where did i go

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything on my website. Like, it’s been six months! I truly do apologize, and I hope to bring more content here shortly.

It’s certainly not because I haven’t been doing any that’s worth writing about. It’s been a very busy six months in the life of Erin, to say the least. There are three main reason's why I haven’t been posting anything, and I would like to take this time to share with you those reasons:

My life since the middle of may has been extremely rough. I was blindsided and devastated by the sudden break with me, then, girlfriend. I was expecting her to end things as the months prior were the best and strongest our relationship had ever been! She was not only the love of my life, but she was also a source of inspiration, strength, and motivation. I’m still, to this day, trying to find a way to get over her and that relationship. I’m not going to lie this single event sparked a very serious spiral downward and a very serious and deep depression. Just getting through the day was hard, let alone keeping up with my training and fitness. So that’s the first reason. I know it sounds really stupid that a relationship would impact you that much. But, it shows how much I valued her and our relationship. I try very hard to keep relationships in the right place, but aspects of my brain injury and her unstable mental health did put a strain on some aspects of our relationship. I still love her deeply, but today it’s a completely different love. I’ll continue to try and reestablish a friendship because we did help and support each other a great deal.

Another reason was; for the last, I would say, the year an a half, I’ve been noticing parts of my brain injury getting worse rather than the same or getting better. My memory was getting worse. I developed a terrible stutter, uncontrollable fidgeting, more difficulty controlling my mood and emotions, and a drastic decrease in my cognitive abilities. Because of this, I needed to get everything related to my TBI reevaluated. So, I’ve been taking care of all those tests the last few months. The results were not positive and show that, yes, things are getting worse instead of staying the same or improving. Dealing with all of that has been VERY difficult. Especially now that I didn’t have my one person of support (see above). I had to handle this difficult news by myself, and it hasn’t been easy.

Now, the main reason for my absence. Also happening in the last few months, I’ve been fighting tooth and nail to keep my disability benefits going. Dealing with this has been incredibly difficult and scary. It’s scary because my source of income is my disability benefits. If I lose those benefits, I’m homeless … literally! I just recently had a hearing as my last chance to fight to continue my benefits. I don't know of the outcome of that hearing for a few months while everything is getting reviewed. Luckily during this time, my benefits will continue until the final decision has been made.

Some of you might not know, when you get into this situation with the disability, you have to worry about them spying and crawling the web for anything about you that can help their side to not continue benefits. It’s common that they hire “spies” or “PI’s” to follow you and see what you are doing, anything to help build their case. The same goes with anything on the internet. Websites, social media, etc… They’ve been known to look you up in everything, again, to find anything that will help their case.

THIS! This is the biggest reason why I haven’t been posting or updating anything. I do not want to give them anything that could support their case.

Now that the hearing is over, I’m feeling a little more comfortable getting things back going again on here. I have a couple of things on my mind, so hopefully, I’ll be able to share them fairly soon.