This is one of those posts where I will completely open up and share things that are going on in my life that have me feeling the way I’m feel this morning. This is only meant to provide insight and context. These are just some of the many things weighing on me thus morning.

I’m just venting and I haven’t even proofed the post. Please forgive the wordy mess but it needed to come out.

I woke up this morning feeling nauseated again because that’s been the status quo for the most part since taking my last dose of Paxil almost a month ago now. The journey to get off of Paxil has been horrible and took over ninety days to complete. I learned the hard way, just how horrible it is to come off of this particular anti-depressant.

I’m slowly getting better but I still feel nauseous throughout the day and have absolutely no desires to eat or drink anything.

I’ve worked so hard over the last decade to build something that not only addresses the needs of my family but also allows me to pursue desire to help others. I’ve been able to do that with writing and this post is part of that.

We’ve never been financially well off but we’ve always managed.

As this site grew, along came opportunities to leverage the popularity of my efforts. Things like advertising, sponsored posts and semi-regular freelance writing gigs have really helped me to raise my family and keep us moving forward.

I’m proud of the fact that we’ve gotten off of food stamps and have become much more self-sufficient. I’ve always felt like it’s my family and it’s my responsibility. I’m so grateful that assistance was available for us and I hope it continues to be available for those who need it as well.

Unfortunately, while things are better for us financially, we are by no means on solid ground, at least not yet. Any disruption in income can knock all the domino’s over.

Enter my Facebook stalker.

I hate social media. I hate how people can do things on social media, they wouldn’t have the courage to do in real life, at least in regards to things like bullying and harassment. At the same time, social media is a invaluable tool that helps me reach the many families I have. It’s a necessary evil but one that let’s me talk to individuals directly when they need to talk about whatever they need to talk about.

People gravitate to me because I get it. I understand what they’re going though and I don’t judge them. I listen to them and share my experience when appropriate. I make a difference in people’s lives.

Unfortunately, I have a Facebook stalker whose hellbent on making my life miserable.

This person has been reporting everything I do on Facebook as offensive. Every post they report is automatically pulled and once so many of them get pulled, they ba the url of this blog, preventing me, or anyone else from sharing anything from this site.

Facebook is a huge part of my social media network and losing that huge part, has a devastating impact on my ability to reach people, as well as provide for my family.

This has been going on since January 18th of this year and it’s no coincidence that it began on Gavin’s 18th birthday, the same day that I received a poorly veiled threat from someone who’s been gone from Gavin’s life for almost a decade but threatened to return when he turned 18 because he’d been an adult, meaning the courts could no longer stop her from making contact.

The last three months have been increasingly more difficult because my income has been drastically reduced as a result of losing traffic and being cut off from Facebook, which made up as much as 60% of my incoming and returning traffic.

I appeal everything with Facebook. They review and restore my privileges because I’ve in no way violated their terms or conditions. That takes about a week to get resolved each time and I’ve had to do this almost a dozen times since January 18th.

Their goal is to hurt me because I adopted Gavin, after raising him as my own since he was a little over a year old. I don’t believe this is the obvious person because he never cared but the person I do believe to be responsible is tied to him and I’ll leave it at that.

This has been an enormous source of stress because I have to work even harder to circumvent these obstacles and it’s not easy.

All I’m trying to do is provide for my family and help other families like mine. It shouldn’t be this easy for one person to have such a devastating impact on someone’s efforts to care for his family and help others.

We’ve had to make cuts to our spending in order to adapt to this situation (which is fine) but we’re now struggling in some areas and desperate in others. I’m already overwhelmed with life on a good day. Between the return of financial difficulties, and battling my Facebook stalkers attacks, I’m overwhelmed and exhausted.

Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing I have to worry about. Gavin’s overall everything is failing and there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do about it. I can’t explain how painful it is to watch your child lose everything that makes them who they are know that I’m powerless to do anything.

I’m still waring with my own depression and that’s an emotional roller coaster by itself.

I’m doing everything I can do to make things better for my family but it’s hard to do when my hands are tied in so many different ways.

Right now, I’m choosing to focus on where I can have the most impact and not giving up. That’s all I can really do. Worrying about replacing our on its last leg car or finding a safer place to live, are things that I struggle to turn off, but there’s nothing I can do about them at this moment.

Focusing on what I can, when I can is a solid approach for now.