Saying "No" To Stuff

We've had to say "no" to some things for peace of mind.  Sometimes we look like a normal family, and we try to act like one, but we're really kind of not.  I know every family has their own problems, and it's entirely true that "everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about," but, yeah, we have our challenges.  Adored Wife and Social Hurricane, in particular, have psychological and neurochemical issues that make it occasionally difficult to function at all, and AW has some pretty good-sized physical limits on top of that.

So there are things "normal" families can do that are a little difficult for us.

One case in point--our neighborhood had a community yard sale.  Everybody putting out tables in their front yards, enjoying the weather, socializing and hopefully making a few bucks on some unwanted treasures that were taking up space in their garages.

I'd kind of wanted to do that.  We have a LOT of unwanted treasures, and it looked like fun.  I already knew AW couldn't do any of the heavy lifting, of course, but that was no big deal.  I'd have the girls and Graphics Magician to help with that.

And then it got down to the wire, and Basement Artist was going to have to work, and AW had a very busy week with wedding planning and had been ill on top of that and was having anxiety issues and SH'd had a really bad couple of days with hallucinations and panic attacks and was doing well just to get to her job and then come home and try to keep from falling apart.

So the upshot was that I'd have to pretty much pull it all together and man it myself along with whatever I could coerce Graphics Magician into doing.  And it's not as though I didn't have other things going on that I wanted and needed to do.

And it wouldn't have been any fun to try to do it under those circumstances.

So, we took the low-stress option and said "no," to participating in the community yard sale.  Bummer, but sometimes you have to do that.  Because the neighbors only THINK we're normal.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.