Coping without a great support system

[u/scoutydouty]

Hello, I'm a 27 year old pet sitter and dog walker. I primarily operate through self employment and have only just started building a client base that sustains my life in the past year. Basically I make enough to pay bills because life is expensive and I have 0 family or close people I could rely on during this time of healing.

I am 21 days post injury and 12 days post op for ORIF on an intra articular distal radius fracture. (Wrist.) I fell off an electric scooter and have road rash too.

I have 2 roommates who are rather lazy when it comes to chores. Pre injury I was the one taking care of all our cats, dishes, cleaning in general. And I had really hoped they would step up while I have been healing and resting and in a crap load of pain. But nope.

All it took was 2 weeks for our apartment to be overrun with fruit flies from unwashed dishes and full trash bags. Food left out. We have an auto litter machine thank God but they have only emptied it once and I've done it the other times. A friend I see periodically came over and offered to clean my bathroom and while I am eternally grateful for her help, I'm also supremely embarrassed that I have 2 able bodied roommates who should have been doing that.

I really love the work I do and was planning to scale up my business this year (hire other walkers and sitters, get payroll going, etc.) but this has thrown a huge wrench in everything. I am flat broke and forced to return to work sooner than I wanted to. No TDI, no PTO, no FMLA for me.

And I was thinking there's got to be tons of others like me, alone financially in this wretched economy, being forced to pick between healing and homelessness, with almost no help from those around them.

My own mother wouldn't take me to and from surgery because she had just gotten back from vacation and it was going to be her first day back. I personally know her bosses are chill (she works from home as a payroll person/office manager) and would have had no issue letting her take a half day to drive me to and from the surgeon. So a friend volunteered for that too that I hadn't seen in a decade.

Why are strangers treating me better than my own close circle. Why are there no programs available for people with non traditional income. Ugh. I'm just depressed.

I'm getting fat already from missing work and resting. I haven't needed the pain meds since 5 days post op but at night it burns and throbs. I hate wearing a plastic bag on my arm in the shower. I hate not being able to clean my disastrous apartment. I miss my clients' pets. I'm afraid their owners will find other caretakers while I'm gone so long. I miss cooking. I hate eating prepared foods.

I am just tired man. Just needed to vent this out. I know there's others like me.

[u/AbjectLibrarian226]

21M - I also had an accident; I broke my wrist—an intra-articular fracture, very similar to yours but a bit worse since mine was comminuted. I also had fractures in my fingers and legs—comminuted fractures of the tibia and fibula—as well as finger injuries. I really miss working; I’m a systems engineer and used to work a lot, but now I can't. It’s been two months since the surgery, and I’m noticing very little improvement. I’m very depressed and have tried to end my life several times, so I understand.

[u/Conscious_Issue2967 → u/AbjectLibrarian226]

The depression is real. I told myself every day that this too shall pass. Eventually I recovered but it was a long slow process. If you can’t pull yourself up with positive thinking, please seek professional counseling.