I am reading, and empathising, just in case you sometimes feel like you're shouting into the void. I'm just sometimes not sure what to say that won't sound like some pithy platitude because things are kinda sucky right now. But I am glad to hear that, despite everything, your head is in a fairly good place!

i know about all of this.. i don't have any benefits, but I will have to be going onto some soon, more than likely. I am not sleeping... with out a pill, i can be up days at a time... At least you have Nyn to hug.. and maybe nibble on if you get too hungry....

Can't nibble. I've left too many bite marks. 😈😈😈

Don't feel bad, I'm in the same boat, being a federal employee.
October twenty-eighth I get a zero dollar paycheck and will have to transfer a "paycheck" out of my savings account to keep things going as normal. Money is limited, I can only do that two more times after this before I'm completely out of funds.

Thing is, this time I'm fully convinced that the government may stay shut down until clear into the middle of November. There's no incentive or reason to open it back up any sooner.

The House has fully washed their hands of even showing up in Washington putting themselves on indefinite recess until the Senate passes the funding bill they were given.
The Senate is just going to keep delaying and delaying and delaying knowing that the funding bill is only good until November twenty-first. It makes zero sense to open and fund the government for four weeks...then three weeks...then two weeks. Eventually the House is going to be forced to come back so they can draft up a new spending bill to fund the government again.
Even if this situation could be resolved next week, the president has disappeared for an out of country tour that's going to last until months end, so even if the Senate did pass the funding bill its just going to be sitting on the presidents desk awaiting signature to end the shutdown.

Already for me I'm exploring options to put my one remaining mortgage loan on forbearance for three months just to have that option of stretching my money out a little bit further into December, but there will come a point where if this shutdown continues through November for any length of time I'm just not going to be able to feasibly go to work anymore until I get paid.

--Mozdoc

I'm in the same boat, my disability doesn't cover my utilities and my snap only last a week, plus food banks groceries are getting less and less.. Something has to be done about this fascist nazi president.