#and probably none of this is coherent because it's 1 a.m. but

[naamahdarling]

Pain and anger about the SNAP thing below. TW discussion of pet desth, I guess. Suicidal ideation.

So some Lady from DHS called last Thursday. I was asleep, as one is at noon, and she left a message like "Call me!" but of course didn't say what it's about. There's a couple things it could be, one of which could be pretty bad. So I try to call her back twice a day since then, and leave messages, but she won't call me back. I have no idea why.

Today I get a letter saying "You have a review appt on Wednesday at 9 a.m.! You have to justify your need for food, you worthless leech! Be awake for the call or we shoot your dog!" and I'm like...at that point I will have been in bed for like 4 hours or so, and my meds will still be knocking me tf out to the point I maybe can't carry a coherent conversation.

Obviously this is not the ideal situation to be having a conversation about whether you deserve food. But when I try to call to reschedule, the line is busy all day. Because it's my obligation to be available to THEM and not their obligation to be available to me, ever.

So now because they are shitty what I have to do is either NOT TAKE MY GODDAMN MEDICATION or just stay up, and fuck up my sleep schedule just for these precious motherfuckers who can't be arsed to warn me more than a day and a half in advance.

1) If the mail had been later, I WOULD HAVE MISSED IT. I WOULD NOT EVEN KNOW I HAD MISSED IT. How is this okay?!

2) I am DISABLED with an anxiety disorder among other things. This could really hurt me. I don't know! Lack of sleep brings on so much anxiety and dissociation that it is the most reliable suicide risk trigger I have. Like, intense suicidal ideation within 2 or 3 days of sleep disruption. This is incredibly powerful, weird, all out of proportion to what I deal with every day. I HATE it. It is a huge hindrance to functioning in a capitalistic shitshow that expects even sick people to be awake from 7-whenever they don't need you anymore.

3) All this stress over this asshole not returning my calls and my benefits maybe being cut has fucked me up so bad I had probably the worst PTSD nightmares of my life. Bad enough that I woke up thinking I might fucking faint, which was SO weird, or that I might throw up, which wouldn't be weird, but would definitely have sucked. It was EXTREMELY upsetting and managed to hit every single trauma button I have, in a SINGLE DREAM. I have already had one day of very little sleep. I will have very little sleep tonight. That's two days. How bad will I be fucked up tomorrow? Enough to melt down over wanting to die? When I need to be supporting my boyfriend?

3) Because they won't call me back, I'm having to have this conversation on the day I have to put my cat down. Once I wind down from this call, if the outcome is good, I will get maybe 3 hours of sleep. If it's bad and I wind up with no benefits, or in trouble, I may get none and may become instantly at risk of self-harm. All this before I have to take Harley in and say goodbye forever. They get to shit on this day even more by making me justify my right to pay for food.

4) The medication that would help me the most is my Klonopin. I have none left and can't get any prescribed because those are bastard junkie crime meds that only addicts and weak, shitty people take, and good moral people just handle their mental illness without safe and effective tools. So I have to either take none and endure the 2d6 psychic damage no save, illegally accept some from a friend, or develop, before morning, the kinds of helpful contacts who could sell me some that might be laced with god knows what. I'm a whitebread chickenshit who has had at most 15 tastes of alcohol in over 40 years, has never done an illegal drug, with no criminal record of any kind. A) I don't even know how to buy weed. B) I don't have the profile of someone who will develop addiction and shouldn't be denied ANY medication in any quantity or dosage I need. C) Addicts also don't deserve the treatment they get and I'm tired of them being used against other mentally ill people, turning us against addicts when we should be ALLIES.

5) I am actually uncomfortable taking this call in my mental state. I may not be able to self-advocate. This is unacceptable except there is no process for dealing with it. It is in their favor. If I melt down, they may become much less helpful. Anxiety disorders and exhibiting symptoms of them are often perceived as weakness and attempted manipulation even by paid mental health professionals, let alone by Doris Boomer at DHS who deals with the Poors every day and whose training has taught her to mistrust everyone. My assertions about what is going on will probably be seen as lies. Because, surprise, people DO lie when they are pissed off, resentful, need breathing room, or are being harmed by the system.

And I'm hurt, above all, by the fact that I called today and left a message begging, literally begging, for her to call me back because I'm sick and can't sleep and my cat is dying and I had no warning about this appointment and can't safely be up to take the call because if I can't sleep I start wanting to die, so please, please god please, if I can't take that call, please don't take my food away on top of everything else, I can't afford it.

So that was a great thing to know about myself. That if I think you might take my food benefits away I will grovel like a pathetic bug, even though I know it only makes it more likely for you to crush me. I hate myself right now. I feel disgusting.

Also they're deadnaming me so I have to do it to myself.

I'm exhausted. I was so nauseated yesterday, and faint all day, and it was anxiety. The shitty antihistamines they give for anxiety just made me feel sicker and didn't help at all, as they usually do not. I took my last Klonopin last night because that nightmare was horrifying and I still feel sick and covered in filth from it. I want to scream and scream even thinking about it.

I don't know. I guess I just wanted to put all this down and maybe derive some comfort from people seeing it and BELIEVING ME. That's one of the worst things about all of this. Being considered a liar when more than one thing is going wrong, being told it's a sob story or manipulation or an outright lie. Being considered hostile and out of line when you call out a power stronger than you for abusing that power. Being told it's just policy and not personal when nobody can explain to me how denying someone food is NOT personal.

The cruelty may not be the point, it's just how the system has grown in ways dictated by people who don't care. So it may not be this way entirely by design. But nobody cares enough to fix it, either. They're content to let it be harmful. And to let it, sometimes, break or kill people.