disabled

62, living in public housing; non-binary, disabled, AuDhD... recently left my entire family behind because they have been abusive to me all my life. The damage is done; I have been in and out of therapy my entire adult life; went from girlfriend to girlfriend, job to job, state to state, city to city trying to fit in somewhere. That never happened. I am completely and utterly alone here in public housing; unable to afford any better place, unable to work, and if I did have to work who would hire me? I haven't worked in over a decade. All my contacts are lost to me, I can't keep records. I'm boned if I am forced to go back to work, it will probably have to be day labor. I'll wreck my body again, it was just starting to heal up from decades of labor work; one day my body just refused to work any more and I have been basically resting ever since. With some exercise to make sure I don't turn into jello but yeah I rest a lot.

I'm scared as hell right now but one day at a time right? Today I have everything I need. I sometimes fear I will go mad from the isolation though. I haven't met one single person in this city (deep south) that wants to hang out and talk about anything leftist other than theory; I want to talk about my work with the homeless in the area; I recycle things I find in the community by cleaning them and giving them to the homeless in the camp. It keeps me busy scavenging; yesterday I found 2 t-shirts both like new, brought them home and washed them immediately and already handed them back out to a couple of guys across the street at the smoke shop.

 Our hospital / police turn these people loose from the ER or from jail with the clothes they were admitted in, sometimes nothing more than underwear, if that. So they go into the hood looking for something to wear, anything. The smoke shop sells individual cheap t-shirts wrapped in plastic, used shoes, I don't know what else I haven't looked that closely yet-- 

I can't seem to meet anyone in this town that I'd hang out with or that wants to hang out with me, so I just walk around the 'hood every day greeting people, smiling at everyone I meet, scavenging the sidewalk for nuts and bolts and washers and other interesting things one finds on a walk in the city;

It's lonely and I feel like someone cut adrift in space - I feel I must get to some place where there is a resistance group forming or formed but where? And to give up my cheap housing would be hard for me. It's the first place I've lived where family can't stalk me! There's a security guard who never leaves the front door. And I have a great view of downtown; one mile from downtown so I can walk to events there. Or a coffee shop. Were I able to stomach going in a coffee shop these days. I'm afraid of what I might hear people talking about and want to slap them with a dead fish across the face to wake them up.

I feel all I can do right now is to be - as Gabor Mate put it- an 'Empathetic Witness'

8 days, 55 comments

Yup. Its the disabled megathread, we outta spoons.

I think it is ridiculous that whenever I get a cost of living increase for SSDI that my SNAP/food benefits decrease because I make "too much" money.

Being trapped indoors like a prisoner, for the first time in years I am feeling actual sadness. Normally I just feel anxiety, anger or frustration. But now I feel really, really sad. I've been trapped indoors for months now because of my foot surgeries, but that was tolerable because I knew there was an end date, it would heal up. But now with my inflamed tendon, there is no end date. And it's getting worse, not better. I feel like I've been sentenced to an indeterminate time in prison. In fact I never realised until now just what a hard sentence prison actually is. And the weather is beautiful outside and I live by the seaside, this is exactly the time I should be able to wander around outside. I feel so sad that all this beautiful scenery is out there and I can't enjoy it and I don't know if or when I will be able to again. It's not like I even have any friends left in real life (no-one wants to bother with a sick disabled person), I can't even invite a friend over for some companionship. Whenever one problem seems almost fixed, another worse one comes along. It feels like the universe is actively trying to drive me to despair.

And this is on top of all the usual shit. And this month I had even less response than usual to my food aid post. Someone did, thankfully come through with a food voucher for which I am immensely grateful but it looks like I might have to make another post before the month is up. I always try to wait a month so people don't get sick of me. But my food expenses are higher due to being trapped indoors, I have to order groceries for delivery which costs more.

And the hemiplegic migraine from hell that put me in hospital and has lasted over a week keeps flaring up, just a bit less each time. I've had more than enough, I want to join dignitas but I need to print off a form for that and we don't have a printer here, I need to go to the library but I can't walk there yet.

People are coming over for organizing stuff. A lot of people. I will not freak out. I will not freak out. I will not freak out...

Joking aside, they are all comrades but I'm gonna need decompression time like a mofo after.

Vegan banana ice cream with chocolate sauce, sprinkles and freeze dried raspberries.
I've prepared it.
It's in my freezer.
I can have it when I'm done with the reading and the cleaning.

The day is finally here. I'm doing literally fuckall today until I need to get my kids. My brain is fried and I need a fucking break. If you need me, I will be stuffing my face full of vegan cheese sauce and playing No Man's Sky.

Oh, also does anyone else have that thing where sometimes they read a thing like a comment/reply like 5 times in a row and cannot parse what it is saying but they come back 20 mins later or the next day and reread it and it suddenly makes sense? Is that an autism thing? Because I have that like a motherfucker.

It is kinda fucked how when I signed up for medicaid I basically had to hand write a letter saying "pwease help me my teeth hurt" bottom emoji included. Been taking advantage of it but I always fear with the cuts coming that I won't be able to anymore. Annoyed how no one told me to basically say my household size is 1 (just me) and 0 income like glad it covers some stuff but for years I'd been signing up with my family and we kept being denied despite being under the threshold for a family of 4.

Right now I'm real happy my sibling has been getting the help they needed, they got pretty sick and lost a lot of years and their mobility for like a decade all from not being able to get medication and a simple procedure. Got them on medicaid too since this really helpful nurse showed me how to do it and then I showed them. Trying to speedrun their treatment before shit gets cut and it seems to be working.

Not having a lot of executive function energy sucks. I'm working on getting a better sleep pattern, getting better about having a set schedule, but it's not easy. I appreciate having Hexbear around where I can shitpost with people that are comrades. It makes the tough days a little better

I had to politely make a doctor shut the fuck up after it said I was a drug addict and a liar, all in the first minute of the appointment, new record! Their little minds can't conceive that a person of my age has chronic pain and takes opioids.

As soon as I named the drug I'm on, it asked me "Do you inject it?". I, surprised by the question replied no, I'm prescribed pills, to which it says... "X drug doesn't come in pills, X pills don't exist!" with a perfect I gotcha smug on its face.

I calmly stated the commercial name and laboratory of X, and its shit eating smile started fading away.

For the rest of the meeting this crap was passive-aggressive against me, as if I had insulted it or something...

It finished telling me it could diagnose certain thyroid issues just by looking and listening at the patient's moves and speech patterns. When I asked how (in good faith, genuinely curious), it tried to change the subject, I guess it realized I could see through its bullshit. I had to hold my laughter.

I might be autistic but I am not stupid. It's scary how many doctors don't know ANYTHING about opioids, not even at a wikipedia level. If I told you all the things I've heard you wouldn't believe me.

This week I've been feeling dreadful. Being insulted, mocked by a piece of shit who happens to influence the course of my treatment reminds me how vulnerable my life is.

These clowns should face the wall (of text, I'm not implying violence at all!)

Well, I spoke too soon about my surgical wounds not being infected. The right foot feels infected now.

Anyway I'm so bored stuck inside for such a long time, I've had a few decks of tarot cards and books to go with them for a long time now, always meaning to start learning how to use them. It's just hard to summon up the strength and concentration to learn something new when you are struggling with health issues. But I want to start trying to learn them now.

• I'm addicted to energy drinks. Looks like my body needs an addiction to feel good.

• I don't know if I told you about it here, but I stopped taking the antidepressant. Mental health professionals tell me they're going to check my case; in any case, I don't mind having the psychotic label, what I want is to get my medication down, because it causes me a lot of sleep and apathy. Since I'm taking the right dose of antipsychotic fit for stabilization, they can't change my dose unless my diagnosis changes.

• Another thing I've changed has been my physical activity. I almost never left the house: I've been like this for years. At the moment, I've been walking for a whole month at least 1 hour a day. Although I haven't lost weight, I feel mentally better.

And that's all I remember.

i keep realizing a lot of the things my ex did were abusive/backhanded and i just never noticed bc im autistic af lmaaaao

A moment of humour for once. I was struggling to get around the house, slowly, due to my foot and tendon issues, and getting frustrated. My landlady offered some words of wisdom, saying, "Whenever I am stuck in traffic and feel myself getting angry, I remind myself that it took Richard III 500 years just to get out of a car park."

It got deleted but the askchapo thread looking for information about a banned user brought up a surprising amount of feelings from being an autistic kid in school. I appreciate the poster asking the question, 'cause I wanted to know but am too anxious to make posts, and it instantly turned into intentionally wrong answers, inside jokes, and debate about the user while never answering the original question which is context we need to understand any of the rest these posts

Just let me understand you neurotypical fucks

Bothered, dry, languishing, sad, can't find my lane (sick, still have to read for school)

I think I'm coming down with something, and at this point i literally don't know where to get masks any more

Been coaching my sibling as much as I can about making phone calls, it's draining for both of us but some times making a script or whatever helps. Made some right now and only have a slight headache.

current mood:

clutched up. locked in. submitted a GOOD essay FOUR AND HALF HOURS before it was due. im so good. yeah i know most people can do that easily but this was a big achievement for me. this was also my last ever essay for my undergrad so im feeling GOOD. it was a good essay, thank fuck, ive actually learned how to read a good essay. adhd who? (adhd me. very much adhd me.)

The fact that the guidance for psych patients include stuff like "If a patient is manic back away slowly without breaking eye contact" is worrying me about the quality of my education.

Also "Don't call the patients patients. Patients find it dehumanising to be called patients"

The mix of irreverence and reverence for human bodies at school drives me batty. On one hand there are all these rules about what you can and can't do with regards to the dignity of the cadavers, on the other hand I just saw someone brush aside a pile of bones to make room for his yoghurt Like your arm holding the spoon is almost leaning on a human scapula, and also if I took a photo of this I would literally go to jail.

I sort of approve of the practicality of it, but I also don't really know where the limits are.