Friday, October 21, 2016

Feeling Like Deer in the Headlights Way Too Often: Now How Do We Change It



How does one make real money?

1. Don't be disabled.
2. Don't be a scapegoat
3. Don't be nearly deaf and fat.

I hate that deer in the head lights feeling. Every time we get sucker punch emergency, I run around scrambling in my mind.  This time the battery died on our car. We will be able to get it fixed but for people like us, that is scary business.

I used the  Dial A Ride bus to get where I had to go, during the week by myself , my goal of getting more independence that way has come true.

 My husband nixes all my ideas to fix things.

Peep: "Let's get rid of almost everything and  move into a rental room or boarding house and hoard what little money we got!"

He then reminds me, "your medical equipment even without your hospital bed would fill up most small rental rooms".

Peep: "When I was single I ate cold beans out of the can and ramen noodles, and lived in boarding houses."

He responds: "You can't live that way now and you know it."

I then realize, "I am not neat enough for most normal people to tolerate!" I am too Aspie and piss roommates off without meaning to. 

and most rental rooms have STAIRS.

Then we have the discussion, "Maybe we should find someone to move in with to take the pressures off!"

I then say, "That breaks my adult rule of never living with anyone, at least if we get a roommate we would be the ones in charge!"

Your sister would boss us around, she would own us!  I can't be a mooch and have people boss me around. I hate her huge city! She rented an apartment with a steep double stair case I could never do where all the bedrooms are. 

Peep: "Lets get a disability apartment then!"

Peep's Husband: "We were 500 dollars over the cut off last year for 2 people, 

Peep: "well make less this year," [felt dumb saying this]

Peep's husband,  "no we need all the money I can make"

Peep: This rent is costing two thirds of my disability check. [he pays the other bills]

 Peep's husband: "They'll punish me and raise the rent every-time I make more money. It's not exactly a motivator.  It will be only a 100 under what we pay here for exactly half the size"

We have visited the disabled apartments so know what they look like. They aren't thrilled about self employed people happening by.

Peep: "Maybe we should move back to our old town, the rent is cheaper, or move to an even more rural area"

Peep's Husband: "There's no free clinic there for me, there's no charities. We were working class when we lived there.  You will lose your lymph therapist, dentist and house call doctors. "

Peep: "We can't move away from the Dial-A Ride territory. Our car is too old too. The bigger cities are more expensive and the rent would be 50 percent more. " This town has a PACE program I want to enter too. [this is program for disabled and elderly that keeps you out of the nursing home. I know the future of where my body is going]

Peep's Husband: "The bills are crushing us. You gotta do something about those medical bills, we can't afford the almost 100 in payment plans you got going"

Peep: "I have to pay them or they will put me in collections. I don't know what to do. Every option I think of stinks or my health can't tolerate it. Should I get my mammogram done, that will be 17 bucks co-pay."

Peep's Husband: Get that done.

Peep: "I am out of money, can you give me three dollars to take the bus to art class Thursday?" [I got the art class for free basically-scholarship application]

Peep's Husband: "Yes, I made 20 dollars transcribing, I transferred in. It should be here tomorrow.

and so it goes....

This area is charitable at least, the food coop basically has bailed us out big time in being able to eat. They will give us decent foods like organic bread, bran cereal, and meat! Meat is very rare at food pantries, so joining that food co-op has helped my life.  They gave us a roast beef. The last time I bought a roast beef and made it was 2002.  Our old town didn't have near as much charity as this place.

This place has churches with community dinners and we have gotten other help here.  Getting an art class and having free book clubs to go to is other bonuses. I have gotten better at getting help, I was on the waiting list for the food co-op for almost a year. Don't want to give that up.

I have told him we need to hold on to our apartment too, it is safe and quiet and one can't take that for granted. I am praying we don't get a huge rent increase. Life for the poor is not easy. I know my husband is getting worn down and stressed out a lot. We consider having him reapply for disability but he is in the nether reasons, too old and sick to get hired for a regular job or to keep it, but deemed too healthy for full disability. I certainly don't want him as bad off as I am. His gout is worsening. When he gets a bad attack, I walk better then him.

Sometimes I wish I knew other poor people just to know how to survive and WHAT IS NORMAL? Does that sound strange? Maybe not. We talk to some acquaintances in the inner city we definitely relate to far more in terms of economic survival. Trying to survive poverty or figure out what to do is like a puzzle, I have not been able to solve for years. Some may see success in avoiding being homeless.  We need to reach out to more fellow poor people.  When people fall down the ladder like us, it is hard to know what is "normal", how do others manage it. It's like a whole territory of unknown information and unspoken ways.

Sometimes part of my mind wonders how the narcissists got so rich. I know many of them steal everything that isn't nailed down. I wonder even how my mother afforded two 50,000 dollar cars within the last three years. She got her big insurance pay-out in 1998, with all her shopping it seems she would have run out of money but in my world narcs never do. The rest are traveling to Europe and buying vacation homes. It was mind boggling to watch. They never taught me how to live life that way. If I had money I would never waste it the way those people do.

I don't mind a more simple life, for me my desire is just to live without the fear and stress. I sometimes just want to say to husband, "look just accept it." If we end up in the streets, I don't want to be crying the rest of my way through life. I am disabled enough, that if society is standing they have to put me in a home of some sort. [I think] 

One day I got frustrated and yelled, "Lets call the social workers now, and tell them to put us both in a group home!" Let others worry for us!" He thinks I am being melodramatic at these times. I know I have to cool it on my end too at times. He worries about money 24/7. It gets to me. Sometimes I just want to go through a day and not think about money.  I am bad enough worrying about it, obviously from my blog, but he worries even more in a way. Every dime is calculated at every second. He checks our bank account daily to see what is in there even if it is 3 dollars which is where it is at about now.

I have told him maybe we need to adjust our view towards money and life.  Just go through life and live each day. Our panic and fear is making things worse. Chances are barring a Lotto win, we are going to be this poor for the rest of our life. We need to keep life simple and give up some expectations. I was thinking about this while waiting for the bus. It sucks feeling like the mooch and feeling the burdens of worrying people hate you for being poor or always in need but at this point we can't do anything about it. Say thanks to people who help us at the charities and just go on with life.

He is still "driven" and was raised to "succeed" and I know this has taken a toll on him, he grew up a very gifted writer and student expecting better things for his life. His family was lower middle class but a kind of life was detailed for him that did not happen. In my case, I was raised around upper middle class people and wealthy people who had jobs and massive connections. Life simply went by the script for these people. I need to write the connection article soon too just to show you how extreme things were. I was given expectations about life that did not pan out. There's a point where for your happiness you have to adjust expectations. 

I even have thought, why cry and scream and get depressed even if the worse happens? If I die sitting next to a tree in the woods, God will have me. My rent is paid so that's not a concern presently.  I am burnt out. I know one of my personality traits married to resourcefulness and the drive to prepare can actually work against me in the worrying about poverty. I try to pre-plan for all scenarios and a person can drive themselves crazy. While this has helped me, in that I get needs met, it can work against me too.

With my husband, he had a newspaper career and more, he thought would pan out to something better. Even now he seems to dream of a "better future" and is trying to write a book with a partner, that actually was granted publishing already. He has that strange marriage of being "driven for success" but having ended up in poverty, sometimes that can be a bad mixture for someone. It's weird to watch someone work so hard even after all this.

I wish I could figure things out, or how to fix this all, well I have tried for years to figure it all out. I supposedly have a higher IQ, but it's not when it comes to making money.  I can't control it and I'm sick of trying to fix it and beating my head against that brick wall.  Adjusting expectations means more happiness, but we need to figure out what to do about the fear factor.  I know this is a major left over from our Chicago years.

Peep Writes about Being Poor

10 comments:

  1. I used Baking soda and water to treat my gout once and it really helped. It's not for everyone because of the sodium,but it sucked the uric acid right out for me. Google it and ask your doctor first. Also I have heard apple cider vinegar can also help. Would be careful of your tooth enamal though...Hope Hubby feels better.

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    1. I should get us both some baking soda and water, I have high uric acid from Lipedema but not the ankle thing. I would have us go more vegan at least for some meals if I could afford it. Yes apple cider vinegar used to take the edge of my kidney stone attacks before I went on todays present medication. Thanks.

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  2. Thanks, I'll have to try that one. As far as still being driven, that is correct -- you need that, to do all the various things that I do (collage art, journalism, rock 'n' roll music, spoken word).

    Trust me, I met a lot of folks over the years who came from the wrong angle -- "I'm talented, therefore, I'll get shoeboxes full of $100 bills." I knew that going in, which is I tend not to complain aloud. But that's the ultimate test of any creative career: would you do it, even if there was no guarantee of a release, and nobody paying attention? That weeds out a lot of folks right away.

    You must remember the background that I came from to appreciate what I'm saying here. I came up in the '80s and '90s, and watched a lot of people fritter away their ability with that "If you succeed, you fail" indie mentality that (if you're not careful) can curdle into an entrenched attitude that renders you immobile, and too dumb to get out of the way when a speeding truck is coming (metaphorically speaking).

    Case in point: all those East Lansing bands who more or less stayed in town (or risked the occasional trip to Ann Arbor or Detroit, if they felt adventurous), and contented themselves with playing the same boring water holes for minimum wage money.

    Eventually, what happened was bound to happen: they burned out their fans, and broke up, forcing them to consider the thing they dreaded the most -- the day job (gasp! shock! horror). What I often wanted to ask these people was, "If you're not ready to work it, why should you act surprised when a return to the shoe store seems like a really good possibility?"

    By contrast, bop (harvey) was the only EL band to break out nationally. And they did, because they were smart enough to understand that they'd ramp up their touring, and say goodbye to EL -- which is why they moved to Rhode Island (around '87 or '88, I think, after they'd been together about five years). They got the message; their peers, by and large, did not, and that's why they fell into obscurity.

    bop (harvey) would probably have been bigger still if they'd made better records -- aside from the first one, that consensus suggests is their best -- which were well done, recording- and technical-wise, but just didn't capture the essence of their live shows, which were always more freewheeling (I should know, having seen 'em about half a dozen times myself).

    The other issue is, do you really want to subscribe to the Gospel of Divine Incrementalism that's being hard selled by goblins like Hillary Clinton?

    Think what she's really saying, behind all the "Stronger Together" rhetoric -- it seems to be along the lines of, "Well, this system has some problems, but it's the best one in the world, and we just need to tinker with it a little bit to fix the problems that got folks so riled up."

    What kind of message is that, especially when you stack it up against her opponent (Sanders), who was unashamed in saying, "We're on the wrong side of every trend, but we definitely can do better. Let's rip it up and start all over again." No comparison between the two, once you stack up the essences of their stump speeches this year -- not even close, in my mind.

    So, as for me, yeah, I still want something better, and I'm not resigning myself to my fate -- that'd be like signing a death certificate. I also feel that I still have something to say artistically -- believe me, if I didn't, I'd stop now (unlike so many of those "dead men walking" that are hanging on for the sake of it). I'm more excited by what I do than ever, whether it makes money or doesn't. Sometimes, that's enough to get you over the worst hump....I hope this clarifies things. --Mr. Peep

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    1. Its true money isn't always the most important thing though we have to keep a base line together. I became an art teacher, I guess I had hoped we could manage survival but the way this world is panning out it seems unless you are a pod person or a technocrat they want you to starve to death or live in the gutter. A society that has devalued it's creatives and the arts isn't one headed in a good direction.

      It's true if you do it for the success and name, what will it mean? This is one reason why visual arts can become too much the same. Cookie cutter, no one standing out there alone, worried about what will sell first.

      Yes the whole "this is what we are used to so let's stick with it" even as this country goes into the gutter from Clinton is disappointing as hell but she is sadly obeying her corporate masters.

      Well remember I was never one to be told to conform. I refused the boring business office and nunnery at the behest of my parents. I didn't want the dull suburban ennui and working myself to the bone without one moment for creativity nor would I expect it of you.

      I suppose I see myself as accepting the fate given my status of health and flagging energy, lol I'm ready to sit on the bench with you and sip the tea....this body I think has catapulted me 25 years ahead of schedule. I've been "retired" for 20. LOL

      I agree keep up with your art work, and the rest, you are trying to do like with the book. Obviously I'm still doing stuff like writing every chance I get and that comic. I guess I get worried about our situation. I know the narcs gave me endless grief about "starving artists" and mean comments about "disabled" people that grew beyond old.

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  3. I'm gratefully back to working two jobs, so I'm headed back toward solvency. I do hope that things improve profoundly for you.
    It's my belief that Quantum Change, which will also entail a solution to The Disparity Problem, is only inches away.

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    1. What is the Quantum Change? Not familiar with that term. Is that a Peak Oil term? Glad you can work your way back to solvency.

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  4. I think the narcs get rich or better off than us scapegoats because they sell their soul to Satan (by default of course) by rejecting the truth of their own conscience again and again and again until they sear it completely. So the satanic system rewards his "children" to keep them enmeshed in his web of control. And this is how is drill sargents (the Malignant Narcs) keep the lower level narcs and minions enmeshed. And they not only get most of the money and material goods, they also get most if not ALL of the available support and validation (even though it's entirely UNDESERVED!!). That bothers me even more than the money and losing my inheritance. Yes, the money, goodies and false comfort of being a part of the "herd" is the bait satan uses to keep his ignorant stooges and foot soldiers stuck in his web. They know deep inside that to follow the Truth (their INTEGRITY and CONSCIENCE) means forfeiting the world for the most part. It's what Jesus meant when He said you have to give up everything to follow Him. It's not something you do on purpose. It just happens when you have integrity and refuse to let it go for the perks and goodies offered by the wicked.

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    1. Hi Free Spirit, in my family's case I think the selling of souls was literal, parents part of the war machine etc. Remember I have talked a little about how connected my family is but you're right they sell their souls to Satan by default and the "award system" responds accordingly to those who obey, giving them money and material goods and status. You know I have studied the world system and how it works, many celebrities are NOT good people. Yes the malignants are the drilled seargants, I always wondered why the most cruel of my husband's bosses got the most power and this keeps the lower levels in check.

      Yes they get the most support, validation, respect and status. The people who SOLD OUT, were the ones most often in my family who got those plum 6 figure jobs right out of high school (!!!!) or college (!) and when I was young and didn't know any better, I thought a "good job" [tm] had been denied me because I was not a good person. The inheritances will be reserved for the most sold out family member too. I lost mine walking away too, though chances are I got cut out long ago and was warned of this.
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      Yeah money, goodies and false comfort keep many in the herd, it is true following the truth, does mean forfeiting this world. If one does not have "acceptable" beliefs or bearing often one is closed out, and yes this is what Jesus meant. My scapegoating was intertwined with my rejection of my family's non-values and selling out to Satan. [Imagine an anti-war person in a household of two people making good money connected to the war mongering] I suspect this is true for all Christians. All those of conscience are made to pay in this world for not selling out and taking the wicked up on their perks and goodies. Glad to see you back too Free Spirit.

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    1. I am glad you are antiwar. I ditched a "friend" of 30 years too who went high up the ranks in the Army too, she was too much part of the war-machine as well and supporting wicked world system things.

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