#because capitalist hellscape insurance

[ash-alder]

i have a migraine and would like to not, please. it is unexpected, and very bad, and i would like to exist and not have my eyes feel like they are going to explode.

[dovesndecay]

It's June! It's Pride! It's (my) Birthday!

The Introduction Spiel:

Hi, I'm Reyah! (any pronouns! no really, go for it!) On June 21st, I'm turning 32, an exciting and mysterious age to be!! (So I've heard)

Warning: This is a post asking for financial help, and if there's one thing I would ask is that if you read the whole thing: please reblog.

I'm a multiply-disabled queer person of color, a writer, artist, and photographer. I live with three of my best-good-pal-friends, (@renthony, @kryptidkhaos, and @natalieironside) and our collective army of pets.

We all know it's damned hard to be all these things at the same time under the capitalistic hellscape we're living under, and we/I am always in need of a lot of help with the existing.

I ended the month of May with some smaller bills left still to pay, but am thankful to say that June already had fewer bills than usual due, and the amount I need to start the summer off right is actually less than I was afraid it would be! Woohoo!

What I Make

I mentioned my artistic endeavors, let me show you them!!

Writing

I write less often than I'd like, but I share poetry and shorts, when I have them, on my Patreon!

You must be over 18 to pledge, as I have, can, and will again share Adult Content occasionally. Patrons pledging at least $1/month get access to all content. But most posts becomes free to access eventually. :)

When I do longer form content, I primarily write fantasy with a focus on queer brown characters with disabilities, mental illnesses, and disordered attachments. Because therapy is expensive, and writing is free.

Photography

I do wildlife and landscape photography, primarily, but you can also check out my portrait and event work on my website! You can purchase PRINTS HERE.

And because it's my birthday, I'm offering a 32% discount code for all my prints! The code is good from June 1st to July 1st!

A Note, if you purchase a print: first off: thank you. (please feel free to send a photo of wherever you display it!!!) secondly: this will not go towards the received totals on my financial need because Pixels doesn't pay out until nearly 2 months after the purchase. Funds made from sales will go towards future needs.

CODE: PDHHTR

Artwork

I've been exploring art, both analog and digital, a lot more lately, and have shared both process photos and final drafts on Patreon! Here are just a few examples:

I admittedly don't post on patreon as much as I wish I had the energy to, but I try to make at least one thing a month, provided I have the spoons and time.

Creativity is, like, a level 5 spell slot when you're disabled and impoverished, and I appear to have exactly One (1) of those available at any given time.

The Needs:

The Bills: $1,100

Yeah, we had to get here eventually. Since this post is already pretty long, I'm putting the rest under a cut.

More than half of this, as always, is just for the car payment and insurance that keeps the regular day-job-haver getting to said job, and all our medical appointments, errands, etc.

I still owe around $13,000 total on Johnny Car, but I think we all know that's just not a real number.

The rest of the funds would go toward paying the small subscriptions, for my various medications, and the regular attempts to whittle away slowly at the $4,300 worth of other debt.

($2,200 of back taxes, and $2,100 of credit card debt, and gods, do I mean slowly. Interest piles up so much faster than I can seem to whittle.)

If you're able and willing to help with paying the bills, direct donations can be made here:

PayPal | (link)

Venmo | (dovesndecay)

Cashapp | ($dovesndecay)

If you can, and only if you can.

The It Would Be Cools:

Since every dime that comes in goes primarily towards food and bills, there's little left afterward to be put towards other life necessities like clothes, toiletries, let alone things I just think would be nice/neat/nifty to have.

I have a High Priority wishlist. It's mostly art supplies, bulk toiletries, etc.

I'm woefully low on clothes, being short, fat, and trans, so very little of what I own actually feels good to wear so much as it simply covers my body. I have a wishlist of clothes that would be nice to have.

For everything that firmly lands under the "I just want it" category, I have an Enrichment list. It's mostly stuffies, but also games, room decor, hobby supplies, books, and stim toys.

Our household keeps a big wishlist for things we need, want, groceries, accessibility products, and everything in-between.

Okay, now what?

Well, now, I'm gonna ask that if you got to this point, and if you can't/don't want to do any of the things listed above, then please reblog this post.

The more people that reblog it, the more likely I'm able to pay my bills for one more month this year.

But if you don't, it's not like anyone's gonna know. I'm not omniscient, I swear.

Anyway, I don't expect anyone to do anything if you can't or even if you just don't wanna, but if you can and you're willing to, it means the world.

I didn't think this is where I'd be at 32. But I never really expected to get here at all in the end, and it's a lot nicer than I thought it would be. Mostly because I am surrounded by amazing people who have the capacity to be so much kinder than I will ever have the words to describe.

Thank you, and to all, a happy pride!

🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤

[asha-mage]

Cyberpunk Meta: The Power of Sticking to Your (Narrative and Thematic) Guns

I've been struggling to articulate why exactly I find Cyberpunk 2077 so damn compelling, given how far it is out of my usual wheel house in terms of genre, tone, and even ideology. And I think after beatng Phantom Liberty it finally clicked-

What enthralls me about this game is it's complete commitment to it's underlying themes and ideas.

Most video games struggle to challenge the player on a story level. Some of this is the capitalism of it all: the idea that video games that aren't trying to make every moment exciting and engaging and wish fulling aren't going to sell well, and so video games should try and maximize player satisfaction above all else. But it's not just that- video games have an inherent limitation of medium in that, since they ask for so much time from the player, they have to be hooky, to draw you in, and keep you there. You don't loose a video game when you die and have to start over. You loose a video game when you put it down and decide to stop picking it up again. And that means that the ways a video game can or will push it's audience are sharply limited- it curtails their ability to make the player uncomfortable, to deprive them, to push them into things like no-win scenarios, and bad endings, to force the player to reflect. And that limit is a hurdle to making art inherent to video games as a medium.

What I admire about Cyberpunk 2077 is it's willingness to find away around, over, and through those limits, while still sticking to it's narrative and thematic guns. Cyberpunk could so easily fall into the trap of making the torment nexus look cool and rad. But it doesn't. Night City is a suffocating capitalist hellscape plastered with advertisements, where the right of way belongs to the person with the car running you over, the only way to get an ambulance is to have a good enough insurance policy, and dodging bullets on your way to work is just a part of every day. The game is unafraid to hammer it home repeatedly that this world is broken, sick, lost, and their isn't really anything you can do to save it. One of the main themes of the game is that sometimes, their are no good choices: just ones you can live with.

And nothing hits this home harder then Phantom Liberty's King of Wands ending. The game hammers you during it's final stretch, again and again- how much are you willing to help Songbird, someone who is, at the end of the day, no different then you- a young kid way in over their head, dying from betrayal and loss, with only a razor thin margin of hope. Helping her is the right thing, but what are you willing to do for that? The game slowly strips away your other motivations and reasons, until you are sitting on that train left with just one reality: do you call Reed and betray Songbird because that's the only way to get the cure you need? Or do you preform an act of true altruism and charity, in a world tormented by greed and selfishness? Do you put her on that rocket, and send her away knowing you'll get nothing for your trouble but the knowledge you stuck to what you believed was right? Or do you choose to give her up to the FIA, to Reed, to Myers, knowing what that will mean, knowing that all she's done to win her freedom?

And like, the sheer audacity, to add an ending via DLC, and it's not a good ending. Their is no magical reward, no last minute silver bullet, or dues ex machina. Virtue is it's own reward. The extra ending you get, for compromising, for betraying, for choosing the same selfishness and greed as everyone else in Night City- it's a bad ending. You loose all your personal relationships, you loose our chance to be a legend, you even loose Johnny in the end. And for what? To most likely end up like Reed one day- on the leash of the NUSA, used up until their is nothing left but regret. I've never seen a game quite do that, because it runs against that central idea of video games- it's anti power fantasy. Your extra time, extra missions, extra choices- their not rewarded, not repaid. The story doesn't let V find a third door just because they have been moral and true. It's unjust. It's cruel. It's unfair.

Just like the world Cyberpunk 2077 is warning against.

And that, is a brilliant bit of art.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Private equity finally delivered Sarah Palin's death panels

Tonight (Apr 26), I’ll be in Burbank, signing Red Team Blues at Dark Delicacies at 6PM.

Remember “death panels”? Sarah Palin promised us that universal healthcare was a prelude to a Stalinist nightmare in which unaccountable bureaucrats decided who lived or died based on a cost-benefit analysis of what it would cost to keep you alive versus how much your life was worth.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

Palin was right that any kind of healthcare rationing runs the risk of this kind of calculus, where we weight spending $10,000 to extend a young, healthy person’s life by 40 years against $1,000 to extend an elderly, disabled person’s life by a mere two years.

It’s a ghastly, nightmarish prospect — as anyone who uses the private healthcare system knows very well. More than 27m Americans have no health insurance, and millions more have been tricked into buying scam “cost-sharing” systems run by evangelical grifters:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/health/christian-health-care-insurance.html

But for the millions of Americans with insurance, death panels are an everyday occurrence, or at least a lurking concern. Anyone who pays attention knows that insurers have entire departments designed to mass-reject legitimate claims and stall patients who demand that the insurer lives up to its claim:

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/khn-podcast-an-arm-and-a-leg-how-to-shop-for-health-insurance-november-24-2021/

The private healthcare sector is designed to deny care. Its first duty is to its shareholders, not its patients, and every dollar spent on care is a dollar not available for dividends. The ideal insurance customer pays their premiums without complaint, and then pays cash for all their care on top of it.

All that was true even before private equity started buying up and merging whole swathes of the US healthcare system (or “healthcare” “system”). The PE playbook — slash wages, sell off physical plant, slash wages, reduce quality and raise prices — works in part because of its scale. These aren’t the usual economies of scale. Rather the PE strategy is to buy and merge all the similar businesses in a region, so customers, suppliers and workers have nowhere else to turn.

That’s bad enough when it’s aimed at funeral homes, pet groomers or any of the other sectors that have been bigfooted by PE:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

But it’s especially grave when applied to hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#looted

Or emergency room physicians:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/14/unhealthy-finances/#steins-law

And if you think that’s a capitalist hellscape nightmare, just imagine how PE deals with dying, elderly people. Yes, PE has transformed the hospice industry, and it’s even worse than you imagine.

Yesterday, the Center for Economic and Policy Research published “Preying on the Dying: Private Equity Gets Rich in Hospice Care,” written by some of the nation’s most valiant PE slayers: Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt and Emma Curchin:

https://cepr.net/report/preying-on-the-dying-private-equity-gets-rich-in-hospice-care/

Medicare pays private hospices $203-$1,462 per day to take care of dying old people — seniors that a doctor has certified to have less than six months left. That comes to $22.4b/year in public transfers to private hospices. If hospices that $1,462 day-rate, they have lots of duties, like providing eight hours’ worth of home care. But if the hospice is content to take the $203/day rate, they are not required to do anything. Literally. It’s just free money for whatever the operator feels like doing for a dying elderly person, including doing nothing at all.

As Appelbaum told Maureen Tkacik for her excellent writeup in The American Prospect: “Why anybody commits fraud is a mystery to me, because you can make so much money playing within the guidelines the way the payment scheme operates.”

https://prospect.org/health/2023-04-26-born-to-die-hospice-care/

In California, it’s very, very easy to set up a hospice. Pay $3,000, fill in some paperwork (or don’t — no one checks it, ever), and you’re ready to start caring for beloved parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles as they depart this world. You do get a site inspection, but don’t worry — you aren’t required to bring your site up to code until after you’re licensed, and again, they never check — not even if there are multiple complaints. After all, no one at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has the job of tracking complaints.

This is absolute catnip for private equity — free government money, no obligations, no enforcement, and the people you harm are literally dying and can’t complain. What’s not to like? No wonder PE companies have spent billions “rolling up” hospices across the country. There are 591 hospices in Van Nuys, CA alone — but at least 30 of them share a single medical director:

https://auditor.ca.gov/reports/2021-123/index.html#pg34A

Medicare caps per-patient dispersals at $32,000, which presents an interesting commercial question for remorseless, paperclip-maximizing, grandparent-devouring private equity ghouls: do you take in sick patients (who cost more, but die sooner) or healthy patients (cost less, potentially live longer)?

In Van Nuys, the strategy is to bring in healthy patients and do nothing. 51% of Van Nuys hospice patients are “live discharged” — that is, they don’t die. This figure — triple the national average — is “a reliable sign of fraud.”

There are so many hospice scams and most of them are so stupid that it takes a monumental failure of oversight not to catch and prevent them. Here’s a goodun: hospices bribe doctors to “admit” patients to a hospice without their knowledge. The hospice bills for the patient, but otherwise has no contact with them. This can go on for a long time, until the patient tries to visit the doctor and discovers that their Medicare has been canceled (you lose your Medicare once you go into hospice).

Another scam: offer patients the loosest narcotics policy in town, promising all the opioids they want. Then, once their benefits expire, let them die of an overdose (don’t worry, people who die in hospice don’t get autopsies):

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/05/how-hospice-became-a-for-profit-hustle

You can hire con artists to serve as your sales-force, and have them talk vulnerable, elderly people into enrolling in hospice care by convincing them they have nothing to live for and should just die already and not burden their loved ones any longer.

Hospitals and hospices also collude: hospitals can revive dying patients, ignoring their Do Not Resuscitate orders, so they can be transfered to a hospice and die there, saving the hospital from adding another dead patient to their stats.CMS’s solution is perverse: they’re working with Humana to expand Medicare Advantage (a scam that convinces patients to give up Medicare and enrol in a private insurance program, whose private-sector death panel rejects 13% of claims that Medicare would have paid for). The program will pay private companies $32,000 for every patient who agrees to cease care and die. As our friends on the right like to say, “incentives matter.”

Appelbaum and co have a better idea:

Do more enforcement: increase inspections and audits.

Block mergers and rollups of hospices that make them too big to fail and too big to jail.

Close existing loopholes.

They should know. Appelbaum and her co-authors write the best, most incisive analysis of private equity around. For more of their work, check out their proposal for ending pension-plan ripoffs by Wall Street firms:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/05/mego/#A09948

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Burbank, Mountain View, Berkeley, San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: An industrial meat grinder, fed by a conveyor belt. A dead, elderly man is traveling up the conveyor, headed for the grinder's intake. The grinder is labelled 'HOSPICE' in drippy Hallowe'en lettering. It sits in a spreading pool of blood.]

Image: Seydelmann (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GW300_1.jpghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GW300_1.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[mainlysarcastic]

not so fun fact

apparently if you're already disabled and you get hit by a fucking car while walking home from a college class then the dumbass's insurance wants to use your disability to give you less compensation money

Because "some of the pain you experienced in the aftermath was just from your pre-existing conditions..."

ex-fucking-cuse me?

if anything the fact that I was already disabled makes it worse? becasue it further disabled me?!!! It made my already painful body even more painful

what the actual ever living fuck

i knew insurance was a fucking scam but holy shit

anyways now I have to wait another 2 years for this lawsuit to go through so I can actually get my medical bills covered and get compensation for pain and suffering

fuck insurance and fuck this capitalist hellscape that allows insurance companies to take advantage of people like this

[shwarmadillo]

from beginning to end this is truly the most usamerica series of events. insurance CEO shot in the batshit-healthcare-capitalist-hellscape-guns-everywhere country. man chowed down on two protein bars before casually committing a murder in broad daylight and fled on a citibike. backpack full of monopoly money found near the scene because how else are you gonna emphasize the absurdity of a system driven solely by profit. engraved fucking bullets for the Drama of it all. alleged shooter is an conservative ivy-league-grad luigi of italian descent who is jacked as fuck. snitched on by a mcdonalds worker. literally got caught because of hamburger. it reads like the world’s most heavy-handed symbolism in a novel satirizing the pitfalls of american society and it may just be the event that drives the country to class consciousness. what the fuck.

[razzberrydazz]

Slightly (ok maybe more than slightly) ranty personal update

IRL friend is going through medical emergency (without health insurance in the hellscape that is America) so I am NOT able to donate to any extra fundraisers right now, currently focusing my energy to help her since I prefer my close friends to not end up homeless. She's had to make her own GFM for it.

I will make a post sharing this friend's fundraiser in an effort to help them, but I am not otherwise willing to share new fundraisers at the moment. I know I have managed to gain a reputation as a fundraiser helper but I am not made of money and I already have very limited mental energy.

My current "job" is acting as my elderly mother's caretaker and any money I have is basically an allowance from her and my dad, I have to play nice with them if I want to have any money for myself let alone anyone else.

I try my best to be a patient and compassionate person, yet behind it all I am indeed someone that has anger issues, and I am at my wit's end right now. To the people I've already shared my whatsapp with, I will continue helping you and offering support even if it's just sharing the fundraisers and offering a space to vent and share cat photos.

More rant under the cut, TLDR I hate this godforsaken country and how it hurts both itself and others all for short-sighted financial gain.

Days like these remind me why I hate living in America and being an American, the country I am a part of is causing misery and suffering across the world, it is warmongering and causing untold hardship and death all in the name of short term profit, while its own citizens cannot afford basic necessities and risk homelessness and extreme debt if they lack health insurance.

Even with health insurance, everything is too expensive. People here can't afford rent. Fellow Americans resorting to fundraisers to cover rent and medical expenses because their country will not help them. Friends living with friends or stuck living with their parents because rent is Too Damn High. The wealth of the world plundered to be at this country's fingertips, and yet the average citizen is on the edge of financial ruin and is one medical mishap away from losing everything. Vital medications regularly have shortages and are often too expensive to reliably get. I don't need to read a book to see a Dystopia, I am living in it right now. I don't need to catastrophize about a fascist capitalistic hellscape because I already see it here and now.

This Country has such a bad case of Main Character Syndrome that both the government and its citizens treat all this country's issues as more important than anyone else's, to the point that other countries have to cater to this country's politics and whims.

Do kind courteous generous Americans exist? Yes. Every place has good and bad people. But even the kindest American benefits from a system that functions via the disenfranchisement of others. A system built by taking advantage of others for financial gain.

Non-Americans are right to have at best a healthy distrust of America, at worst complete vitriol for this country and what it has done to the world at large. I don't blame non-Americans one bit for hating America, even hating Americans as a whole for the hurt caused by this country. You process and handle your anger and grief in your own ways, everyone does, and I won't hold a grudge for a non-American being prejudiced against me on principle of me being American.

I've seen firsthand the vitriol and ignorance fellow Americans can have for the world, for their fellow countryman who happen to not be Like Them - I have seen my own family tout bigoted talking points and parrot back hate and fearmongering racism. The racism, the misogyny, the xenophobia, the Christian religious extremism. It makes me sick. Can't therapize our way out of a fundamentally flawed system.

In conclusion, is America okay? Absolutely not.

[frogsandfries]

I'm so exhausted.

Okay, look, I know I seem to be expressing a lot of physical exhaustion lately, but this is more in regards to my increasing exhaustion with what the internet has become: One giant, inescapable, smothering advertisement.

I probably only want to cry about it right now at this very moment because I'm so tired, but I mean, honestly, if I'm not crying over it, I'm seething over it.

So you, a corporation, you don't want to pay your employees fairly or properly, and you then expect people who can barely afford their rent, never even mind their stupid health insurance or any of the other expensive life necessities, you really expect them to turn around and spend every last of their five remaining dollars on your piece of cheap shit instead of a cheap loaf of bread which will at least allow them to get through the next few days??? Unlike your stupid foot soak boot things, hey epsom your tired feet while you clean your apartment after work--multitask, grind, hustle!! But also, treat yo'self and self-care.

There's no fucking point in having fucking adblock, because when I go to research how to get better at my hobby, google wants to shove a dozen more products that I neither need nor want down my throat. The only way to improve a fucking smart phone is to make it a better shopping device. "Hey look, do you see something irl, maybe during your vacation or just out and about for the day, and you need to buy it right fucking here and now?? Buy our fucking phone because it will help you have fifty afterpays instead of the usual five that you're constantly balancing at any one fucking time."

As someone who used to be curious to learn, I still remember when the internet was seen as a way to exchange knowledge and information, and sure, if you're really, really good at using the internet, or if you're incredibly resourceful, and lucky, and maybe find a group on like Discord or Reddit or maybe Facebook, full of people who share your general interest, and maybe they have the knowledge you're asking for readily at hand.

But it's bullshit. The more and more ads in a row, video after video, song after song, that I have to wade through to get to the information that I came here for, the less interested I am in things like Youtube for information and learning. I really have cut myself off from learning, because increasingly for years, it's been harder and harder to actually use the internet to learn anything.

The internet has become a giant screaming relentless bright flashing fucking billboard advertisement and I'm just so.......done.

Look, frankly, I miss having books in my home. Books aren't very reasonable for lugging about the country to your next couch. But that lifestyle is behind me. Books don't constantly advertise at me. The index in the back of the book doesn't make me watch a fucking ad to figure out how I'm supposed to be doing this next part of my project or how I can up my skill at this thing I'm trying to learn or improve at.

And whenever the hell I decide to leave my meat-suit, donate my books to a library if no one in my family wants them.

I'm just so fucking exhausted. I'm doing relatively financially okay right now. I have money to pay my bills and feed myself and still grab a couple things most paychecks. It is currently often a choice between improving my household or taking care of my physical body, or taking care of my emotional well-being, but that's fine. A privilege, really, compared to the places that I've been.

But I don't have the buckets of disposable income that the internet seems convinced that I do.

The internet was supposed to be a beacon of information sharing and a new fucking era of communication.

I don't think anyone foresaw it being a capitalist hellscape. It feels like I can't move through reality or cyberspace without being screamed at on all sides to spend out every last dime on things I don't want, don't need, and am extraordinarily NOT interested in.

I'm so exhausted. I'm so sick to my bones, my guts, my soul.

The thought of escaping into the mountains, becoming a hermit, never to be seen again, becomes increasingly appealing.

[littleraeofsunshineda]

the state of the NHS after fourteen years of Tories is a terrifying and miserable capitalist hellscape

case in point, me, the last week or so:

have uti, picked up from a partner's infection. Very simple easy thing to treat. This one is a nasty little bugger, I feel like shit.

call gp. Ask for appointment.

No appointments.

At length told a pharmacy can prescribe 3 days of antibiotics without you seeing gp. Excellent!

Receive antibiotics. At this point we are ~3-4 days in. That's also how long it's been since I had a proper night's sleep because I HAVE TO GET UP TO PEE FOUR TIMES.

Antibiotics produce great improvement, but (surprise) perhaps not 100% by the time I finish the course. Nevrthless, am told by pharmacy I can't get any more from them. I must go to gp.

Call gp. Come down at 8am physically to surgery next day.

Arrive at 7.47. 12th in the queue. Total queue reaches >20 by 8am. For a cool parallel, they run out of appointments at person 8. The poor receptionist looks like if she has to tell one more person there's nothing she can do, she'll cry.

Receptionist tells me I can try again tmm (arrive at 7.30? I wonder thoughtfully) or try submitting a request through The App. Someone will call me today. I thank her and submit it in the car before I leave.

3.55 (GPs generally close at 4pm). No call. I squish down the fear that I am Karen-ing and call in. "I'm so sorry," I say, "do you know if I WILL be called today?"

She says I might get one up to 6pm, but that will only be a receptionist who will be booking an appointment in the next couple of weeks. "This can't wait two weeks," I say. "Your own guidance says so."

"There's nothing I can do," she says, and: "You shouldn't be using the online system for things that are urgent, anyway." "I tried to get an emergency appointment and there was nothing: I was TOLD to use this," I say, helplessly. "...Well anyway," she says, "the receptionist might call you by six."

AHA! I think. I am immensely lucky and have some small health insurance through work - including virtual gp. Maybe they can help! I book an appointment through that platform, relieved.

The appointment is over the phone within an hour - phenomenal. She tells me that she is not allowed to prescribe me anything: the uti not fully clearing up in 3 days of antibiotics means I need specialist urine testing as there is likely resistance. It needs to happen immediately, today, tonight, because I am at risk of a kidney infection. She can only refer me back to the NHS.

I say "but they don't have anything, and I can't argue - the poor receptionist can't do anything about not having appointments."

"You have to fight," she says. "You have to be seen. Go to urgent care if you have to."

It is now 6.05pm. The receptionist has not called.

Guess I'm spending the evening in a&e.

This is the struggle to get basic healthcare in the UK right now, and there is very often NO OPTION other than A&E. I HAVE some level of "private healthcare", and they could not do anything. Imagine what it's like for most people who don't even have the tiny level of access for a virtual GP to tell them that they ARE right, and they DO need to make a fuss.

I have been crying on and off all day. This is just not having healthcare. I wish I had any confidence at all that we'll change how we vote as a country.

[thedeviousdevilxx]

Just some personal musings underneath lol

I'm not a deeply insecure person but neither am I a very confident person but I am very aware of how my living situation, and over all "life", and decor choices really doesn't paint me as a typical "adult". What do I mean by that? Well for one, I still live at ~home~. My parents are divorced and my mom got the house, and I've continued living here. I pay rent, even while I was in university, I continued to contribute to the household expenses, since my mom owns the house, basically towards taxes, insurance, utilities, as well as towards groceries. Besides that, I pay and buy everything else myself. Most adults however do tend to move out around 18 or sometime later, but eventually do move out at some point. And to be honest, I never felt the need to. (excluding when I lived in NZ with my sister for two years)

For a single women like me, my choices even if I wanted to move out would be, spend a significant amount on rent to live alone, in a tiny apartment, live with a roommate, stranger or friend, or live with a romantic partner. I don't date, never had in the traditional sense, I'm not inclined to people like that? People exhaust me but that's another story. The idea of living with someone I don't know freaks me the fuck out, and a friend doesn't seem ideal either as I worry it would ruin the friendship, and my friend's I do have, I've seen the way they live and yeah no, it'd be a disaster.

The insecure part of me worries how I'm perceived, more so by friends and family, as I've somehow failed attaining adulthood in the way Western culture views adulthood. I'm single, never seriously dated, I live at home, and another aspect of adulthood in how one decorates their home/apartment/bedroom etc. And my bedroom personally looks like a teen from the 80s, music and movie posters galore!

When you look at most "adult" rooms, the decor is cohesive, or at least with minimal decor on the walls, a painting, or family photos, or some other kind of photography, basically like an Ikea room setup or what you find in decor magazines. There might even be a color scheme! Not a bunch of rock stars on the wall.

There are parts of adulthood in the traditional sense I have achieved, I've worked since I was 13, starting with babysitting, then getting my first official job at 16 and been employed full and part time since then, only going unemployed for a few months and that's when I first moved to NZ and was just traveling, then after leaving NZ back to Canada during COVID and trying to find work (took me three terrible months and over 40 applications to get work!). I've graduated university. I pretty much do everything on my own for the most part, and am self sufficient, only relying on my mom occasionally. Perhaps we can co-dependent in some ways, but in this capitalistic hellscape, truly relying on oneself for everything is a struggle, which I don't wish on anyone but I do know some people do not have any support, or enough. Being single in this world is fucking expensive, so the more confident side of me realizes that as mother and daughter living together suits both of us quite fine, and it beneficial in many ways. She doesn't struggle financially and has semi-retired from work, and I sometimes get home cooked meals, and has a tolerable roommate, and my own full space that is my own.

And yet I feel given what is standard and fairly normal for people my age 30+, to be married, having kids or have kids, engaged, dating, living on their own, or with their partner, that I am somehow a very defective adult. That I'm lingering in some space between teenagehood and adulthood, that I'm not actually mature because I have not achieved these milestones of "standard adulthood".

I do however interrogate these feelings, and realize, that there is a lot of variety to what being an adult means, that there is no one way to BE an adult, and yet a lot do follow this path of adulthood, many because of how they are raised, what they want out of life(marrige & kids), some have no choice (getting booted from the home at 18 is something I learned happens a lot), or have a horrid home life that leaving is the best option for them to thrive. And also I know a lot has to do with economics. Recently there has been more attention paid to adults moving back home with their parents, or multi-general households becoming a thing now (I know it's common elsewhere in the world, but Canada, not so much at least not over the past 40+ years, and we're probably seeing this too due to immigration from countries where grandparents, parents and kids all live together is the norm) because cost of living has skyrocketed, along with unemployment, stagnating wages etc has made households struggle financially.

Anways there is no point to this post, other than I struggle between being quite content with my life, and living situation, and feeling insecure about it given how far outside the norm of adulthood I find myself in. I feel because I neither desire marriage, kids, or owning a home, that I am not fully an adult in the American/Canadian sense of adulthood. As a cis women, that also brings a whole slew of expectations, and yet my family has never ever pressured me into any of these roles which I am thankful and why I can live the way I want to.

[stone-queer-crow]

Okay so I do agree with this in theory. But in practice, the moment it's considered normal for anyone at all to get any of these surgeries just because is the moment that insurance companies, both private and government funded, have the excuse to label these surgeries as purely cosmetic/elective, giving them an excuse to stop covering them for actual Trans people.

I would love to live in a world where this could be true, but in this capitalist hellscape we live in it would just make things even worse than they already are for trans people.

controversial opinion but top surgery and other trans healthcare shouldnt be trans exclusive. so what if an autistic woman wants top surgery because boobs are a sensory nightmare?? good on her. she isnt "mutilating" herself any more than anyone else who gets cosmetic surgery for anything.

it doesnt have to be exclusively "trans healthcare." maybe a cis guy just wants boobs or a cis girl wants a dick. who cares. your bodys yours. customize that bitch. the more normalized it is to just do whatever with your body for any reason the easier itll be for the people who need to do it to actually go through with it because they wont be socially pressured as hard or harassed afterwards.

[royalthinking]

my mind is so overwhelmed with so many problems and things to take care of right now. I want to be a flight attendant. I want to go back to school. I want to just have a work-from-home job. I still need to straighten out the insurance issues for my hospital bills. I haven't been to the doctor in forever. I need to go to the gym and eat better because I've been gaining so much weight. I need to go out and make more friends. I want to have a relationship. I want to read and journal more in my spare time. I want to build better habits and have better routines for myself. the list goes on and on but I literally never have enough time for it all. when I get home from work I'm exhausted and by the time I've relaxed a little then it's time to make dinner and then once I'm done with dinner it's pretty much time to go to bed and repeat. and then on my days off, I have to catch up on all the stuff I'm not able to get done during the week like laundry and grocery shopping and cleaning etc. I just don't understand how I'm supposed to have time to actually go out and do things I enjoy when I feel like I barely have enough time to just survive in the first place. I so desperately want out of this capitalistic hellscape but there is no escape in sight. so I just keep going round and round hoping I will eventually find some sort of solution to these things but with the way things are going, I don't think that I ever will.

[jessie-shadowhold]

Everyone keeps telling me “don’t let your job (or not having one) define your self worth” and I’m so tired of people not getting it. I’m not depressed that I Donny have a job, I’m terrified of the consequences of not having one. I’m terrified that I won’t be able to afford the mortgage, that I’ll let my husband and my roommate down, that we’ll have to move out, that the money problems will drive a wedge between me and my husband, that I’m just not capable of working like everyone else and that I can’t survive in this capitalist hellscape. I’m so fucking tired of constantly being on edge about losing my job and not having health insurance and failing to survive. I’m terrified of the downward spiral that is a poor work history leading to poor living conditions leading to homelessness and poverty and scorn. I’m painfully aware that the line between most of us and homelessness is MUCH closer than people think and I’m just so fucking tired of people pretending like my problem is a matter of attitude and self worth. It’s fucking not, it’s a matter of a fascistic capitalist system that uses the threat of homelessness to prevent us from organizing or doing something meaningful and fulfilling that isn’t produce for your corporate overlords, consume products, keep burning the world, keep waiting your potential, because the only safe way to live is to work 9 to 5 and compromise your morals for the safe, stable choice. And goddamnit I can’t even do that apparently because I just can’t keep a job. I’m so sick of it

[nikkirimizi]

Kinda wish I had more time to write what I wanted, kinda wish this capitalist hellscape allowed for that to be possible at all. 😫

I finally went from 2 jobs to 4 back to 2, and finally just one.

And yet it still feels like there is zero time to do anything at all.

I blinked and now I'm a solid 26 YO, still confused and unsure as I was when I was 17. Just slightly more stable, betterish (heavy on the ish) at writing, with less severe ups and downs. I'll definitely take it.

But damn if I don't wish I had more chances to write. I feel like I'll be in the same "not enough time" boat forever.

BUT ANYWAYS, WIP LIST TIME EYYYYY

🌸 Untitled Karlach/Tav romance fic

🌸 Away From You (Wyll/Tav) [NSFW due to BOOTY]

🌸 Untitled Miguel O'Hara/Reader (still on the fence about this one)

I won't mention the original work I have going on on the side, but it's uhhhhhhh a lot because I have a lot of feelings and can't afford therapy due to insurance issues lol

*cue Florence and the Machines Free*

[xaracosmia]

ꕥ — WELCOME TO MARE COSMIA, JEREMY FITZGERALD. 🌗

ꕥ — OOC INFORMATION;

name / alias: mio age: 24 pronouns: he/they/it ooc contact: ensemblestars on twt other characters in xc: lucrais, druvis, jacob, emil

ꕥ — IC INFORMATION;

name: jeremy fitzgerald age: 23 pronouns: he/him series: five nights at freddy’s canon point: post-fnaf 2, post-bite of ‘87 app triggers: mention of child murder, severe head injury, mention of parental death

personality:

cool as a cucumber, jeremy is a very laidback and casual person. going with the flow, but against the grain of society, he’s a peaceful person at heart but unafraid of voicing his opinion—and loudly too. he cares and pays close attention to the people near him, but carries an air of distance as well, always being known of but not quite about.

he coasts through life trying to figure things out one step at a time. one thing for sure is that he has a problem with authority and responsibility, only being beholden to what his ideals are and the friends he shows compassion to. he tries to not sweat life, but it’s difficult because he has no real sense of purpose. oh well, c’est la vie.

something your muse struggles with: holding back comments when he thinks someone is wrong

your muse’s greatest strength: not giving a fuck about people who don’t know him

history / background:

born and raised in california, jeremy lived a fairly regular life. he went to school, he hung out with friends, and he was lost thinking about his future. he was a regular troublemaker, but not in the usual sense. well-spoken and well-read, he simply didn’t mesh well with the education system and spent most of his time in class idly thinking about other subjects or wasting away the minutes by debating teachers. everyone knew him, and he knew everyone. the only thing was that while people knew about him, they didn’t really get to know who he was. it was enjoyable being popular, to an extent, but it all also got really tiring really fast because he couldn’t connect that well to everyone else.

as opportunity would have it, he would be leaving it all behind. though, not to a circumstance he wanted. it’s difficult to cope with the death of your parents. you’re usually not supposed to outlive them. there wasn’t any immediate family either, so it was time for him to pack his bags and move on down to hurricane, utah.

moving in with extended family is difficult. he’s not seen as much else aside from a government check for support and welfare. that’s fine. he has plans on moving back to california anyways, but that takes time and money. it’s lucky for him that labor laws are pretty lax during this time, and he’s able to secure a gig at freddy fazbear’s pizza and spend an odd amount of years working for the establishment. of course, he heard about what happened at their old shop too. it was really such a shame that things ended so badly, but hey—at least if he was working for a capitalist hellscape it would involve making families happy? whatever got him the money to move back to good ol’ sunny california.

things ran pretty smoothly for him, until he switched to the night shift. things always seemed to run weirdly at the pizzeria, but it never really made him think too much during the day. he didn’t necessarily look into everything with what went on, but honestly…he didn’t not do that either. didn’t matter in the end anyways. pulling a double night and day shift, he mishandled one of the animatronics and was hospitalized after it caused severe head trauma to him. jeremy was in recovery for months, and had to stay hospitalized for many more after. he might have won a lawsuit, but it didn’t matter much when he didn’t have privatized health insurance and had to pay medical bills. it’s a few years later, and he’s still wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do with his life.

after the incident, california stopped looking so sunny.

powers / abilities: n/a he’s just a normal guy

inherent abilities: also n/a because he’s just some dude

items / weapons: …bro has nothing to his name

starting ability: n/a starting item: n/a

extra: i was gonna say stuff about him but i forgot. guys been recovering for a few years though.

discord id: twice.bitten passcode: HE'S LIKE A WIFE TO ME

[endlessly-enamored]

Very angry because I am, once again, off my antidepressants!!! I just got adjusted to my new ones, but my samples ran out and my insurance won’t approve coverage!!!!! I love living in this capitalist hellscape!!