Don't go on disability if you can help it. I'm glad we have Social Security but the parasite class is busy trying to tear it down. They always focus on the disabled to cut costs and never cut anything else. The disabled are always the first people they go after. All the good things that previous generations fought for seem to being torn down by these people. Disabled people are really in for it now. We are the scapegoats for the entire economy. The left wing ignores us now. The right wing preach Social Darwinism.
Disability makes you broke!
Disability is a life of poverty. How could I have stopped the tsunami that followed? Dreams of running away at 5 and not going back, and going to Vo-Ed in high school saunter through my head. When I can barely walk, and everything hurts, FOMO or fear of missing out, became "Yeah you did miss out due to your body!". Mistakes were made on my side, in dumb youthful naivete and programmed fawning for narcissists. I blame my relatives sometimes for their crap DNA that gave me a meat-suit from hell itself. As I wrote about my financial sabotage, there was that thought that if I had gotten one good job with insurance and far less stress, that maybe I would have been okay. If you do have a disabled son or daughter, whether they are fat, ADHD, autistic, with physical and mental problems, be sure to focus on their ability to make a living in the future. Some won't be able to live independently of course like others can. Don't just throw that to the wind. Life is hard enough for the neurotypical and healthy.
If I had been loved and not disposed of, maybe I would feel different about a lot of things. I mused over my side in failed relationships, autistic people don't win popularity contests. Maybe I didn't smile enough or dumb myself down enough. Some may say well at least you weren't put away in the attic like in the old days but that's not much comfort. I'm in bed today, taking water pills, to take fluids off. I get up and do things leaning on a walker in 10 minute intervals so this place doesn't fall apart around me. I made eggs, nebulized lungs, showered, put some art papers away and I got up and used a Brillo pad, to scrub the top of the oven, the metal round things are rusted through, we need to buy new ones of those. What will they charge for those? 20 dollars? Everything costs too much.
The disabled are the scapegoats for the entire USA economy. They call us useless eaters and always put us FIRST on the chopping block!
As I wrote elsewhere now when I get my disability check, almost 300 dollars is taken out for Medicare/Medicare D premiums. I don't make much. I have something like 6-7 payment plans going with doctors now. At least most of these debts are under 100 dollars. The CPAP company I owe a lot to them but I'm paying on it and escaped collections. There's two bills I paid on mid-week. It's like running a gauntlet. I don't use credit cards, a 30 percent interest rate would be an unpayable albatross around my neck.
The psychos in power are talking about cutting Social Security checks by 500 dollars a month. This isn't just for the disabled but the old too. While some boomers are rich and clueless, there's plenty of poor ones are going into homelessness along with all the young unemployed people. They are reporting that in 5 short years they are reducing all Social Security checks. Some now want to do it sooner and reduce them by 25 percent. If that happens, we will be in major trouble!
Those jerks don't care about legions of old and disabled who would be wandering the streets. We can picture blind and deaf grandmothers shaking with Parkinsons not able to afford their humble city SRO room anymore. People on Social Security can barely afford to live now. Many are homeless especially people on SSI. How do they expect us all to take a huge cut like that? I will have barely anything left after the premium payments. I'm married but he's now dependent on Social Security for age! Those who are single are in even more danger.
Dr. Kevorkian's Efforts for Death Haunt Us All!
Maybe they plan to roll out the Canadian plan for MAID for everyone including the USA. The young are probably going to be told go suck rocks, we have MAID waiting for you when you get too old. Check this article out! They speak of those who have said a trillion dollars could be saved by advancing MAID in Canada. This article mentions ethical dilemmas, providing alternatives to MAID, but think about the very fact this article was written and that these sort of ideas were even advanced anywhere in the first place. They conclude in the article there are multiple ethical challenges:
"Providing such large economic incentives to have the government fund killing its own citizens could easily shift the focus of healthcare policy towards promoting MAiD as a financially attractive option, rather than ensuring that vulnerable individuals receive the care and support they need. Such a system could foster a culture where ending life is seen as preferable to providing adequate care and support, which is dangerous for any society."
What is scary is I want you to look at what has been put on the table as ideas to save money in Canada via MAID!
MAID pisses me off even in its present form. It is something I need to post about elsewhere. This is one issue that separated me from liberals too. They are all too eager to support MAID or organizations like The Hemlock Society. Don't you people get that you are helping all the wannabe Nazis get rid of all of whom they see as the "useless eaters?". That crap scares me. I will take to the streets protesting if they try to make it or a program like it legal in my state.
These people [analysts] seem to be psychopaths to me. Godless psychopaths. Think about all these people who have touted these ideas for the state to save money.
Warning: major triggers....as you read this one, think about what kind of people want the homeless, old and others who are not terminally ill to be able to "un*****"" themselves. [I have to word things a certain way here not to get this article censored] The stuff about the indigenous shocked me. The whole below paragraph had me thinking "WTF?" but doubled my emotions for their racist views and line about the "marginalized"!
It continues...
The authors of this article do not support these new ideas or changes to MAID but it's frightening what some deem acceptable and what some have put forth as ideas. The slippery slope is a true danger. When money enters the equation, life becomes secondary! This stuff is evil!
When my twitter/X account was active, I talked to people in Canada who were signing up for MAID. All of them were poor and desperate. Most of the ones I talked to were in far better shape than me. I said, "Don't do it!" This one guy drove a van around and took care of a dog. He was far more active than I dream of being. The guy could hear and see and he had far more energy. He was in a wheelchair part time, and had pain issues, but seemed to be letting poverty and desperation lead the way.
Euthanasia or what they call "death with dignity" is being pushed in America. Some states already legalized self-administered euthanasia. My state is trying to pass laws for it. They sell this stuff as a choice too based on more lies. They refuse people pain killers and care and end of life treatment and then tell them, "Oh you want this instead!". It saves them money. One thing you will notice in many who select MAID in Canada, is they talk about poverty and not being able to get their needs met. Poverty is seen as one of the major motivators.
Canada’s MAID policy is facilitating death by poverty
Here is another scary statistic in Canada. There's probably a lot of Americans who would support this too.
There are two groups ADAPT and Not Dead Yet that are against euthanasia. Here is an article standing against the social engineering that is affecting the disabled.
Ableism and Social Engineering: If You Know, You Know: Rumour Has it, Euthanasia Proponent Uses “Nothing About Us Without Us!?”
The fact these leaders and others talk this way while paying out billions for war and having degenerate gladiator battles on the White House lawns is sickening to me. This place has lost its mind. America lost all moral reasoning. The rest of the world considers this place a degenerate mess. Canada definitely has gone down a very evil road. Canada is far more liberal than the United States, so this means they pushed Covid vaxxes and mandates more and MAID is legal nationwide there.
Since Covid, the lives of the disabled have been more disrespected. When they talked about triaging people. I knew what was coming. Now because the disabled "cost too much" [not those billionaires or their 10 million dollar missiles] they are focused on as a problem to be gotten rid of as soon as possible. The disabled and old are often used as political scapegoats.
They made us sick to begin with and then blame us!
Ignored is the fact that a lot of disabilities are coming about from abuses in society, via toxins, the Covid vaxx, bad food, delayed health care--that's definitely part of my story, poverty, and a society that is not functioning to keep its citizens healthy and happy. It's not doing good things to disabled people's psyches to watch people who are in better shape than them choosing to un***** themselves or knowing when they are on their death beds or sick or in need of nursing home care that one day they could be pressured into this stuff. My own trauma always has me in shock when someone is nice to me or takes care of me in the hospital. I experienced weird feelings about some medical people who were being KIND to me. I know what this stuff is from, given my background. That's one thing they are creating in this society, a coldness and hardness towards the disabled, old/elderly and dying with all this evil crap. There's no respect for life or for human beings.
The crazy thing about being disabled is being disabled does cost you more money. The same profit machine that wants to make tons of money off hamburgers, also wants to do it with the disabled. They've thrown us all in the meat grinder. There's no shortage of those wishing to profit off you and your never-ending problems. Nowadays only the worried well can often afford super-advanced medical care. I've talked about how if I had the right medical care at the right time, I could have gone on a very different life path. Who would I have been without severe abuse, love and concern when I needed it? During my 20s, I knew what was missing, and I knew it was going to cost me BIG. It almost cost me my life. I was very fortunate to get the years I was able to tack on.
One's expenses are higher when one is disabled.
I need special food, housing that can contain walkers and a special bed and no stairs, medical supplies for one ongoing problem, diabetes, and CPAP supplies, and supplements. Medicine is another constant expense too. Even if you have insurance, medicine and co-pays cost a lot. Years ago before Medicare D came around, we sometimes had to pay over 400-500 dollars a month for my medication. I often went without medicines I needed during my worse poverty years and most long-time readers know the ill effects my lack of insurance brought me. When my husband had insurance benefits cut at one job, I had to order generic medications from overseas to have some medications. There are tons of people out there who ration medicine, diabetics who go without insulin and Metformin, others who can't afford other pills they need, that's a massive problem out in the world. Some medications they charge 1000s a month for each. Insulin alone is more than rent at the retail price.
Medicaid as I mentioned on one other article is at the same income cut-offs as TEN YEARS ago. This also is happening with other programs like a medication program and others. Inflation is not being added on. HUD cut-offs are abysmally low even for married couples. I always fear not being able to afford medicine. It's been a massive problem in my life on and off.
I hate both main parties but I sometimes have voted for Democrats for the sake of disability related issues alone. Sadly they seem to be betraying us just as much. The Republicans openly gun for the poor and disabled, but the enabler party already seems to roll over as much as they can. Oh they'll do nothing when it comes to stopping any insane wars, especially as that AIPAC money rolls in, but the disabled and elderly are always first on the chopping block when it comes to budget cuts. Trump kept sending billions overseas just like Biden but just sent through more massive cuts to Medicaid.
The reality for many disabled people is you learn to go without. For poorer disabled people this may mean going without lunch or going without medicine. For those who are a little better off, bigger ticket items are impossible dreams.
Here are the things I need today on the health/disability front, I cannot afford.
1. Hearing Aids for severe and profound Deafness. I found out they do make advanced hearing aids now for severe and profound hearing loss. I also found out there could be cheaper over the counter ones that will help. Here's a potential very cheap one I could try. I will have to ponder the really cheap ones but that's a risk. Some warn that different brands don't work especially if you have severe hearing loss. They are far better for mild people. For 12+ years I had charity hearing aids via one hearing aid charity and had them maintained by an audiologist who participated in that program, but sadly I became too deaf for those, and at that point there was no more offered help.
2. A couch or bed I can sit on in the living room. I tried to find a couch when I had a little bit of money at thrift, but they were all so low, including the beds, I couldn't get off of any of them. None would have worked with those risers you can buy. We searched for weeks and weeks. Why isn't there any help for problems like this? Some fat people on social media told me they got lift chairs and things like this but all that costs thousands of dollars. One lady gave me the idea to buy a bed foundation and put it in the living room, so that's what I'm looking at now. I don't have the money for it yet but hopefully I will.
3. Carpet Cleaning. I never got the money to do them. Its been three years. Yes it is gross. It embarrasses me. Allergies can be affected by dirty carpets.
4. Compression Supplies. Two years ago I cyber-begged for some bandages, and Tubi-grip. I was able to get some. One lady sent me some compression stockings I used all the time for my smaller leg. I didn't even know they made some to fit it. The Tubi-grip has run out, it does wear out and weaken, and I need a new batch. I probably can buy some soon. I bought a few bandages too. I never have enough compression supplies and gave up foam due to its cost.
5. Shoes. A friend helped me get some. Thank you friend. I went without decent shoes for too long.
6. Clothing. My clothes are getting holes. I have two decent dresses I save for art shows, one a friend got me. Finding cheap enough clothes when big, is very hard. I did buy some size 3x-4x sleeveless shirts to wear under jumpers for a few dollars from a charity clothing place. That place is strange, I can find shirts to fit me, but never any dresses, go figure.... [remember I'm smaller on top]
7. Supplements. I need more L-lysine, it's running out, Vitamin C and zinc. Some of those I can buy soon. There are two new supplements I need to buy for the thyroid and one is a milk thistle herbal blend. There's multiple things I need to get or replace. My labs have been going better outside of the mild anemia. My A1C is down. My weight stagnated some over the last few months but is around 460 still. I'm worried because whenever I have lost weight before it always seems to "get stuck" at the 460 mark. I've stuck to gluten-free. Oddly there was more loose skin on my upper body.
8. Scooter or Motorized Wheelchair. If I won the Lotto tomorrow, I would buy one and put lift in our van. There's too many things I do that too much required walking ruins. I don't walk well. At least my knee hurts less today. Today I went to a Goodwill and was walking around some but had to sit down and rest a lot too. My minor surgery probably slowed down the weight loss, and having to rest from problems related to that. The pelvic floor problems are making sitting hard so I was laying down more in between activities. Sometimes I see big people in electronic wheelchairs, when I am in our downtown, there's a disability tower down there, and I saw this 400lb or so woman in one, and was glad she could get around unencumbered.
I get scared if I do go into a wheelchair or scooter, I will gain weight, but then would I be able to do more? Wheelchairs and scooters especially for big people can be a hassle. You don't fit in places very easily. The lift thing would make it almost useless though, where could I go if neither of us can get it into the car? What a mess. So I never got one and dropped the matter. I can still walk in libraries, and small stores obviously, I walked through the Indian store to buy groceries a few days ago taking two rests on the walker.
9. A New Rollator Walker or parts for it. I had someone help me get the last walker, it is a good brand, the wheels and more are still intact after years, but it has no brakes and handles. I'm not handy enough to reinstall some brake parts though getting new handles would be easy enough. It is beat up. I use my walker A LOT. It is almost a part of me when I am out and about. Insurance doesn't seem to cover walkers. Once this place refused to get me a walker because I was 510lbs and the weight limit for the biggest walker in their catalogue was 500. I had to buy a padded seat for my walker that cost about 30 dollars a few months ago. My rollator works but brakes made life easier when they were working. You have to walk down ramps and stuff like this all the time.
After this many years, I've learned to go without or go battle for what I need. I did paperwork to get some CPAP supplies and made a payment schedule with them. I was able to get new bandages'leg parts for my leg machine. My handle bars on my beat up walker were taped with black electrical tape. I may try to get hearing aids again, though I don't know if I will succeed. A lot of my day is spent on paperwork and survival. Yes, I am in bed a lot and often housebound but this is where a lot of hours go. Today I need some oil of oregano and vitamins, I will look for thrift clothing which is cheap. I found a dress I can wear in the winter that cost 8 dollars. It takes me two and half hours to get ready to go outside, this time bracket is not negotiable. This is how long it takes me to shower, nebulize my lungs, get dressed, comb my hair, brush my teeth, take medication, take my sugar and insulin, cook something decent for breakfast--which is usually eggs, and wrap my legs. Add in an hour of my first session of the day in my leg machine, and that time frame is three and half hours.
This article is right about how being disabled and poor is a full time job.
Some of the medical rules are getting dumber and dumber, I was refilling my nebulized lung medicine and they told me I have to get a prescription for a new mouth piece to put the medicine in. That never needed prescriptions before. I was able to get some new diabetes supplies last month. This kind of stuff takes up a lot of a disabled person's time. I have to budget for my supplements. I'm trying to stay alive. It's not easy.
I have to buy medical supplies, CPAP and nebulizer supplies, copays on medicines, over the counter medicines, decent food, that won't make me sick, and special gluten free food. I cook a lot from scratch. Other disabled people need splints, compression, wheelchair maintenance/batteries, special cushions, pressure sore cushions, other special foods, glasses, hearing aids, toilet aids, assistive devices and pay for caretakers.
And I am supposed to do all this on less than 1300 a month. I'm subtracting the premiums that take an instant 270 dollars out of my check the first day I get it.
By the way the cut offs for Medicaid are so low in my state, I know people who make only 1400 a month and are single, and they have denied them. Since the Medicaid income cut-offs are the exact same as ten years ago, they basically forced endless people off. They basically cut Medicaid here by at least 100% under Biden's regime. When you hear about all the cuts Medicaid is getting and Medicare as well, many of those cuts already happened, they are just adding to it.
I don't know how anyone is surviving. It probably will take me a few weeks to buy some supplements and some of the compression stuff. Many simply make-do with what they have.
I'm far from the worse off, I'm married, we still have an apartment, a running car, and live in a safe place. This town has some transportation it's not the best but many disabled people live in rural areas with no buses whatsoever. I am able to obtain simple art supplies, I look for deals and friends have helped there, and have some food to eat. As I got older I got smarter about thrift stores, food deals, and how to survive while poor.
If inflation is scaring the healthy, young, employed people and most here have seen my articles with posted videos of the endless stressed out people, what do you think it is doing to the disabled?
Inflation has become an incredible burden to the disabled on fixed incomes.
"Social Security Disability (SSD) program beneficiaries, like other consumers, have been negatively affected by inflation over the past several years. In a survey from June of 2023, more than half (59 percent) of SSD program beneficiaries reported higher prices for the disability-related goods and services they need to purchase, and more than one-quarter reported reducing food spending to cover disability-related costs, Zachary Morris and Stephanie Rennane found in Examining the Impact of Inflation on the Economic Security of Disability Program Beneficiaries (NBER RDRC Paper NB23-08).
Using new survey data, the researchers found that 82 percent of beneficiaries reported out-of-pocket expenses related to their disability, with average annual spending of $4,412 and median spending of $384 as of June 2023. Fifty-nine percent of beneficiaries reported higher spending on disability-related goods and services compared to two years earlier. In response to these rising costs, 25 percent of beneficiaries indicated they went into debt; 43 percent found recent COLA adjustments insufficient to maintain their standard of living.
What about single people who have to live on their checks ALONE and nothing but?
What about people on SSI? These are the people who didn't have enough work credits for traditional Social Security? They often have to live on less than 900 dollars!
And the war mongers who send billions overseas, are cutting their benefits too. One of the latest is denying disabled adults who live home with relatives benefits and cutting them off from any help. How many with abusive families will find themselves out in the street? After all some families won't be the type to pay for an adult disabled person's food and lodging if there's no check coming in or a greatly reduced one. What about the autistic people who are on very long waiting lists for group homes? They need medical care and mental health treatments too. What about those with developmental disorders? Some people have poor families who need the extra help.
Another proposal is to cut community living for the disabled as well, and break down the Olmstead ruling that helped disabled people escape institutional living. Many have warned the Project 2025 clan wants to shove disabled people back into institutions, and the homeless as well. I haven't seen anything new being built or new programs. Maybe there are some I don't know but if you know about the history regarding disability rights and the fight to make disabled people part of their communities, then you know how regressive all of this is.
It's like they don't want people to survive. Remember there's a line where "going without" as I call it impacts the immediate necessities like acute medicine, food and housing.
SSI has extreme rules. You can't have more than 2,000 dollars in assets. A married couple can't have more than 3,000. These numbers have not changed since 1989!! They have not been adjusted for inflation. Most people on SSI are living in extreme poverty.
Often SSI people cannot marry because marriage means losing all benefits and your disability even if a spouse is low income and doesn't make very much. This means many people on disability [the SSI variety] are unable to marry. I am penalized for marriage even though he makes very little but not to the extent of an SSI person. There is an SSI marriage penalty that some activists try and fight.
Many people on SSI choose to never marry. They live with their "boyfriend and/or girlfriend" for over 20 years fearing they will lose benefits. This brings hardship to relationships and does not give the legal protection of marriage to the disabled who may have to turn to other relatives say in a situation where they may be incapacitated.
Many people on SSI if they marry a person of average income, will lose all disability benefits and eligibility for all government programs. A spouse could be disabled themselves and making very little money and the cut-offs are so insane, the person still would lose SSI. This is what I talk about when I mean the people who write these rules have no idea what ordinary people need to live on. More jobs do not pay for health insurance or provide supplemental to a spouse. I believe in my case even though I am not on SSI, that at least one good job let my husband go because of my being a new "burden" on the insurance. He got to be a copy-ad writer for 6 months. The door to ordinary life slammed shut.
Marriage Equality for the Disabled Activism and proposed new laws.
I have known many disabled people especially on SSI who have been homeless or have had to live in rental room situations which is far more burdensome if you have severe health problems and need quiet, rest and stability as a result. I know in my case, that discrimination against the severely obese is so high, that the changes of a rental room in my case are very low. Homeowners aren't going to be understanding if you spend hours in the bathroom throwing up from IBS or kidney stones. They want quiet out of the way tenants who spend most of their hours at work or OUT. That's not me.
I have met other poor disabled people and most were on SSI. One was a lady with severe Lipedema who was around my weight. She ended up homeless after a divorce. As a couple, they were very low income like my household. She was in a desperate situation, where she had to move in with a friend she met online. She went to this person's house and from what everyone observing the situation could tell she was not being treated well. Her health got far worse and she was looking for new housing and the end of the story was tragic. She died very young in her 30s.
Another homeless friend, who I wrote for some time, had severe Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. She was [manual] wheelchair bound. She was younger, in her 20s and didn't have much help. I lost contact with her but wonder where she is now. She wrote me about being in the homeless shelter and the shelter had terrible rules, where they had to go a half mile away to get to the soup kitchen to get any food. She felt unable to do it and found it extremely difficult, she didn't have enough money for the bus either. She had found a rental room but sadly the last I heard of that situation was she was surrounded by noisy college students and unable to sleep. She didn't have enough privacy.
Many people imagine the social workers coming to disabled people's rescue, but from what I have seen that is rare. I've heard too many stories about people with severe disabilities being told to fend for themselves. People in wheelchairs sent to the streets. That stuff scares me! Some even told me stories of seeing people without legs, the blind and deaf as part of the homeless community.
This is one scary statistic:
"Roughly half of homeless individuals live with an intellectual or physical disability, and people with disabilities experience homelessness at a rate that is two and a half times higher than that for the overall population of the United States (Henry et al, 2022). "
The Overlooked Connection Between Disability and Homelessness
How many years have I written about how because of my Aspergers and weight, that jobs were very hard to come by? I have seen this in thin people too, who had medical problems or reduced mobility. They simply weren't hired and the most mild "difference" could lead them to unemployment.
News agencies have reported of the old and homeless being thrown on to the sidewalk. Look at this poor man in a neck brace needing more surgeries who has been sent out into the streets to live! Some people told me I am severely disabled enough, the social workers would put me in a home or something instead of the streets, but I am not so sure. Social workers have turned their backs on me before when I was in need and I wrote this article about it.
Problems with the Social Work World: There's Not as Much Help as You Think There Is!
I know too much about what others have gone through to make assumptions. I helped my homeless friend above online find the rental room, and gave other advice, she was out on the West coast but that was just survival stuff. I think of her and wonder what happened. There was so little help for her. She was young too and those were the make or break years in being able to establish herself. In her case, her family lived rural and remote and were incapable of helping her.
There's some small things that can make a disabled person immediately homeless. Once they had to shut down the elevator in my apt complex for three months to replace it. I live on the first floor so it did not affect me, but I have a life rule never to depend on an elevator because they break and the power goes out sometimes for days in my town due to weather events. I could be trapped upstairs or downstairs. For a paralyzed person this is even more dangerous and I've heard local stories about the elevator breaking in one inner city disability building and others where people got trapped. Here's a video about a vet who has a disability room, who was unable to get into his apartment and basically ended up homeless in the streets.
There's many homeless people now who are disabled. Some are able to live with more loving families. I of course was told directly to my face there would be no help if I ever became homeless. This reaction made no sense to me, as even in the worse throes of poverty, I always paid my rent first and tried to be responsible but it was said to me. I already kind of knew.
For those new to the blog, the nature of my disabilities brought me ostracization from my family. I was not well-liked no personality could connect with a bookish Aspergers person. My weight was offensive to them. A 350lb professional man that made great money and had a high paying jobs in computers was fine, but not someone as extremely overweight as me. It occurred to me not one ever mentioned my Lipedema even after I told them. They wouldn't face it and didn't care. They abused me for being fat but didn't care, that I had multiple conditions that impact weight. Years after I went no contact, I realized how much abuse there was for being deaf. These were pre-transcribe and caption phone days. Some refused to text me even though I could not understand them.
Many disabled people with abusive families will be seen as BURDENS or embarrassments. Media portrays families as all loving to the disabled but this doesn't happen in many cases. A lot of people are abandoned. Many families will see a disabled child as "God's punishment" or a burden. Ableism happens within the family home. If a disabled person has a narcissistic family or parent, narcissists aren't very kind to the disabled.
Ableism and the ACON: Narcissists and the Disabled
Disabled adults will be left out of family activities from shopping trips to family reunions and disinvited from weddings because they don't look "normal". Some will be gaslighted and told this activity will be "too hard" for you while no attempts at accommodation are made. One side of my family, mostly my mother's cousins, would hold a family reunion. I got email invites but was told it was in a park that required half a mile of walking to get to where the reunion was. I don't know if this was a lie or not, I didn't have money to go. They definitely were discriminating against elderly and disabled members of the family.
The diminished economic situations for many disabled people also impact these family activities and being able to afford them or needed money for travel and trips. A disabled person is not going to have the finances to go several hundred miles to Grandma's house or visit people who are spread out. Sadly reciprocation will be minimal for many disabled people because family members will choose the abled-bodied and monied to do things with. This was definitely a theme in my own experience. I spared myself a lot of pain when I didn't have to try anymore and economic burdens such as coming up with 80-100 dollars in gas money to get to my mother's house.
There are some disabled people who do have caring families who take up for them and have their back. There's many disabled people who do get abandoned or ostracized by their family. Their disabilities sadly are part of why this happens.
Becoming disabled can be a lot of social isolation and multiple pressures. A disabled friend of mine wrote parts of an article on this blog years ago, "The Social Isolation and Turmoil of the Disabled"
We are still friends and have contact. It's 11 years later and things have only gotten worse.
She wrote: ""I even notice your economic level may decide how disabled you become. I bet fewer rich become disabled. They are rich enough to prevent it, or to get medical support. It's easy to get disabled if you are poor. There is no support. The rich still get the best medical treatment even in nations of socialized medicine. Being disabled easily gets you isolated for several reasons; the disabled [and this includes poor and disabled seniors a lot, get ignored. and avoided by everyone."
and
"Try being disabled, without a job, no money and see how isolated you become. Shut-ins are usually poor. Economics is often at the bottom of many problems. This includes cures, treatments, interventions and equipment. "
She got that right!
The poor are more likely to end up disabled in the first place, working more dangerous jobs, living in more dangerous neighborhoods, lacking medical insurance or access to doctors for early diagnosis. She's right about the lack of support. If you have no money there's no support.
There's very little help out there!
The social work world is failing in my opinion. There's probably going to be less social work jobs and agencies as well. The cut offs are now absurd and the weeding out processes means most are told "no", even people who face severe poverty. Austerity measures impacting the disabled are happening in multiple Western countries.
One thing I have noticed is that many disabled people cannot get household help and supports. I had a friend turned down by a waiver program, I already have talked about. I've discussed my problems with housekeeping on here and how I denied home aids and programs that help the severely disabled. My attitude in life is that I have to suck it up and do what I have to, pain or no pain. "No Calvary is coming". Well, most disabled people don't have the money to cope with these problems either. In my case, I have a husband to help. He has disabilities too, but if I am bedridden and too sick to move for a few days, he can keep the apartment from collapsing. A single disabled person or someone who lives alone isn't going to have this help and honestly, they have made it more and more impossible to get. A person of normal financial means, can hire outsiders to come and clean the house or haul junk or get a myriad of things done.
Some disabled people do work part time, if they can. I'm not any shape to. For some of them, the risks are high. There's one lady I know with Lipedema, she is around a stage 3, but she is always getting dangerous leg infections working at a famous big box store. I think they let her sit down on something but that's still being upright for a long period of time. She's younger too, which helps, but she reminds me of how bad things got for me.
Survival is much harder being disabled. The medical bills alone will crush you. I plan to keep my functional doctor but there's doctors I don't see because it would increase my bills too much. Fortunately having house call doctors centralizes some of my needed medical care. Maybe I should see a cardiologist, and a pulmonologist, but I figure why jack up the bills even more, if I get in dire need, the other doctors will tell me to go see them anyway.
That's one expense that is massively increased for disabled people. When I had my minor surgery in the hospital, I was begging the doctor to do it in her office, and she told me, "That's not going to work in your case". I was begging due to money. I feared another hospital bill to pay off, I had just paid off the kidney infection bill from 2024, a few months ago. She meant well. It's better that I was in the hospital. I'm paying on the bill now but those are the kind of things that disabled people have to face. Sometimes I joke, "We are only going to the hospital if we are dying because of what it costs". My husband had to practically drag me to the hospital over the kidney infection, I kept saying "Let the doctors on call handle it but went through my urologists, and house call doctors and the urologist basically said, "Go to the ER!". I do believe that if I had not been diagnosed with Celiac Disease, the kidney stuff would have taken me out. I was diagnosed with Celiac soon after that illness and went gluten free.
They have continued to cut multiple programs for the disabled and this doesn't seem to be stopping. Multiple programs are being cut especially for parents of disabled children who may have autism and other conditions. Medicaid Waiver programs are being wiped out. I considered joining one but decided to wait after my friend got turned down and had been given rigid rules about who qualifies.
I want to warn young people always put your health first. One worry I have for young people today is many are far poorer, they can't even afford the milk crate and cheap apartment life. They are not getting early intervention or medical care and I believe this will mean far more expenses and painful lives for some in the future.
I do regret I had not been taught to take care of myself properly when young and did not have the means to see doctors or get care I needed at one time. That's one devastating thing that can happen to people in narcissistic families, they are not taught self-care. Their youth is seen as something that the narcissists resent and went to siphon off of. If you get sick there is often neglect and this can have life-long consequences.
There is something very wrong with a country that does not allow decent health care, food and stable lives for young people. This place is getting disgusting in how they treat the most vulnerable and I find myself thinking this place sacrificed everything to worship billionaires [on both the left and right] and wage war. Biden and others started to cut program years ago and it's a known fact that Trump has little respect for the disabled.
A sign of a dying society is a lack of empathy for the most vulnerable in society and this is hitting home for the disabled. I think the calls to bring out euthanasia especially for the non-terminally ill disabled shows how bad the darkness is growing. I disagree with it in total. This is a society that puts money for the most greedy above life itself, and this is worsening. Americans are sadly allowing a bunch of parasite billionaires to ruin the quality of everyone's lives while slamming down the prison bars. They focus on the disabled to destroy because they know the disabled hold less money and power in society. It's low hanging fruit for them. The rhetoric against the disabled grows disgusting. The fact they are seen as scapegoats and too expensive and the cause of all the money problems in this country as these freaks hoard wealth and go to war with every country they can is wrong. There are things happening in America that should not be happening to disabled people. Many disabled people are scared for their survival. As everyone gets old and loses their health in life at a certain point, this will affect everyone.
