Don't know how to deal with bad situation in life.

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I was posting my introduction here long time ago: viewtopic.php?t=401612

I could not really find the answers i was looking for back then, and i doubt that they even exist. But still, after all the time passed i still unable to do any kind of improvments to my life on my own. Its like a secret that is always eluding me, so i will ask for opinion of others one more time. Pretty sure it won't work, but what am i losing anyway...

Since that post, my situation worsened a lot, and i can't find a way out, at least not the one that would not leave my remaining cats without my help.

You do not have to read my first post, bellow i will give a quick summary of my current, updated situation, and then describe the problem i am facing and the solutions i have tried.

I have a physical disability that makes it difficult to walk or sit for long periods, so I mostly stay home in bed. I also have mental health issues, which cause problems with memory, learning, attention, and communication, which all together make it impossible to find official employment. I have several diagnoses (each local psychiatrists says different one), none of them describes the things i experience. Autistic disorders aren't officially diagnosed here by government facilities. I passed various disorder tests and the RITVO RAADS-R is the one that gave me the high (150) score. I know it's not a diagnose, just a possibility, so i don't know for sure what is wrong with me.

I have a pension, which was suddenly raised for the first time since the war in my country started, it's now 2,500 hryvnias (UAH) per month. It's generally enough to cover utilities and that's it. I used to have a job (farming and selling currency in an online game), which brought in another 2k, but since most of the power plants in my country were bombed to dust, the blackout schedules are much more severe now, and I can't do it anymore (and the game I used to farm is dying anyway, and there are no other similar options). I've tried a bunch of other things, from working for other people online to selling my game on Steam, but nothing has brought in any significant income, and all these activities are now unavailable without power, and with no income i can't even say on charging station that would allow me to bypass blackout times. So, debts are accumulating, which I planned to pay off if I won the contest in the fall, but I did not. My mother helps with food, but she works nearly minimum wage and is over 70yo, so she can't do this for long, plus she's in debt herself. So, for me, this is the end, one way or another, but I need to hold on while the remaining cats are alive, because leaving them with my mother is completely unacceptable. She even forgets every day that her chronically ill cat needs her shots, I have to constantly remind her, and with her cats will die really fast from absence of care. Besides, she barely pays them any attention, not even a simple pet. It won't be long now since the cats are old, 18 to 25+ years old, but it could still take a few more years.

My problem that I am looking to solve is simply holding on while the cats are still alive, and preferably in a condition where I can help them.

Financially, in theory, I could just live on credit, I wouldn't have to pay it back anyway. However, the banks are taking money from my friend’s card without her consent due to unpaid debt, so she only uses cash or her mother's card. And since my pension is deposited on my card, they probably can start withdrawing it, at least the part of it.

A much more serious problem is psychological. I can't stand inactivity, I'm usually either working, playing games, or making games (that's pretty much all activities available for me) – and all of that has become impossible because there's no electricity. I can watch TV shows while eating, read books while sitting in line somewhere, but usually don’t do it often because if I'm a passive observer for too long, my anxiety increases dramatically, I get nervous for no reason, and generally feel extremely depressed. It's not visible from the outside since i am calm most of the time, but on inside i want to smash the wall with my head just to get out of such situation. And at such moments, I'm especially overwhelmed by negative thoughts about my own inadequacy and how I shouldn't exist in the first place. And since I can't really go anywhere due to my physical condition, all I can do is sit at home in the dark, where there's nowhere to escape these thoughts, where I constantly feel horrible from inactivity. And once the power are turned on, I am barely able to do anything, so what would normally take a day stretches into weeks now. In addition, I have a defect somewhere in my computer, and sometimes when I turn it on, it enters a kind of reboot cycle, which ends closer to the time when the power are turned off. And nobody were able to find the cause of it.

It's also really hard without my beloved cat. The pain of his death last year still lingers, I miss his love and warmth so much. My other furry friends are friendly, but he was my bro, always happy to see me, loved to cuddle, cheered me up in darkest times. But I let him down, and that realization is with me all the time now. And I feel the void he left behind, a void that can't be filled. I'm also very afraid for the rest of my cats, I can't trust my judgment anymore, considering how many mistakes I made earlier. I had to euthanazie one of them juse yesterday due to kidney failure, she was only 18, and probably could live much longer if i took better care of her. Three remaining cats are sick now, all chronic (diabetic, liver issues and epileptic seizures, hypertheriosis and breathing issues), and there's not enough money to treat them all, and I can't decide who needs help most. I feel like no matter what I decide, I'll regret doing more, or acting differently.

All of this is putting a lot of pressure on me, and I'm afraid that I won't be able to withstand it and will let down those for whom I'm responsible, if I completely break down and lose rational thinking, if the pain becomes stronger than reason.

What I've tried to solve this problem:

Mobile games. I don't have internet on my phone, which is expensive, but I can download APKs and transfer them from my computer. Or can share mother's internet when she is home, but it is very slow. The phone is weak, but it runs the most except modern things that require internet anyway. However, I can't play them at all. They're not the kind of games I can enjoy. I even tried installing a PSP emulator, and it didn't work much better.

I looked into alternative powering methods for pc since powerful charging stations are unaffordable. It turned out that you can power the PC from a car battery, which isn't too expensive compared to other options. But the problem is that they take a very long time to charge; after an hour of exposure to light, the battery barely charges at all. Also it seems to be releasing toxins while charging so having it at home is not recommended. Other cheap options also didn't work.

Sleeping pills. A good solution would be to sleep during the day between light turns. But while it works at all at night (and even then, it wears off over time), it's not so much during the day. And I can’t take same pill over and over since people said that it will build up and become toxic. I've tried melatonin and doxylamine. The rest are either prescription or too expensive. Are there any other options that will knock you out for a few hours? Sedatives and tranquilizers don't help.

Books and TV series that I managed to download and copy to the phone while electricity is on help pass the time, better than just lying around, and I also was gifted an old laptop. I don't have connection to the internet during blackouts, but it's enough to watch movies for 2-3 hours. But the lack of active engagement triggers the same reactions as inactivity, albeit a little later.

Alcohol and cigarettes is not something that works for me in general, and I don't have access to drugs, and in any case they're incredibly expensive; no amount of credit would be enough to support regular use.

I'm out of ideas. Maybe you have some?

Hey ElvenNeko,

very sorry to read about your troubles, which are many, and there's no easy way to get out of them, that's true, and there certainly won't be an easy one-size-fits-all solution.

Being in a wartime situation also doesn't help.

But ultimately, for you personally, I think there are a couple of things to bear in mind.
a) listing all of your problems like this will just result in you feeling overwhelmed. It's partially an issue of executive dysfunction, which can be a common in people with ASD (although you did say you're unsure whether you have that), but it's also something neurotypicals struggle with. Effectively, you'd need to break the problems down into individual, manageable steps. Prioritise.
Example: the situation with your cats is heartbreaking, and if the funds are lacking, I'm not sure there's much you personally can do. It may be tough to bear, but if you're not in a position to care for them, would it be possible to give them to an animal shelter, or else find someone else to look after at least some of them?

b) a lot of your struggles are related to your way of thinking about things... catastrophising and all that. There's no easy way of changing a mindset but in many cases it sounds like desperately looking for an active way of simply passing the time, but in the absence of stable, regular internet, you're missing out on that. Have you tried filling the gap with other things? In the old thread, you mentioned writing video game stories - what's happened to that hobby? Or even other forms of writing? I've never had any friends until just 2 years ago when I started going to writing groups, and now I suddenly do, and it's all via common interests.

At the end of the day, the change needs to come from you. Not because you are defective or insufficient, but simply because you haven't found your way of coping yet. There's a lot of information for free out there, just don't try to tackle everything in one go.

Hang in there!

I was thinking about giving cats away, that would allowed me to die without having to worry about abandoning them. But after seeing how other people are treating their animals i don't know how i can trust any of them. Especially shelters, conditions there are horrible.

I can't make games without computer and internet.

If you're suicidal, call for professional help - is there something like Samaritans in your country? Someone whom you can phone and they listen and provide support?

I don't think you can discount everyone else's treatment of animals, some treat them fairly, and if you're not in a position anymore to care for them, then it might still be better, though? I never said it's ideal...

You can write with pen and paper.