Today is a bad day.

I went in to get med refills, but I couldn't afford them because the fucking free doctor prescribed them wrong. So I haven't had my meds for a week. Went to get the correct ones today, and they were $40.

Awesome. So I had to do a walk in I didn't mean to do. Got the meds prescribed for the third fucking time, and I was so stressed out I left without ever picking them up.

Went back to pick up my meds, was going to celebrate with a vape. Vape mod is missing. I look for it everywhere. It's gone. I lost it somewhere in all the stress of trying to save $40.

This is the poverty tax. To save $40, I lost $80. It is the snake that eats itself.

Also I have a second job interview next week. Unfortunately I also have agoraphobia, and my vape was my safety signal.

I'm freaking out and I need to replace it now. I will do anything to replace it. But to prevent myself from engaging in desperate, self-destructive acts, I'm going to have to require myself to do nothing.

I'm so fucked. I was getting $100 from a friend soon and none of it matters because I can never get ahead and begging for scraps kills my fucking soul.

So I'm begging. Because a soul can't live without a body, and I've been a body without a soul long enough.

No GFM. This is an emergency. If I have to wait, I might as well go inpatient and fuck both job interviews.

https://cash.app/$CeruleanArc
https://venmo.com/joanburgos

P.S. Oh and next week I'll need new Adderall. So this is all hell. I get $20, it's gone. Beg for more. If you have anything, please spare me more hell. I am so close, but I'm so tired too. I can't take much more of this. At this point I feel like I'd lose less self esteem finding people to fuck me for money on Craigslist.

#MutualAid #TransJoy #PovertyTax #Agoraphobia #MedicalAbuse #Disability #EmergencyAid #Venmo #CashApp #ButlerPA #Pittsburgh #LPC #SupportArtists #MutualAidRequest

These have been really difficult days. It's easy to feel no hope when your locus of control is zero. When you have no income, your locus of control is zero. In a capitalist society, this makes you, by definition, little more than an NPC, incapable of anything but scripted responses (unless you want to be seen as a crazy person, which I am tired enough no longer to mind).

Also, I'm sure that if you die, instead of accountability, somebody gets experience points.

Your compassion and generosity have been a lifesaver in these days. The first time I tried to get into Pittsburgh, I learned the bus ran only in the early morning and in the late afternoon. Incredibly, it was only 10 AM, and already my day was ruined. That was Wednesday.

Thursday, I was broke. And it was Thanksgiving. On a day celebrating the genocide of American Indigenous people, I considered the ways in which capitalism is designed to force us to destroy ourselves when we can no longer serve in the people-grinder that is the American workforce. It is a day to remember all that we must fight for and against.

I'm not sure when I was reminded about Venmo's existence for the second time, but I was dissociating so intensely that I ended the night as Joan with Pip, Carmen, and Chaz so exhausted they passed out. And I started getting this really bad headache that hasn't really gone away since. But Venmo existed, and you had come through for me big time. I could end Thursday much better off than I started it. And now, I think maybe I'll be OK for a week or so. As long as I don't get hit by too many surprises like the transportation one on Friday (see below).

At some point I got half the Budget money back, but my account is now overdrawn by $400, and now by $35 less thanks to a new GoFundMe donation that just came through. (I'd talked about this before in short, but I fought so hard for this that I'm still tired about it.) I'm not optimistic we'll get that checking account cleared soon, but I'm happy it's not as daunting a prospect now. The GoFundMe goal is currently to clear this final $400 deficit so I can use my bank account again.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/ellis-emergency-fund

#MutualAid #Pittsburgh #PublicTransit #SystemicFailure #TransCrowdfund #WritingCommunity #Capitalism #ActuallyAutistic #BudgetRentACar #Solidarity #PovertyTax

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Memes R Us
[meme-maker unknown]

See the flaws in this oversimplified meme and read the comment by @jrefior

#economics #education #inequality #billionaires #college #taxes #press #meme #PovertyTax

https://www.propublica.org/article/fenton-louisiana-brought-in-1-million-through-mayors-court

#BrokenTaillightPolicing: Advocates for the poor say a reliance on fines, which they call “taxation by citation,” distorts the role of police departments. “It’s almost impossible to generate that much of your revenue without doing pretty abusive things,” said Joanna Weiss

#PovertyTax #AbolishPrisonsAbolishPolice