I'm feeling so overwhelmed right now. - Lemmygrad
I thought winning my benefit appeal would be an end to the worst of my troubles.
I’ve been focusing on that for so long but now it’s here, nothing really feels
better. I’m still waiting for the rest of my backpay but given the amount of
debt I’m in and the interest that’s built up, the backpay won’t cover it.
Overdraft, interest, backrent plus various amounts like a lot of petrol money I
owe my landlady. And she can’t even be blamed or criticised for wanting
repayment, she’s kept me living here with no rent payments for like a year and a
half, driving me around, mostly paying the petrol out of her own pocket (apart
from when it was supplemented by a few mutual aid requests when times got too
hard), and being on a low fixed income herself, an old age pension, she’s got
into debt because of this. So of course I need to pay her back so she can pay
off her own debts. So instead of my problems being over I have these debt
payments stretching out ahead of me and only two years of guaranteed benefit
payments before I get reassessed all over again. So I have my normal rent and
share of the utilities to pay, plus paying off backrent and other debts like
utilities and petrol, paying off the overdraft and massive interest, transport
because although I have a disabled person’s bus pass, the nearest bus stop is
nearly a mile away and my mobility isn’t good enough for that walk so I still
need to pay my landlady’s petrol for driving me around. On top of this my
landlady’s daughter has become ill and is in hospital so my landlady will go and
stay with her, maybe for weeks, when she comes out of hospital. Who will drive
me to all my hospital appointments and to the supermarket? I will have to pay
for taxis and food delivery and my benefit payments already aren’t enough for
all this. I have lots of medical appointments coming up like the
physiotherapist, podiatrist, ophthalmologist and others and some are in
hospitals in other towns, it’s expensive getting to them all. I’m not eligible
for free transport like the St John’s Ambulance (as I don’t have the required
medical conditions to qualify) and you have to pay for hospital transport. My
clothes are basically rags, I thought I’d buy new clothes after winning my
appeal but nope. I thought I’d be able to have some actual pleasures once the
appeal was over but that’s a pipedream. My landlady took me to an appointment
this morning and as we drove past the harbour on the way back I saw all the
people sitting there, eating fish and chips and thought how I would like to do
that but still can’t even afford something as simple as a portion of fish and
chips. And I’m just today coming to terms with the fact that this is permanent.
It’s not going to change. Society says I’m a useless eater and useless eaters
should get barely enough to survive on, if anything. This constant anxiety about
money is something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. Why does
everything in our society have to be money, money, money? Why does Jeff Bezos
have the UK government paying his staff benefits out of taxes so he can underpay
them and keep more profits for himself while I have to beg for mutual aid? Money
is the whole reason I’m disabled to start with. Coming from a low income family
I wasn’t fed adequately as a child and so later went on to develop a
malnutrition-related cancer which has ruined my life. Then when my symptoms
started it took the NHS nearly 4 years to diagnose me because they didn’t want
to spend money doing any tests. The only reason I got diagnosed in the end is
because my employer at the time decided to give the employees a private
healthcare package as a perk, so i was able to go to a private hospital who
actually did some tests. Everything is always money-based. Without that I
probably wouldn’t have gotten diagnosed and would eventually have died and I’d
be better off that way. And on top of this I have all my usual problems to deal
with - the mobility issues on my left side (caused by my stroke) are flaring up
again, my achilles tendon is so inflamed I’m having trouble walking again and my
whole left side is painful and debilitated. The pharmacy/GPs have messed up my
prescriptions again, people look at me like I’m worthless trash whenever I go
anywhere because my clothes are tatty, my hair is falling out, I have edema and
skin infections and can’t walk properly. Even though my income is much lower
than an average person’s I have more expenses due to being disabled, even the
fact I need so much laundry disinfectant and can’t use normal detergent is a
massive constant expense. I stupidly thought once I won my benefit appeal I
could do things like paying for extra physiotherapy since the NHS is so shit I
don’t get anywhere near enough appointments, and paying for a carer to help me
with some basic things, but that is not going to be possible. Society wishes
people like me would just go away but they won’t legalise assisted suicide. What
is the point of this life? I try to find meaning by telling myself maybe I chose
this life to learn some lesson, but I know that’s just cope. I can’t even have
the simple pleasure of meeting with friends. Everyone gradually drifted away and
abandoned me when I got sick. I even spoke on here about how I recently reached
out to an old friend and was rebuffed. After two messages he couldn’t even be
bothered to respond any more. I left a greeting on another old friend’s facebook
page and he didn’t even bother answering even though he’s very active on his
page and has almost certainly seen my message. I haven’t met up with friends or
had any kind of social life since 2010. Since then the only people I’ve spoken
to are my landlady, hospital and shop staff and people online. And while most
people on hexbear/lemmy have been kind, even on here some people have been mean
or used me for their own fun. This month alone I’ve had two people on lemmy
repeatedly tease me with offers of mutual aid and never come through. I had one
person a while ago tell my my problems don’t matter, it doesn’t even matter if I
become homeless and give me suggestions on suicide methods. This is just the tip
of the iceberg. I just don’t have the energy to write out any more now. But I
have no-one else to talk to and everything is just too much. I’m even constantly
eaten up with anxiety that there might be an afterlife, and maybe I’ll be
punished in it, this terror, pain and misery might never end.
MarxOverflow
DisabledAceSocialist
Lenom
TheBungTankie
Makan
피타는노력
BarrelsBallot
Cherry⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡
lorty