That sodding rollercoaster

I was if not UP exactly, at least quietly contented.  This morning M was grim, had had a migraine and looked wretched - than at 10.00 came a call from a creditor - we haven't had any of those for a while and it immediately dragged me back into the pre-Christmas world of misery.  Suddenly the future did not look vaguely improving, it looked bleak, tight and constrained.    I resorted to escapist activities: playing Spider Solitaire, looking at Twitter and FB and listening to R4.   At about 3.30 M came back from the shops... he had been unable to buy Finn boots, because we only have £9 in the account.  I'm not entirely sure where the£600 we had in there went, but it's gone.  The only major expenditure I can think of is two finely judged shopping trips and a tank full of petrol and a plate of food and some wine.   But it was enough, combined with the end of the month standing orders, to swoosh money out of our account.  Oh hell.  He dashed to the bank with a cheque he hadn't paid in, put in the Christmas cash and then transferred all the paypal money to it.  It's enough to keep us going another week or so, but obviously the thought of that nice little wodge of cash in there that was comforting me, that I knew was "safe" was not going to help.  Then Finn came along in distress, it's the post-dope low coupled with the feeling that nobody loves him that his "best friend" Oscar is not really a good friend, but rather a bully.  So I spent a long time comforting him, then realised we were so bad we couldn't really give him pocket money.  I suggested he look for a Saturday job - he was outraged, and horrified... really angry with me.  I pointed out that plenty of people did it.  He told me there were no jobs (this is largely, but not entirely, true) - he stormed off.  I was then extremely upset.  I found his attitude, the idea that he had no responsibility to himself or us, was dire.

And I was crying, because it was all so bloody, and I had seen played out the pattern that I dread.  I get upset by something, I try to be brave and "cope" by avoiding it - then I become depressed and unable to do anything.   Both M and I are doing this, it is too ghastly for words.  I know what I have to do this year, but if I am going to freeze every time a creditor calls or the money situation is strangulated, then how will I achieve it?   I know writing can even be a sort of displacement activity - so what can happen is that I write like the blazes, but leave all the other chores undone - the house falls to rack and ruin and the creditors go unpaid or untended.  Would it work better if, when upset, I immediately burst into tears, howled, prayed and got over it - and then carried on?  Should I completely relax my very tense upper lip and just let go - in the hope that this would give me sufficient catharsis to recover quickly and move on?   I think I should try it.   I don't want to spend another 3 months sitting in a semi-catatonic state in front of the laptop, frozen with indecision as to who to submit to and what to submit, who to call, and who not to call.