It breaks my heart to put these words on the page, yet denying the truth has only made the problem so much worse.
Until last week, I had a day job as a cashier/stocker at my local Aldi. I always told myself it was just a day job. When I got the job, I had just been booted from my 16-year marriage, my sacrifices and determination to keep the family together thrown out the window by a man who couldn’t handle me at my worst.
My father died in 2023, and it hit me hard. But let’s not pretend the marriage was perfect. Since 2016, we’d been discussing divorce casually off and on as an aside, a possibility for resolution neither of us seemed prepared to take. That was, until the night I told my husband I needed to be hospitalized because I wanted to kill myself.
He told me I had to wait three days. He had to work and couldn’t take care of the children until his day off. Who was gonna handle everything in my absence? Certainly not him. Not without making me feel excruciatingly guilty.
So, naturally, I didn’t go. I tried to get by, each day getting worse until I snapped. Screamed at my kids. Behaved in a way that was entirely unacceptable.
I accept my role in the deterioration of trust between myself and my kids that night. I’ve made a lot of efforts to right those wrongs.
But I wasn’t the only one to blame.
I asked for help.
I begged for it.
I cried, I pleaded, and I strategized with other family members to get coverage for my kids so I could go away and regulate. I knew what I needed, but I was told I was using the option as a “vacation.”
When you are a full-time mother, responsible for nearly every pick-up and drop-off, lunches getting made, homework checks, backpack checks, planning every meal, doing the majority of the shopping, and maintaining the business of raising 3 autistic kids, there isn’t enough time in the day.
Now, add that I was knee-deep in the beginning of my MFA journey. I was trying to find a part-time job to supplement our income (I was on a strict allowance, yet my husband was free to spend as he wished – There was considerable financial control going on, but I couldn’t see it).
And I was without a therapist or psychiatrist due to being too overwhelmed managing the intense medical needs of all 3 kids, plus my husband (diabetic with ulcerative colitis and Chiari malformation 1), plus the intense needs of one adult child outside of the home but still very much under my care. The adult child had just gone away to college herself on the far end of the country, and we were both struggling with the distance.
I called Rock County Crisis. I involved the treatment teams for the children. But ultimately, none of these interventions worked because the one person I needed to help me was too concerned about his job, not his wife’s life and his children’s peace.
But I digress. This isn’t a post to bitch about my ex-husband. It’s setting it up so you understand that I was already in a seriously fragile mental state.
In July 2025, I started working for Aldi. The work was hard, but my schedule was mostly consistent, and I liked my coworkers. Things went mostly well for a while. Then came the schedule changes.
My typical 6 am to noon schedule was swapped for chaotic hours, swinging weekly shifts that ranged from 26 hours to 40 with no reasoning, the “Clopen,” closing at 9 pm one night and opening at 6 am the next morning.
Clopens put me in the hospital 3 times over the last year by causing emotional regulation problems, sleep deprivation, and physical injuries.
I couldn’t get enough sleep, I barely had time to eat or play, and I was running on Red Bull, Pepsi, and chocolate chip cookies.
I requested accommodations. I was told I had to fill out forms. I was told the forms were being sent to me. No such forms have ever arrived.
In June 2026, I was hospitalized again for “burnout” and excessive stress that was exacerbating my mental health symptoms. My doctor put BPD, PTSD, Anxiety, and bipolar disorder on the short-term disability medical sheets.
My doctor kept me off work for 3 months. 3 MONTHS. That is not some little thing.
During that time, I spent 2.5 months FIGHTING with Aldi to facilitate Short-Term Disability Benefits. They refused to return my messages. They gave me flat responses, telling me they sent the paperwork. I never got it. I got one set of paperwork in mid-July that had already long passed the due dates someone filled in with a pen. The postmark was after the due dates.
I ended up going directly to the disability company and completely bypassing ALDI involvement to get my disability claim started. By the time any money reached me, I was 2 months behind on all of my bills. It was already impossible for me to catch up since STD only pays out at 60%, and they took $200 a paycheck for insurance that I couldn’t even use because the copays were too expensive for me to be able to afford.
I didn’t spend more than $10 a week for almost 3 months outside of food stamps for groceries for my son and me. I sold things, I borrowed from friends, I took out every loan I could just to keep the power and internet working and to try to scrape together rent money.
I got buried. An avalanche of financial disaster piled on top of me.
It became obvious I was going to lose my apartment and my utilities. So, I let my STD end and went back to work.
When I returned to work, I worked 3 shifts.
The first was 3 hours long and went perfectly.
The second was 8.5 hours (my supervisor is well aware that I work best under 7 hours at a time – we’d discussed this at length). During this shift, our district manager was in the store, and I was introduced to an entirely new cast of coworkers. I requested FMLA and accommodation paperwork from Anthony, the DM. He assured me he’d get them sent out that very day.
My next shift was 2 days later and it was 8 hours. I struggled towards the end, but mostly, it was a great shift. No outbursts, no mental health triggers, no drama. I got antsy in the last 5 minutes, but otherwise it was fine. When I got home, I was exhausted. Climbed into bed and slept in the middle of the day for 4 hours, then woke up suicidal and needed a medical evaluation.
I called in to work for the next day. I called my doctor. We talked about ideation. I have that, so it’s not necessarily a catastrophe that I woke up in a spiral. I felt better, and like I could handle things. I had the next day off, so I met with my therapist. As the day went on, the panic attacks about my next shift started happening about every 15 minutes.
Like a woman in labor, I timed them. Measured their intensity. And worried about whether I should go to the ER or wait it out. Sometimes waiting it out worked, and I could pull myself off the edge.
Sometimes, I couldn’t.
This time, I couldn’t.
So I went to the ER. Hours later, I messaged my supervisor with an update on my condition. (She still hasn’t opened this message, btw).
I was moved from the local ER to Shorewood Behavioral Health in Madison, WI, where my phone was confiscated, a GPS tracker was strapped to my ankle, and I was cut off from the outside world for 5 days.
When I got out of the hospital and turned my doctor’s note into my supervisor at Aldi, I had already been fired. Nobody told me, but they removed all my credentials and treated me like I was going to blow the place up. It was weird and childish.
When I messaged my DM about being fired, he responded by informing me that if I needed pay stubs, I could contact corporate HR.
I got out of the hospital to find myself fired. Not only that, but I still haven’t been able to dig myself out of the financial nightmare that being mentally ill while working at ALDI caused me.
I officially earn my MFA on October 1, 2026. By the time of my graduation, I’ll be homeless.
I don’t know how to stop it.
Everyone has offered to help; only one person has come through, and I can’t let her help any more. She’s helping me so much she’s falling behind now, too. I can’t let her drown with me.
I tried applying for different types of assistance, but the system is rigged to prevent you from accessing the resources, so navigating the requirements, appointments, documentation chasing, and telephone tag cycles is more than I can handle in my current mental state and with my current physical abilities.
It feels hopeless.
In that despair, I have found a writing voice that begs to be heard. And so, I will write my truth. Even if it makes others uncomfortable. Even if it hurts feelings.
At the end of the day, I can’t depend on most people. And that’s okay.
I’ve got me, and my kids, and my kids have got me.
That is all that matters to me.
Surviving for them.
They are my why. Always have been, always will be.
But writing is my how.
How I will survive.
How I will find my place.
How I will find the strength to pick myself back up when the dust has settled and rebuild once more.
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