The past few months have been difficult.
The situation with my upstairs neighbour escalated to the point where I had to call the police this month. Twice. Then I emailed my landlord to let him know what was going on. I've explained the situation to my friends and family. To Reddit message boards. I think I posted some of it on E2 in my last entry. I've spent hours and hours sitting at my desk organizing screenshots of text messages and writing out a timeline of events.
I've been trying to not let it get to me and just focus on my life, but I've been crying on and off all day today. This woman has been harassing me. She didn't stop until a week ago, when our landlord contacted her case worker. Or maybe it wasn't until she received her newest eviction notice — I don't know what was said to her or when. Now she is acting all nice, claiming she wants to be civil with me while simultaneously gaslighting the shit out of me. Standing up to her is sucking the life out of me. She is deeply unwell, which I knew when I first met her, but I'd thought she was harmless. Now I know better. I'm afraid of her. My landlord told me he's afraid of her too. And as much as he wants to kick her out, I don't think it'll work. Evicting people is difficult to do in Canada, and she'll fight back just to be spiteful.
I've started the process of finding a new apartment to rent. I contacted three places tonight. Hopefully they'll respond soon. There aren't many places to rent around here. The housing market in general is terrible. My family has thankfully stepped up and offered to help me in any way they can, for which I feel extremely grateful. They also offered to help me pay for counselling if I want any. I guess it's obvious that I need it. I will probably look into that tomorrow.
In other news, I signed up as a delivery driver for a popular food delivery company. It allows me to pick my own schedule. I haven't gone out as much as I would like, mostly because I'm still not used to using the app, and my brain has been a big pile of mush for the past week. I might sleep at my parents' place while they're away on a trip. That way I can watch the house and get the hell away from this place at the same time.
My cat is blissfully ignorant of all that happens in the human world. She wants her food and her cuddles. It makes me laugh.
I'm doing some volunteer trail maintenance work at a nature reserve next week. I've been trying to get more involved with the things I care about. I think if I keep going in that direction, I'll find whatever it is I'm looking for.
The one good thing about my crappy living situation is that it forced me to put a lesson into practice: Don't keep stuff to myself. I have a bad habit of blaming myself. I need people around me to tell me that I'm not imagining things, or going crazy, or being unreasonable. That's why dealing with my gaslighting neighbour has been so difficult for me. I'm vulnerable to that crap. So I've been blabbering to my few-but-excellent friends about my problems and feeling guilty about it and apologizing profusely for bothering them, even though they keep telling me they don't mind. And I'm getting through it. This is how you level up.
I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks. I think finding a new place is the right thing to do.