#long rant about people treating me trying to operate within the limits of my body's capabilities as 'giving up'

[lyraeon]

I am still just fuming about my bed frame situation.

My mattress is currently sitting in the middle of the floor in my living room, and has been for over a month now.

You see, when I moved here last fall, we couldn't fit the box spring down the steps (big wooden platform thing about the size of the mattress), and my bed frame *needs* that or at least some kind of platform because it's only really an H shape of supports, so my mattress just went on the floor in my bedroom and the frame was left unassembled in the corner until I could afford a different frame or a platform that would fit down the stairs.

Several months later, it comes to the attention of my dad that my bed is still on the floor, and he freaks out and tries to help. Now, normally my dad is very good at helping, but in this specific case, he just. bought the first bed platform he saw that made him go "ah, that should be easy to get down the stairs".

Problem was, what that "platform" was was a set of wooden slats strapped together, meant to bridge across a frame but be foldable. basically the oversized lovechild of window blinds and a Jacob's Ladder. And more accurately than that, it was *two* of said sets of slats, meaning it was made for a frame with a support down the middle as well... but not the H kind of support down the middle I had, one going the same way as the sides. So I told him before it even arrived, "this isn't going to work, it's incompatible with my frame" and he was like "I'm sure you'll figure it out, but if not just sell it off and I'll buy you a different frame". aka while not perfect, my dad was definitely trying his best and trying to help me, so he is only in this story because his "I'm sure you'll figure it out" was only the beginning.

I told some of my friends that the situation was going on and they were like "surely you can jerryrig something" and I was like, there is no way to get these to support the bed, my frame is just not meant for it, etc. This went back and forth with multiple people telling me that I was just being pessimistic and I wouldn't know until I tried.

So I assembled the bed frame, unpacked the wooden slats, and laid them out to show how wonderfully they *just completely flopped* as opposed to being a valid bed platform.

At this point one or two people backed down but the rest were like 'eh just put something in the middle to hold it up" and I was like "do you not understand how heavy I am and that I need my mattress to support me well????"

problem was, at this point, my bed frame was already assembled, and I already couldn't pull it back apart on my own. and I really needed somewhere to sleep. So I begrudgingly did indeed find some other stuff to semi-support the gap between the two slats, but mostly because I couldn't get my frame unassembled and at the time there was no other space in the house big enough to lay out my bed, so it was the only logical way to get some sleep.

enter the next two months of people continually telling me they're gonna come over and help me pull it apart and never showing. Meanwhile I'm basically sleeping on top of a flaccid ladder that's propped up by my grandma's old super sturdy suitcases and stacks of cardboard and my shoulder is worsening again by the day because of it.

during that time I explained the situation to my dad and he apologized for not believing me originally and sent me a new bed frame, so I at least theoretically wouldn't have to just put my mattress on the floor.

so one day I finally get sick of it all, rearrange my living room furniture to make room, and drag my mattress into the living room on my own. There, now if I can convince someone to come over and help they only need to be here for like 5 minutes! the mattress is out of the way, I just need them to yank in one direction on the frame and I'll yank in the other and if we just get either the head or footboard off I can turn the thing in a way that I can get the rest undone by myself.

Except this is such an overexertion that I collapse the next day and wind up in the hospital from dehydration and exhaustion.

Which ripple effects into two weeks wherein I was hospitalized three times before they finally figured out I also had a kidney infection and that's why I couldn't seem to get hydrated on my own, and then I still wind up with a fourth time before it cleared up and by then I was so weak I had to be held up by the firefighters to get up the stairs.

And that also meant that any "hey can you spare 20 minutes of your week to do something for me?" "credit" I felt like I had with any relatives in town got used up on asking them to drive me home from the hospital.

So my bed remains on the living room floor, and my bedroom has been unused for about a month now, and by now I've had to just close the door because I start crying when I look in there. I sold off the slats the other day finally so I don't have to look at them rolled up in the corner anymore, but fuck I miss not being in this big open room every night and not being right underneath where the neighbors are at their loudest.

I could just go ahead and assemble the new bedframe here in the living room, put my mattress on it, surrender to the fact I'm just living in only one room of my apartment now and wasting the other. (and I can't move my computer into the bedroom because it's right under where the neighbor sleeps and since I work at night it'd keep her up) But I don't feel like I gain much by my bed being not on the floor, though it'll be hot enough soon that the air circulation would probably be welcomed. And I don't know if I'll be able to assemble or disassemble it on my own, and don't know if that kind of exertion is just going to break me again.

The landlord has a handyman coming over for some other stuff this week so I'll probably just offer him some cash to help me at this point. Which, mind you, I've offered money to my cousins to help but they just keep ending up too busy or forgetting.

Am I mad at the people who said they'd come over and help but didn't? Yeah, a little. But they have their own lives, and they aren't who put me into this situation.

The half dozen or so people, including my dad, who all insisted that I could make it work SOMEHOW and refused to hear it was impossible until they were actually shown photographic evidence? That's who I'm mad at.

Because as with so many other parts of my life, when I tell people what I'm earnestly capable of, or tell them something isn't going to work, I'm always told to not be a pessimist or that I'll never know until I try or that I'm just trying to get out of putting in effort or whatever else, and then I am pressured to try their solution that I already know isn't going to work before anyone is willing to help me in a way that actually could help. And then I have to pay the price for it in terms of time lost and ligaments injured.

Could I just have not listened to them and not tried to begin with? Possibly, probably. My therapist and I've been talking about why I felt I had to do what they said anyway, and when I gave examples of when I've had to do it in the past she pointed out that those were all at work so I was required to follow orders to some extent, but that if these are supposedly my friends then I should feel ok saying no to them, and if I don't feel ok saying no to them I should look for new friends.

And while I think she's right about the work thing, I also just know that this is going to be a forever part of my life. No one is ever satisfied with what I'm actually capable of, they all want an imaginary faster, stronger, more emotionally stable, not chronically ill version of me. And I made the mistake of trying to achieve that bar for far, far too long, and just tore myself apart even quicker, so now they all are like "but I've seen you do it!" and I'm just.

No.

If I say I can't, I can't. I do not give up easily. I am stubborn to an absolute fault (see, y'know, putting the frame together in a fit of "fine, look, I'll just show you!" for example) and will continue trying to do things for eons past when I should have given up or admitted something wasn't working. I am not "giving up before I've even tried", I've evaluated the situation and seen that that's not going to work within my capabilities (or just flat out the laws of physics in some cases!) and am not going to use up some of my limited reserves on something with a like 3% success possibility when I'm sure there are workable options out there.

ARGH!