Harry's touching gesture helped heal wounds with dad Charles

I had a difficult relationship with my father, who passed away on July 8, 2012. I've always worn my emotions on my sleeve. He tended to be very rigid. Our relationship did warm up as we got older. I came to realize that he really did love me. He had just been raised that men don't show overt emotion.

I was angry for more than a year after he died. I was so happy with the progress we were making, and it felt like it had been cut short. I'm at peace with his passing now. I think we healed our relationship. I just wish we'd had a little more time to enjoy the new bond we'd formed.

By the way, I think Duchess Meghan is adorable.

Love,

Adam

The Cheese Grates It Long And Hard: Self-Analysis: Why Did I Apply For A Job I Don't Want?

Dean Winchester is right as rain. 

My definition of crazy is repeatedly doing the same thing that never worked before and hoping it will work this time.

So, considering that I do not want to work in healthcare again, that I hate being a slave to the time clock, and that I have multiple health issues which mean that not losing Medicaid is critical, what the fuck did I go and apply for a job as an overnight caregiver for the elderly for?

I'm not sure what order to do this analysis in, so I guess I'll start by reviewing the pros and cons of my current job.

Pros: I never HAVE to go to work. 

I am solely responsible for whether or not I work. 

I will not be penalized by a boss or company for not working. I don't have a set hour when I need to show up. I sign in when I get there. Nobody will be shaking their finger at me and telling me I should have been there at X time or that I need to work X number of days and hours. 

Sometimes the payout is really good. 

It's easy to monitor when I'm reaching the cutoff limit to be able to keep Medicaid.

I don't have to request time off. If I want to go to an event, I just go. If I'm sick, I don't have to call in. I just don't go to work that day.

I can easily change my schedule.

Other than not driving like a shithead and getting in an accident or hitting a pedestrian, I am not responsible for anyone's well-being. I am responsible for dropping the customer's order off in a timely manner and being polite. That's all. 

Cons: I never HAVE to go to work. 

I am solely responsible for whether or not I work. I don't have a set time when I need to show up. 

I work for a fee of $4.50 per delivery plus tips. So if the customer is a cheap-ass and business is slow, I might be making less than minimum wage.

I don't get benefits or paid time off.

Wear and tear on my car is significant.

My job is not socially significant. I am not "giving back to the community" when I do this job. It is not a "helping" profession. It is not a credentialed position. Other than a driver's license and basic common sense, one does not need to possess a specific skill set to do this job. It does not take "a special kind of person" to do this job.

Now, let's look a little deeper into some of this.

I worked as a caregiver of one variety or another for a cumulative of approximately 25 years between 1988 and 2017.

I suffered major health reversals in 2017. Where I used to be able to work long hours at very physically demanding jobs, I am no longer able to do so. 

I lost my job as a homecare nurse for pediatric patients in mid-March of 2017. I fell into a deep sleep while working an overnight shift and woke up to see the patient's father sitting on the bed glaring at me. Judging by the last time I had looked at the clock, I had been very soundly asleep for about 20 minutes. I did not recall falling asleep. I came to from a deep, dark, dreamless state. 

In analyzing some of the symptoms I have presented with following this moment, I believe I had a small stroke (CVA) as opposed to a TIA. A TIA, or transient ischemic attack, does not leave lasting symptoms. A TIA is an indicator that a patient is at higher risk for a future stroke than a person who has never had a TIA. However, in and of itself, a TIA does not leave lasting damage.

I do not have memory problems and even people close to me would not see anything different in my presentation. However, my cognition was altered after this event in subtle ways. I have more trouble multitasking. The way I write has changed to a degree. Not stylistically, but in the method I use to approach writing. I used to pride myself on being able to take multiple writing prompts and use them to create flash fiction. It is more difficult for me to do that at this point.

This issue became markedly apparent when I tried to go back to work in a long-term care setting last summer and was compounded by the problems created by my diabetes. Although I understood each of the factors in the patient care equation, I could not put these factors into action. 

This is the equation:

Patient X needs medication Y at Hour Z, while Patient B needs medication C at Hour Z. Multiply the number of patients by 30. They all need medications at around the same time.

This sort of thing was not a problem for me in the past. However, I stood there staring at the screen, knowing who the patient was, what the drug was, what the drug was used for, which patient should be tended to first, given the particulars of their medications. I knew all these things, and I was unable to act. It was a subtle but critical problem.

The confusion was compounded by the fact that it was impossible to take a break, and my blood sugar tanked.

I could no longer do the kind of work that I had always been so proud of being able to do: hard work with long hours helping extremely impaired people. No time for breaks: you're on the go from the time you hit the floor and often have to stay after the shift has ended to finish charting. The demands on nurses and aides in a long-term care setting are completely unrealistic if I'm to be honest. The profession has a high rate of burnout and injury.

The job I'm applying for would involve working one-on-one with a single patient.

I will examine the pros and cons of this job.

Pros:

Steady paycheck

Overnight shift. I know that most people think this would be a con, but I don't do well working day shifts, so, for me, it's a pro.

Benefits including PTO.

Being able to feel "good" about myself for working in a "helper" profession.

I am experienced in doing this sort of work.

Not feeling like I need to lie to my relatives about what I do.

My mother and brother think I work as a medical courier. If they knew I delivered food, they'd be browbeating me to look for another job.

I wouldn't have to quit my current job.

Cons:

Slave to the damn time clock

Having to beg for time off

I don't know if I can physically do this kind of work at this point with the reversals I've suffered in my own health.

I really don't want to be responsible for someone else's well-being.

Now, a look at what's going on inside my skull.

I used to be able to work a lot. I used to work 60 hour weeks. I used to work two jobs. I was proud of my ability to do those things. I was making $40,000 a year.

I was working in a helper profession. My family could be proud of me. I was doing good for society.

Truth be told, I was miserable a lot of the time. 

I am the kind of person who prefers soft deadlines. I like being able to be someplace at "around three o' clock" as opposed to having to be there at three, but, really, you'd better be there 15 minutes early, and if you aren't, you're a horrible person who is inconveniencing others.

It's stressful being responsible for someone else's well-being. Yes, there's a sense of satisfaction with doing jobs where one is responsible for others' well-being. I experienced that satisfaction many times. However, if I'm honest, I also often experienced the feeling that I really wished I never had to do it again.

I am the sort of person who tends to put other people's needs before mine. There are situations where I don't mind this. If it comes down to my son or me, my son will always come first. However, this tendency can become pathological, particularly if you are someone who has difficulty saying "no."

At the point when I was fired from my homecare nursing job in 2017, I was working between 48-60 hours per week. I had two patients through my main job and one that I worked with every other week through a second job. 

I was extremely physically ill as well as having my usual health problems at the point when the sleeping incident occurred. My coordinator reasoned that since I had contracted the illness from the patient I worked with three nights a week, I could continue working with him since I couldn't re-infect him as he was already infected. This illness was respiratory in nature, either flu or bronchitis. 

I had been having more and more trouble staying awake for a full twelve hours prior to the incident that cost me my job. 

I didn't feel that I could be honest about my health problems with my coordinator. He would often talk about how they were going to get rid of the nurse who worked the four-day week with my main patient and have me take over her shifts. This woman had lupus and so tended to have to take time off. I would often end up covering some of her shifts. Given the way the coordinator talked about replacing her, I didn't feel like I could be honest about my own health problems.

My coordinator had a very demanding personality and working for that company came to feel like I was in an abusive marriage. When I applied for work with a company where I would be doing a different kind of nursing, my coordinator called me outside of business hours while I was with a patient to cuss me out and tell me that I needed to commit to the company because they only gave regular cases to nurses they could "depend on."

I pointed out that I wasn't looking to change jobs, just to diversify and to have a fallback for the down-times that are inevitable with homecare. He reiterated that they needed to be able to rely on me to be faithful to the company or they couldn't offer me full-time work. 

I said "fine, put me on PRN then."

He didn't expect that answer. 

I ended up with three different coordinators begging me to commit to the company. They offered me a raise. I ended up doing what they wanted, but part of me knew that it was a mistake. I don't like controlling partners, and this company had become a controlling partner.

I'm monogamous in romantic partnerships. An employment situation is an open marriage, as far as I'm concerned. I have no shame in admitting that I'm going to go with the employer that offers me the best deal and that I'm always on the lookout for a better deal. If employers want to keep employees, they need to treat them right. 

Now, I want to examine a factor which comes to me courtesy of the absolutely corrupt, massively fucked up, batshit insane healthcare system in the United States.

When I only had hypothyroidism to deal with, I could roll with whatever crap-ass insurance an employer offered. I only had to get lab draws once a year. I now have a myriad of other health problems, including diabetes and glaucoma. I have to get labs done quarterly. I have to have two specialized eye exams every year.

There are a lot of (shitty) insurance plans out there. Most employers offer full-time employees some sort of shitty insurance.

Most doctors take one variety of shitty insurance but not others.

I don't know what sort of insurance this employer offers. I will ask them today and see if it's a plan that my current provider takes.

If not, I either can't work full time so as not to lose Medicaid, or I have to work full time and then buy shitty insurance from the healthcare marketplace. If I suffer further reversals in my health and have to apply for Medicaid again, there will be a waiting period. Anything not covered by the shitty, high-cost insurance will have to be paid for out of pocket. 

The cutoff I can earn on a monthly basis and keep Medicaid is $1000 a month.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Thing is, once I get through paying the $250 per month on the low-end premium for the shitty health insurance, plus paying for doctor visits and medications, I might be just as well off continuing to work part-time so I can keep Medicaid. 

So, tell me again how we don't need universal healthcare and how everyone who receives Medicaid and/or SNAP is "lazy." Everything costs so fucking much that sometimes people don't have a choice.

I don't qualify for SNAP because I refuse to liquidate my 401K from the job that I had for close to 11 years. If I don't touch it until retirement age, it will be worth $50,000. I want to leave that to my son when I go tits up. If I liquidate it now, I lose about $18,000 of it. That doesn't sound like a very good deal to me. Consequently, I'm hungry a lot.

So, yeah, we folks who have to make use of the welfare programs are really riding high on the hog. 

The welfare queen is a myth.

It is unconscionable to punish people for being sick or disabled. In fact, I think it's downright evil.

You know what's hard to do when you're hungry?

Think.

Be motivated.

Be hopeful.

Work hard.

You know what else is shitty?

Looking down on people who choose to work in service professions such as non-high-end food-related jobs, i.e. bartenders, waitstaff, counter help, and delivery personnel. Believing that people in such jobs don't deserve to make a living wage. Thinking it's okay to insist that people in service jobs and other humble professions should work their asses off and come away with nothing. 

Thinking that it's fine to have a servitor class that gets treated like shit is a hallmark of a failed society.

Which gets back to my problem.

I don't really want to go back into caregiving.

I really don't want to go back into caregiving.

Really, I don't want to go back into caregiving.

There may be some benefits from doing so. The question is, do the negative factors outweigh the positive ones?

I kind of think they do.

I like the freedoms that my current job provides.

You know what I would be cool with doing overnight?

House-sitting. Pet sitting. Like, for cats. Or cute little dogs. Or friendly big dogs.

I might be interested in doing pediatric homecare again, but with the black mark on my license following the incident which led to my firing, I don't think I'll ever get another job in that area.

I honestly don't want to do elder care anymore. I did it for more than twenty years. I kind of think that should buy me some kind of reprieve. 

I'm going to go ahead and interview for this job today. It may offer me something that I feel is a worthwhile tradeoff.

I may not get hired at all. 

Part of me would be relieved if that were the case because I think I'm doing this for reasons that aren't exactly pure. 

I'm interested in a steady paycheck.

It isn't that I don't care about the elderly or about helping people. 

It's simply that my own health has deteriorated to the point where I have to look out for Number One, regardless of how ignoble society may perceive doing so to be.

Ain't like I ever got anything but punished for putting everyone else first anyway.

~The Cheese Hath Grated The Living Fuck Out Of It~

Wall Angels - Shoulder and Back strengthening

A stretch for those of us who may have balance issues. Using the wall for support helps prevent loss of balance.

The Cheese Grates It: High Anxiety

I always identified way too well with Charlie Brown.

I had a job interview this morning and I flaked out. It's been several months since I worked a job where I have a set schedule. My current job has the advantage of me scheduling myself. However, it doesn't make enough money. The person I was to interview with agreed to allow me to interview on Thursday.

Not that the job I'm interviewing for makes great money.

I don't know if I'll be physically able to handle the job I'm interviewing for. If I can't, (providing that I even get it) I'll turn in my resignation. The job I currently have isn't going anywhere. I don't have to quit.

Other problems which face me should I take the job I'm interviewing for:

I'll lose Medicaid. This is actually a huge problem. Therefore, I don't know if I may be better off sticking with the job I have.

The job I have has no chance for a raise, although on a good night I come out fairly well money-wise. I work for tips and am paid by the delivery.

The job I would be going into is homecare, although I am not responsible for anything medical. It would be working with senior citizens rather than children. I would be acting in the capacity of overnight sitter, although it sounds like some of these folks are bedbound, so I would probably also be having to change their briefs and reposition them. The position requires being able to lift 25 pounds, which I can do. However, I can no longer do heavy lifting and I do have some health problems which are going to need taking care of.

I honestly don't know what the hell to do.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

The Long-Term Effects of Yo-Yo Dieting and Size Shaming

https://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/is-there-a-connection-between-fat-and-cancer

So, Boys and Girls, you want to know what compounded my resistance to having examinations of my plumbing, besides having PTSD surrounding sexual assault?
That's right, size shaming.
If I hadn't had to worry about size shaming, I might not have waited nearly 30 years between exams.
I might have been less reluctant to talk to my doctor about what was going on with me.
So, you see what size shaming does in a medical context?
That's right. It makes larger people reluctant to see a doctor, or, even if they see one for certain things, they are less likely to be open about things that might involve exposing their fat body, because, oddly enough, people don't enjoy being shamed, ,particularly when they are vulnerable.
Size shaming doesn't work.
A "size normative" approach doesn't work.
Health at every size works.
If doctors are smart enough to get through ten years of rigorous schooling, why are they not smart enough to understand this?
My doctor cited the risks for endometrial cancer (which I may be in the early stages of, it hasn't been confirmed yet) as being a woman (duh), between the ages of 50 and 60, being white, and obesity. I asked her not to use the "o" word, and she has been respectful regarding that request. She made the mistake of thinking it was a "better" way of saying "fat," which I informed her it isn't. I may cuss like the proverbial longshoreman, but I think "obese" is a much nastier word than any f bomb I may drop.
Well, let's look at this. I can't much turn back the clock, so stopping myself from being between 50 and 60 is right out. I suppose I could get a really dark tan, but the likelihood is I'd end up looking burned rather than tan. Oh, and then there's that nasty fat. I could just get rid of that.
Not so much. Been there done that. Many, many, many times.
I developed bulimia when I was 12 years old and also started yo-yo dieting.
Funny enough, when I stopped dieting (at age 45), my weight finally stabilized.
The last time I dieted was when I tried Atkins again after I was diagnosed with diabetes. I did lose weight, but I don't think it had much to do with Atkins, which just ended up making me sick to my stomach from the Erythritol used to sweeten their shakes and bars. I think it had more to do with controlling my blood sugar in other ways. Because, shocker, insulin resistance can cause weight gain and make weight loss difficult.
 I really wasn't looking to lose weight in any case, and I felt a lot better when I stopped doing Atkins.
I'm a living, breathing example of how yo-yo dieting destroys a person's metabolism.
I'm so stressed it isn't even funny. I also have a familial history of cardiovascular problems, which, in my case, is compounded by having diabetes. Yet if I were to drop dead of a heart attack, the stresses from having to work a minimum wage job to never make ends meet and my familial history wouldn't be cited. Nope, it would all be because I'm fatty fat fat.
It makes me so angry that I could spit nails.
Wouldn't it be nice if no-one felt compelled to fall into the yo-yo dieting cycle, which benefits no-one but the multi-billion dollar diet industry, ever again.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

"If you are a fat person facing medical fatphobia and doctors who would rather risk your life to make most of you disappear, than help you live your best life in a fat body, life ISN’T supposed to be like this. It’s NOT supposed to be this hard. Your body is never the problem, fatphobia always is."

-- Ragen Chastain --

Touched By An Angel - "Touched By A Coffee Angel"

Thanks for inviting me to be a Camper, Cie. This is for us coffee addicts. I'd better keep the campfire burning so we can have a fresh pot in the morning!

Your Crazy Friend, 

Ace

Sick Of It All, Let's Be Real

Copyright holohololand

As I write this, I am wrapping up a sneezing fit and have snot running out of my nose, and that's the best I've felt all day.

Physically I don't feel any worse than I ever do. I don't feel good but I don't feel awful. Awful enough that I don't really feel like doing anything, but not awful enough that I can't. Story of my life.

Let's get this out of the way first. Whoever you are that may be reading this, this isn't about you. This post isn't about you. This blog isn't about you. I'm not thinking about you. You are not the center of the fucking Universe. 

Now, not all of you think you are the center of the fucking Universe, I'm aware of that. This is addressing those who think they are the center of the fucking Universe so much that they think a stranger's blog posts need to be about them and their beliefs and attitudes. Fuck that shit. I've encountered your type far too often. I'm not pandering to you.

This is about me.

This is my fucking blog.

I am writing this post.

Let's talk about me for a minute.

Fuck it. First, let's bring it back to you.

I would rather receive no reply to what I've written than to receive fucking platitudes.

"Have you tried yoga? It works for me."

Yeah, I have money to go to yoga classes. I have sooo much money that I never need to worry about money.

She said, her voice oozing sarcasm like a slime waterfall dripping over rocks.

"Have you been drinking enough water?"

Bitch, I drink so much water that I'm always peeing. I have diabetes. I tend to drink a lot of water.

"Have you been out in the sunny sun sunshine?"

Do I have a pleasant place to walk?

The answer to that is "no."

Walking along a busy street isn't very pleasant.

Do I have time to walk?

Well, let's see. I fell asleep when I fell asleep. Threw together some slop, ate the slop, and now it's time to go to work at my shit paying job. Go take your dog for a walk.

"Have you tried meds?"

Let's see...I'm 53 years old, have struggled with mental illness all my life. Despite being stubborn like a pissed-off mule, I actually do possess a modicum of intelligence and reasoning ability, so how about you take that dismissive shit and fuck right the fuck off. 

"It isn't ladylike to complain."

Well, Bitch, I've never been mistaken for ladylike.

Eh, I'm wasting time. Let's get to the meat of this rambling mess.

I dreamed about work last night.

I deliver food. I don't mind it. It's a job I can do. Because of my health problems, there aren't many jobs I can do. But the other night, I went to work and sat there for four hours, making no money. I was very upset.

I dreamed about work.

I dreamed that I somehow failed to deliver an order and the kitchen somehow failed to notice it.

Note that both of these scenarios are very unlikely.

In any case, I went to the kitchen and told them I wanted to include a box of cookies for the customer since their order would be late.

The fucking cooks proceeded to hide the cookies from me and eat them.

This sounds funny on the surface, but it wasn't.

At the end of the dream, I went home, never having delivered the order, and wrote a final post on my main WIP story blog. The post contained one word:

BYE

Now, in case y'all want the truthiest truth, I initially thought "this is fate. This is what I'm supposed to do. This is the best idea." 

Maybe it is. I've been frustrated by the fact that I'm unable to work on writing the way I used to. 

I'm also frustrated by people who have the reading comprehension skills of your average amoeba.

Right at the top of the blog, it says that the works contained therein are first drafts and are not in chronological order. But do fuckers bother to read that? Fuck no.

Now, I will share a link to a contentious chapter and complain about a certain critic thereof.

Here is what this critic had to say:

The snippet was quite interesting but...why all the randomly bolded words? And it was on the 'talking heads' side, with no action or way to really differentiate the characters for the reader. I know it's hard, working only with snippets though.

This was my response. Looking at it after more than two months, I realize it was a triggered response. Not to say that I agree with the critic, just to say that I responded more vehemently than necessary.

I take it from your other criticisms that "quite interesting" means "I hate it." That's cool and all. 
The words weren't randomly bolded. It was to keep up with the Wordle prompt, to remember that we had used the words. 
Honestly, I'm kind of brain damaged and stupid. I work at a menial job earning about minimum wage. I write when I can if for no other reason than to keep some aspect of what I believe myself to truly be alive. With a little help from my friends I am able to do this. 
Maybe I'm fated to just be a giant talking head, much like the Face of Boe in Dr. Who. 
Sorry my work didn't meet your exacting standards. 
I probably won't participate in this particular prompt again. Really, the only reason I do is as an exercise in constraining my word count because I tend to be overly verbose in my so-called writing.

I have previously stated--to this particular critic, in fact--that I have no plans for ever professionally publishing this work. 

I'm only trying to keep the work alive. I used to have a set plan for working on it. At this point, it's catch as catch can. 

Shit doesn't work out for me, and this particular critic and everyone like her can go eat a bag of...deer nostrils. Which is nicer than what I was going to say.

At the point when I lost my job last year, I think I may have had a small stroke. I was blaming the resulting weakness, activity intolerance, and inability to concentrate on my diabetes and hypothyroidism, but something in my cognition changed as well. I started thinking about it after I tried to go back to work in a long-term care facility and was unable to even remotely keep up or do the necessary tasks for such a job. 

I would look at the screen for what medication a patient needed when. 

I would understand what the medication was.

I would understand that it needed to be given at a certain time.

The task was impossible. 

Even though I understood both of the components, I couldn't make it work.

I was unable to do the physical aspects of the job, such as helping patients into bed.

I felt like I was going to pass out.

That part is probably diabetes. 

The bit with the inability to put two and two together even though I academically understood what I was supposed to do, I just couldn't pull the trigger and actually do it, is not diabetes.

I am very angry that I am being punished for having reversals in my health. Is it right that I should be food insecure because I have endocrine and neurological problems? Is it right that I should be living in fear of becoming homeless?

I see homeless people in fucking wheel chairs huddled together to stay warm.

I see homeless families with little kids sleeping in tents in abandoned parking lots.

The working class can't afford food and shelter.

THIS SHIT IS FUCKED UP!

Homeless people aren't lazy.

Homeless people may have mental illness, physical disabilities, or just plain bad luck. They may have made bad decisions at some point. But they aren't lazy. Also, people with addiction issues are not weak or inferior. They have a problem which tends to be misunderstood.

At the kitchen where I work, they've enacted this ridiculous, hardcore, "no drugs" policy, pretty much meaning "no marijuana", because ain't nobody working there can afford cocaine, I assure you.

Now, of course you don't want people toking up while working, but you don't want them swigging booze while working either.

Whether they toke outside of work or not should not be anyone's damn business. It's a fucking restaurant, not an emergency room or aircraft hangar.

I'm a contractor, so this bullshit doesn't apply to me. I could be mainlining heroin, and as long as I got my job done, nobody could say "boo."

I still think it's bullshit.

Anyway, I'm very tired right now.

What I was trying to get around to was the fact that I was trying to keep my project alive and some people are such fucking shitweasels that they can only feel big if they're tearing other people down. If that's the kind of person you are, stay the fuck away from me.

Pretty much what I feel right now is "fuck everything."

I don't think I'll mind being dead awfully.

Not because I believe it's the end. I don't. But I also don't believe in any sort of eternal salvation or eternal damnation.

Just because I'm sick of this shit.

I guess that's all.

~Cie~

When Setbacks Sideline Your Ambitions

Copyright Ayelet Keshet

There is an unfortunate tendency in modern society to postulate that only those who are hale and hardy and possessed of a certain type of beauty can excel in the world. While I am not yet the picture of success, I would like to work to disprove this, if I may be so bold as to say, ugly and bigoted assertion.

Those of us who are born with physical and/or psychological challenges tend to experience setbacks that people without these challenges find difficult to imagine. These setbacks go beyond the condition itself.

The vast majority of people who are homeless or living in poverty are not "lazy". 

They are people with (often invisible) conditions which render them unable to conform to society's rigid and Draconian standards.

It can be difficult if not impossible to maintain a positive approach to life when one feels as if one is being attacked at every turn, including when seeking help.

Those who are unable to pay for the help they need are decried as shiftless.

Those who fear seeking help because of previous bad experiences are decried as unmotivated to change.

Those who do not wish to take dangerous medications for their conditions are admonished as being uncooperative and deserving of whatever misfortune befalls them.

Those who feel hopeless are admonished to "think positive" and "try harder."

Let us focus for the moment on mental illness.

I am not the sort of person who believes that mental illness can be "cured." In fact, I cringe when people make such assertions.

As someone who has lived with mental illness my entire life, I believe that, while there is no "cure" for conditions such as mine, that useful coping skills can be taught to those living with psychiatric illness, and, such coping skills are more effective when learned at a young age.

Mental illness is not "one size fits all." Most people who have never dealt with mental illness, either in themselves or a person close to them, believe that there are pat answers, mostly involving medications. Some people do not respond well to medications. Such people tend to be admonished as "uncooperative."

Physical illnesses do not always respond well to medications either.

With both mental and physical conditions, the sufferer tends to be seen as broken, damaged, and having failed. People see them as deserving of their misery.

I will turn the focus to my own physical conditions, mostly endocrine issues.

I have always been admonished as being "lazy" and not "trying harder." My diabetes and thyroid issues are severe enough that I struggle with activity intolerance. I have to take frequent breaks or I start to become dizzy and confused. This is not conducive to the type of work I did for many years, caring for elderly and infirm patients. 

Rather than seeing that I had a problem of my own, I was admonished as being lazy, uncooperative, and stupid. I was fired rather than laid off, which would have allowed me to maintain a modicum of dignity.

I can no longer work "normal" jobs. I went from making $40,000 a year to making $12,000 a year. What little savings I had was quickly decimated.

I have two cats, both of whom need veterinary care that I can't afford. I live in a place which, evidently, contains toxins. Most of my cats have died prematurely, either due to cancers or organ failure. I realized this pattern only this year. I myself currently am awaiting screening for suspected endometrial cancer. Whatever is in this place may have contributed to the worsening of my own endocrine problems. I don't know, and I may never know.

"Just move" is not an option.

I'm not going to blow sunshine up anyone's ass. I'm not going to tell you that by having a "positive attitude" or by praying to (fill in the name of chosen deity) you will succeed and find happiness. I don't know if you will or not. I hope you do.

I'd like to tell you that it gets better, but in all honesty, I don't know if that's true.

I can only wish you luck, and I hope that something I share may help you along the way.

Peace,

Cie