to fix these things and nothing got fixed. On top of that, I posted my frustrations to Facebook and while I’m thrilled that a few people jumped in to remind me of leases and laws, I feel a bit as if I’m being lectured as if I don’t know that I ought to contact my landlord when something breaks…I do know..but I haven’t and I won’t. At least right now, I won’t. I can’t.<\/p>\n

You see, I’m a hoarder. Remember? Maybe my landlord can’t remove me because an ancient water heater breaks, but she can if she doesn’t feel as if I’m caring for the property and having to wade into a room isn’t caring for anything. I’ve worked really hard these past few months and I have four rooms that are functional spaces (except for what’s broken). That’s huge progress and I’m proud of it..but it’s not enough. If I call them and tell them there are problems, they’ll send someone out…that someone could be a spy for them. I know that sounds paranoid, but it’s happened before. Until this downstairs is 100% , I cannot let them in here.<\/p>\n

And it’s hard…it’s so damn hard. Everyone is acting as if I can’t take care of myself, as if I’m not taking care of myself and they don’t understand. I’m trying to protect myself. I’m trying to fix things. I’m trying to undo years and years of trauma and habits to reclaim my world, to make things better. This isn’t about the fact that I don’t know the owner should handle these repairs. This isn’t about me not knowing my rights as a tenant. This is about me. It’s about me trying to fix me. It’s about me having the space to do those things and I can’t do that if I’m sitting here worrying that someone might report back to her that the place is a disaster. The bipolar brain looooves obsessive thoughts, after all.<\/p>\n

So yes, if me paying a plumber god knows what to replace a section of pipe will buy me some peace of mind then I’m going to do it. Is it going to frustrate me that some owner in the past 100 years went with cheap fixes instead of proper repairs? Hell yes it is. I hate half assed done things. Are there going to be tears? Yep. Sometimes I just need to cry out the frustration and the feelings of being ashamed so that I can reset and go on to tackle the next thing.<\/p>\n

I say this to remind myself ….I can do this. I am doing this. I am being the change I need within my own world and if people don’t understand, all I can do is try to help them to. I know people think I’m crazy (and I am..it’s been certified, check my medical records), but this is what I need to do for me. Who knows…maybe I’ll whip through these last 2 downstairs spaces and then be comfortable contacting the owner. Maybe I won’t. I need to do this in my time to prevent setbacks.<\/p>\n

I’m working hard at this and what I need is for people to try to be understanding that if I don’t do things the “normal” way, there’s probably a reason for it. I haven’t been as public about some of my issues as I have about others, but one by one, I’m knocking down mountains and support is always appreciated. Remember those goals that I posted yesterday? Today is another day to chip away at them.<\/p>\n

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The plumber came. The plumber went. Nothing is repaired. Why? Because it’s worse than anyone realized. Someone installed shoddy plumbing and pipes need to replaced. The good news is that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2241,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/2241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}