After spending two hours sitting through a lecture/discussion at the City Council building last night (which I wrote a post about, but it\’s at Will\’s and has not gone live yet, and I\’m at my parent\’s at the moment, so you\’re getting things here in reverse timeline style), I was once again faced with the reality that there is no way in hell that I can go back to taking classes on campus no matter how badly I want to (and I do — I already had next semester\’s courses picked out). I am still unable to sit in a ninety degree angle plastic chair for extended periods of time, even with getting up and stretching and walking around, and I cannot sit under those glaring fluorescent lights for an extended amount of time without my face burning and getting a migraine. FUCK. That bubble burst, throwing my plan for the next few years back out of whack once again, for what seems like only the three dozenth time in two years.
I decided, okay, fine, I\’ll just figure out a way to MAKE myself take the online courses, like, for real. Because even though I\’ve been enrolled in several semesters worth, I have only managed to pass one class (Digital Photography), as I completely lack all personal motivation to sit on my behind and communicate with thirty students and a professor over a message board. That is not stimulating to me, I don\’t learn that way, and I am too shy, for the most part, to make any of my own posts, which are highly required. Added to that, I just have not been able to give enough of a diseased rat\’s ass to honker on down and do things according to the due date schedule. In other words, I just am not, nor have I been, the least bit inspired or interested in online education. (But the art class was really cool.) I spend hours reading the books with nothing sinking in because the books keep making me fall asleep, or I am just unable to comprehend the sentences in general for whatever reason, so I end up reading a chapter on Ming China and all I know from rereading it four times is that it is about Ming China and they produced some nice looking art. FUCK. Then it comes time to actually write an assignment and I freak my shit for days upon days (from the moment it is assigned, until the minute it is due), trying to even comprehend what the professor wants out of the assignment, not getting it, being too afraid to ask, feeling stupid and inadequate, and then finally writing some nonsense that my therapist (yes, my therapist helps me with my homework) has pounded into my heads and let me take notes on, and even though I don\’t understand a word of it, I try and expound on it and reiterate it, turning the damn thing in just seconds before it is due, and manage to receive a B on it…. and then cannot understand why I got a B, when I didn\’t understand the assignment, the material it was based on, or anything I said in my papers. Then it comes time for exams and I automatically fail them all because I have no understanding of the material, am unable to remember jargon, facts, dates, names, etc. (I can meet you five times and still not remember your name; details are not my strong point), am unable to physically write the required long form answers and essays, and essentially just bomb the whole damn thing. I get an F on exams, always, which means that even though I had a B average prior, I end up failing the course.
According to my therapist and my boyfriend, I have extreme anxiety disorder when it comes to faith in myself, particularly regarding my intellectual capabilities. All this may be true (and in fact, is), but the fact also remains that learning institutions terrify me, people with education terrify me, and attempting to get an education through said learning institutions among people better educated than I, and from people who are extremely well educated, makes me look at the lesser of two evils: ongoing, unrelenting, 24/7 panic attacks from the beginning of the first planned semester until \”the end\” (whatever that is… a degree, my boyfriend says, or me flunking out and being put on academic probation so many times that they finally just expel me, is more likely), or, live my life with an eighth grade education, which essentially means, go nowhere and be poor and stupid and looked down upon for the rest of my life. And in my mind, the lesser of the two evils is the latter. But, I keep fucking trying, because what else am I going to do? I DO NOT WANT TO BE ON WELFARE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, GODDAMMIT. But the only way off welfare is education. And the only way to get an education, is for me to stop freaking my shit, decide what I want out of it, and then go and just fucking get it. Do it. Stop being scared.
Okay, fine, I\’ll try again. I\’ll do it. I\’ll put myself through hell and back down the path of the perpetual brink-of-suicide mental state, just so I can stop living in fucking poverty and have people stop treating me like the homeless, healthy-looking-but-actually-handicapped, broke ass, uneducated, on welfare, scumbag slumming on public funds when I \”should be working\” even though every time I try my body breaks down and there are medical records that show this but no one wants to look through your medical file so they would rather just take one look at you, size you up for what you look like, declare you a public fund moocher, a loser, and a shit bag with no goals, no future, no productivity, no life, and no chance to be anything or do anything except accept charity and get shat upon.
But really, I had a lot more hope than that. I say had, because I pick up my mail today from my parent\’s house, and there\’s my letter from school that I had to drop off at the social security office. The letter says \”this student is on disability under the Social Services act, and therefore, their courses will be paid for by Social Security.\” I was told when I was pressured to sign up for this fucking public welfare bullshit that if I was accepted, they would pay for my education, because they would rather have educated crips temporarily on the dole who can then find work, than uneducated crips who can\’t work because they can\’t do physical labor (read: retail, food service, etc. any minimum wage-esque sort of job) permanently on the dole. So I had to turn in this letter to get it signed by the office so that they would start paying my tuition, because I have run out of other sources to pay for it and as I am 22 and my dad makes a shitload of money, none of which I see, I do not qualify for financial aid. I also cannot get student loans because I have already filed for bankruptcy, have no job, and cannot work to get the loans paid off. I also do not qualify for any scholarships because I basically stopped going to school after 8th grade due to illness, got my GED as soon as I was old enough, and am now 22 with no credentials and nothing to show for myself other than thousands upon thousands of dollars in medical bills. From the research I have done, there are no scholarships for old, unworthy losers like myself.
You\’ve probably guessed the rest. The letter I got back today, the one my case worker at Social Security was supposed to sign, came back unsigned and un-notarized. It didn\’t even have a letter of explanation, it was just mailed back to me exactly as it was when I turned it in. For some reason, I don\’t qualify. For some reason, they just want to keep me as a fucking uneducated, gimpy, \”extremely impoverished,\” welfare scumbag with no chance of any future. When the system is supposed to help you, and they don\’t, and you can\’t find any other alternatives, what the fuck do you do?
What the fuck?
And so what would YOU do?
If you tell me to just stop whining and kill myself, well, been there, done that, one year anniversary coming up next week, not a road I want to take anymore, get the fuck off my case. I am fucking TRYING to get off Social fucking Services, and Social fucking Services are doing nothing to help me get to the point where I can.
I had my final physical therapy session for this prescription today. This makes it my third full round in physical therapy with no change. My physical therapist (this is a new one and not the one I was seeing the prior two times) just came right out and said, look, you have a chronic condition. You have a severely damaged Piriform due to Piriformis syndrome, As you have a chronic condition, there is nothing we can do beyond what we have done. You are going to have pain in your pelvic bone/left hip/left side of your ass, most likely for the rest of your life. If it starts to flare up, stop what you\’re doing, lie down and apply heat. Keep doing your stretches. That\’s about all you can do. It won\’t go away.
So, doc, what you\’re saying is, I need to stop having sex, walking, carrying my purse, sitting down for any length of time, standing for any length of time… in essence, I need to just continually stop living in order to lie down, apply heat, and rest?
Yup.
FUCK.
Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this, I don\’t know what to do. I DON\’T KNOW WHAT TO DO, GODDAMMIT.
They won\’t pay for school. No one else will. I can\’t work my way through school. I can\’t get a job I\’m qualified for because those types put me in too much pain and make me too ill. I am completely unskilled for any other type of job. I can\’t get a skilled job without education. Which I cannot pay for.
I hate this fucking country. I hate my 8th grade teachers and doctors (long story) for waiting so long to treat me and then brushing it off when I didn\’t get better. I hate my doctors from 8th grade up until the age of 21 when they diagnosed me as having a dozen things other than what I actually had. I hate everyone who said \”it\’s normal to feel like shit all the fucking time, it\’s part of growing up/being an adult, get used to it,\” when it\’s so obviously not normal and just FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK. I don\’t even remember what it\’s entirely like to feel healthy because I haven\’t been since before adolescence and it could have been stopped, helped, treated before it got this bad, and despite my pushing, everyone just dismissed it, and I want my fucking life back, but I know you can\’t get ten years back, there\’s no point in even wanting it, so I at least want to be able to have a future, I at least want that. Am I not allowed even that? God fucking dammit. I want my parents, and those teachers, and all those fucking doctors, to fucking apologize for letting it get to this point. I want those doctors to lose their medical licenses. I want some compensation. Some closure. But most of all, I just want to be over this. I thought I fucking was, I thought I had come to terms with all this. But months later, it\’s back, beating me about the head, and I realize, that no, I haven\’t come to terms, I\’m still fighting a ghost of a demon — a fight I cannot win. I just want to have a future, to be allowed to grow up. I can\’t have my adolescence back, I can\’t have my health back, there is no compensation, there are no retributions. But at least give me my future. Please, goddamit, let me have a positive future. But HOW?
Going on Social Services was supposed to give me access to all these support services, vocational rehab, vocational counselors, skills learning, education in order to start a job you can actually work. But as of December I\’ll have been a disability welfare bitch for a full year, and I\’ve received jack shit in future-based services other than runaround bullshit.
The system is supposed to not want people on welfare. \”The people\” don\’t want us \”poor people\” on welfare, as was made apparent at that damn lecture last night, \”the people\” see us like head lice — we\’re a \”problem to be eradicated.\” Well you can\’t just come out there and gas us all to death, fucking hell, we\’re people too, and we deserve a fucking chance. We deserve the chance to support ourselves, but we need help or otherwise we wouldn\’t be here in the first place, now would we? But we deserve the chance. Won\’t you please just give us the chance, please? Don\’t we deserve it? Don\’t I? I am NOT head lice, I am not just some problem that you can eradicate. FUCK YOU. I\’m goddamn sorry you have high property taxes and you \”only\” make a \”paltry\” $72,000 a year, but JESUS FUCKING HERALD CHRIST, I could probably be persuaded to kill for $72,000 to live on for the rest of my LIFE, and there are millions more out there just like me. I\’m luckier than most, and I fucking know it. But goddamn it. I am not some welfare queen. It took my doctors two years to persuade me to go through with the process, and I want off of it already. I want my fucking life back. I only wish I was so lucky as to have to deal with property taxes.
I\’ve been crying so much for the past hour that my parent\’s dog (who is HUGE) has forced himself up onto my lap, insisting on trying to lick my face and calm me down. I love this dog, I love this fucking dog. It seems like this dog is the only one out there that understands and is willing to let me just feel what I feel about this without telling me to stop whining and figure something out. I\’ve been trying to figure something out for ten years. I have all the failed business plans and three expired business licenses to prove it. I\’m too old and jaded to print dumb slogans on t-shirts anymore, and I\’m years behind website making and have forgotten everything I once knew, anyway. My so-called writing won\’t get me anywhere, as time and time again, people tell me, \”it\’s okay considering you have no idea what you\’re doing and haven\’t followed a single rule in English writing.\” I don\’t know what the fuck I\’m doing. Isn\’t it obvious at this point? Well it should be obvious. I don\’t know what to do. I need help. I need some fucking help. Not just some quick cash to get through the week or a place to sleep, but some long term skills so that I can build my own life instead of living on charity.
Maybe the reason the system is broken is because all the people who rely upon it are broken, too.
