Are Your Bills Crushing You? Surviving While Poor

Are your bills crushing you? Mine are. There's three of them above ready to get me! lol Will payment plans keep them at bay?

I want to ask people how do you survive? Hey maybe fill me in here.

My life has become a litany of food pantries and the rest. Last week we went to the soup kitchen, in the inner city. They fed us spaghetti, it was direct, you line up, some people got free loaves of bread. Some of the men in there had "house arrest boxes" around their ankles, well that part wasn't good. It was rather austere but the meal filled us up.

 Some people would be afraid to go down there, but I have lived in ghetto areas long enough to know how to survive in them.  This is life as usual for me, as we have gone to community dinners. My husband went to a food pantry yesterday.  I was cooking all that squash I got and the last of the cabbage was used up on soup last week. Tomorrow is a community church lunch for the poor. Let's hope it's not hot!

 If you were to ask me what did you buy that was "extra" in the last three months beyond base survival, I would say, "One day I bought a chicken burrito for 6.95", and another day, I saw this beef jerky on sale for 3.50 which was half priced, which I bought and snacked on. My card making hobby was shut down, the money for supplies simply vaporized. I haven't made anyone a card in 8 months. Stamp collecting? I haven't bought a stamp even a cheap one in almost a year. Oh I think I went to the nature center on June 6th, that's 3 dollars each to get inside. Clothing? One project friend had her parents buy me two dresses in 2011. I got one dress from another friend as a present in 2010. So yes, many things did get cut to the bone. My husband seriously needs clothes, but finding larger ones in thrift is very hard.

I always thought I was a frugal person but I wonder why even my frugality seems to be failing me. Is life getting this tough for others like this out there? If you have poverty surviving ideas, add them in the comments. 

1. Try and find a Food Co-op [there's ones for middle class people too where they share organic and other foods]
The food co-op I joined is a food bonanza and was a great decision. We won't starve at least though I wish there was more meat. We got more meat then most food pantries though. I got two bags of walnuts, to me that is like a kid in Victorian England getting an orange in 1870. Nuts are expensive. Now I can put some in salads and maybe some bran muffins.

2. Always pay rent first even if it's a boarding house room.

My first advice, is always pay rent first. Stable housing is the make or break in terms of surviving poverty. If your housing is at risk then you always are.

When we run out of food during the month or have to go line up at all these charities, I have said to him, "Shouldn't we give up this apartment?" but then I am caught, I am too sick to deal with rental rooms, and the boarding house life in this condition.   Two life rules I have are--stable housing first and foremost, and second life rule, never live with anyone where you are not the adult in charge. No one is clamoring to have me move into their spare bedroom but since I moved home at 20 before my first no contact this has been my rule.  What I went through was not worth it. I could never do it again. This can be a way for people to save money if they have friendly relatives or friends, but it's risky. Because of my Aspergers, I need peace, quiet and a refuge from social demands.

Most rental rooms are upstairs. Roommates may not have patience with someone who is always home or spending an hour in the bathroom.  We have had this discussion over and over and the "roommate" discussion. We would take this one close friend if he became homeless and others but strangers seem too risky. Maybe we are paranoid or maybe I know not everyone would be understanding. Sometimes I worry we are too risk adverse, but you can see how life made us that way! For many poor who are in better shape and not two old married people set in their ways living with roommates sometimes works out.


3. Don't waste money if you do have it.

Facebook is crazy. Watching the higher socio-economic classes burn money with a lighter in front of my eyes is insane. A few wealthier types have been ordering those companies that put together cooking boxes.  Time is money but they spend around 85 dollars to get FOUR meals. I have fed both of us for an entire week on less then 85 bucks, which is 21 meals. We eat a lot of eggs, cooked vegetables and soup.  One lady repainted her door 4 times, trying to get the "best" color on the front of her suburban home. How much did those cans of paint cost?

It's their business but watching my mother waste money, right in front of my eyes, with her 10,000 glass snow men and shopping was insane. How much did the second vacation home alone cost in money and taxes?  My husband tells me, "Don't worry about being cut out of the will, there's no way nothing is left, she's probably even re-mortgaged the house again.  Past behavior tells you future behavior." I added up once what she spent since she got the big insurance pay outs of 1998. The new cars and house renovation alone would equal half of what she got back then and almost 20 years have passed. I know two government pensions are good, but I don't think they are that good.  She made good money selling her soul counting body bags for the government and Bush's wars even without a college education but there's a limit to everything.

Years ago, she told one aunt "My children will be rich when I die", but I thought that's gotta be the biggest nonsense going. I was told I was cut out anyway.  The level of money I saw being spent before I walked, I was in shock she had not run out. To be honest, to me it would be the ultimate justice if she ever was poor, but my mother never has gone without a dollar she has wanted.


3. Sometimes you can sell stuff

Yes we have done stuff like collect cans and sell ebay.  More then ten years ago, we sold off books, CDs and records on ebay when ebay was going strong. I don't own much to sell now but if you do own things sometimes if you sell your antiques and other valuables if you have them it will raise money.

 I sold a silver necklace for three dollars once at the gold and silver place needing some gas money. It was thin and light. Some towns if you play an instrument you can busk, make sure they don't require permits. Some towns have flea markets were you can set up a garage sale and if you have your own house, garage sales will work. Living in an apartment makes sales like that too difficult.

4. Begging is probably a bad idea [unless you are so desperate you can't help it].

 We have never begged on the street with the cardboard signs. Been tempted but never have sunk that low thankfully.  I am too visibly disabled and people will pretty much know I have a social security check and may ask what is that woman doing? This town is small enough too, even if we went to the outer highway by the mall, my husband could see people he freelances for. We can't have that. I feel for people in that situation. Some towns have laws against it.

5. If you slide through the cracks medicine wise, there are organizations to help you.

Even now I ask my husband, "What are we doing wrong?" I go up and down the list. I get ideas, "Let's do this, Let's do that". They have us herded and "caged" on every front. One slip up and I could fall through the cracks.  There was a time when he was working and "made too much" for me to get medicine, and that was scary and I did go through the cracks. Fell right through it. His work place insurance had done away with pill coverage. I found a special program and without it, I probably would have died. It was called RX Outreach. If you are poor and can't afford medicine this place will help you out. I also would go to the websites for the Pharmaceutical companies, and many offered special programs for specific medicines. Here is an example of one.

If you ever see diabetics who have had a foot amputation, before you judge them and think "why didn't they take care of their diabetes" know that they have made insulin equal to the price of rent. People like me on disability have a few options many don't have. Diabetes is going untreated  None of the cheap pill programs cover insulin either. Maybe some charities are covering this, I would like to think so. I knew this one lady who walked around for a year and half with a blood sugar over 250 because she didn't have money to go to the doctor and no insurance. 

 See if your town has a free clinic, many do now. Sometimes they are in a church. I spent years going to clinics for the very poor. One thing to be cautious of, they are not good at diagnosis, they are trained to deal with immediate problems. Referring MYSELF to a specialist bailed me out once. My husband uses a local free clinic.

6. Avoid the Lifestyle Trap:

My husband paid 300 a month in gas alone to get to one old job. He reminded me yesterday that while back then there was no soup kitchens and going to food pantries--well I went to one at my old church, we were always just as pressed. That never ended. One thing if you do get money, don't raise your lifestyle, keep it the same and enjoy the feeling of "freedom", that's what I always wanted. If you win the Lotto. just keep your old house, and clean it up a bit. Don't increase everything up a notch and be pressed again. My mother spent money like one of those people who win the Lotto and end up with nothing. One huge mistake people make is increasing the lifestyle when they enter into any money and then the level of demands and stress remain the same.

7 Sometimes moving is a good idea, but sometimes it's a bad one.

 If you are poor, don't make our mistake, of moving around for jobs, hoping to become better off.  I have moved too much and to be frank, it made life more difficult. One time it worked and fixed things, and another time it didn't turn out so well, but I ended up with better medical care.  I moved to avoid becoming homeless so the stable housing rule took precedent a few times. My move to Chicago was to avoid immediate homelessness.

  At a certain age, you won't meet people like you did when you were younger and if you get poor enough or disabled enough, your social life will be dead in the water. If you know you aren't going to reach a certain socio-economic level, it's better to invest in relationships. Better off people can travel to see relatives and old friends. If you are a poor person, moving constantly and distance breaks down relationships but then some of this can be beyond your control, even when I have stayed put, others have moved. I didn't have a decent family all in one place but if you do have a decent family like that, rethink moving away. Consider your support systems. Life without a support system is far harder.

8. Compare prices and always look for deals

Another gym I plan to visit now is a 10 dollar a month one, if I can use any of the equipment. One guy I knew told me why are you going to go to ones you can barely afford and told me this gym could be an option. He's right even for the 45 dollar one, I wondered where was I going to find the money but I will compare them all.  I do compare prices on everything.

If you get car repairs, go to poorer areas to get them done if you know you can trust the garages. Try and get word of mouth about who is the best.  Some poor areas use street mechanics, but I have avoided that for now. I know Aspies suck at networking but this is the information about life that helps cut the risks. We once got a radiator fixed for 300 dollars when this other garage on the richer side of town wanted 500. Haggle over the price of things, you CAN save money. I may sound like a cheapskate, but I even have tried to cut deals at thrift stores and garage sales. It has worked.

9. Fighting your way out of poverty doesn't mean you'll never fall back In

My husband says "Maybe we won't be poor forever" but with the declining health and our age, I pretty much have consigned myself to it. Digging one's way out takes good health and neither of us have that.  Anything could happen and I'll be happy then but one has to deal with reality too. We still have some goals we have not let go of. He is still working on another book. I plan to make a zine or something of the comic.

If someone was to ask me, "Don't you know how to dig your way out of poverty?" Sure I do. It takes getting a skill and getting some sort of decent regular employment. That usually takes a degree of health too.  If an ugly man with a beard  in 2007 had not decided that my husband was not a good copy ad writer, my life could have gone completely different.

 I am not some Republican that thinks all poor people are poor from moral failings but if you have bad habits like losing at gambling, drugs or drinking or the rest that cost money or kill employment, then do what you can to get away from them. Whatever the size acceptance delusionists say, being fat is probably one of the biggest money killers in the world. I do think if I had not gotten sick and if the lungs had stayed intact, I may have been okay. Life would have gone a whole other direction.

If you are young and weigh in the mid200s and 300lbs, do everything beyond moving heaven and earth to avoid supersized obesity because once you go beyond the 250lb norm, good jobs unless you are a STEM computer expert will be impossible to get.   If you have health problems and are gaining weight like crazy, demand everyday to get treatment and tests. Don't end up like me. Get diagnosed earlier. Well I tried my best.

The right kind of education can sometimes be a way out. Think practical not liberal arts. Liberal arts stuff, the internet is at our beck and call. One does not need expensive degrees to learn things anymore. The Internet is for the taking. Always live in an area with good libraries. There's two here.

One core component is health. However digging one's way out of poverty is far harder then ever before. They are designing things that way. The jobs are not dependable. We climbed out of poverty once, via a job, from Chicago the rural town, and then we fell back in again moving here, when he lost the job we moved here for.  Sometimes I've had mean types yell at me, and tell me "Well you two need to get yourself out of poverty" with bootstrap lectures. Well we did it once before escaping Chicago. They don't get that. I was still disabled but we did have our life change.


Things could have been worse if he never found his freelance work. So "poverty" even in itself can be relative. There's poverty where you still have an apartment and a level of well semi-dignified living, and then there's homeless poverty where the bottom completely falls out. There's levels a disability check will keep you from. I have been far poorer then now even.

10. Information about homeless shelters

Homeless shelters are not the salvation many think they are either. They can help so don't take me wrong on this but many are FULL and will tell immediately homeless people even poor women, "Sorry there's no room today!".  I have been friends with or known people who have been homeless in the past, they have told me things about that world. I avoided homeless shelters by the skin of my teeth but many people who are new to the fall down the ladder, expect more help then is really there. How do I say this, you can't always expect the calvary to rescue you. I've been in many spots where no calvary was coming and a friend had to rescue me or God Himself had to send strangers to do it. I hate those circumstances, most of the ones I am thinking of are where a natural disaster and fate took me to a bad place.

I suspect many of the homeless are scapegoats from narcissistic families. I had this discussion somewhere on my blog once upon a time, where people always think of the homeless, "Well they must have burned all their bridges!" Some get angry asking "Why doesn't that homeless person have any family to take them in? Look at me, it isn't that hard for a scapegoat to end up with no family. Some of us may have had friends or they died or they lived too far away or are too poor themselves to help. My husbands family except for one sister has literally died off. When I see homeless people now, I think "How many were the scapegoat and cast away or were forced to leave the family behind"?

11. Facing the Fear of Poverty

 Sometimes I do get scared a lot from being poor. The fear is weird to me. My husband has remarked I act like the desert is near, and soon I will be cast out. I know where this comes from, my poorer days in my youth? When I was young, I ironically hoarded money. My narc parents would laugh about how I was a miser. I really was. I probably was thinking of a great escape or something in the back of my mind.

 This week one day when I wasn't housebound, I was at the grocery store, and I thought I had two 20s and only had two tens, I had forgotten about spending other money. I usually know to the dime how much money I have, so this was an unusual slip up for me. I was embarrassed as we had to put food back and lower our bill from 24 dollars to 17. I was buying meat to go with food pantry food. Inner shame rose up in me. I felt scared and angry. Examining these feelings I asked myself, "Why?"

This is something I am working on. I am not sure where it comes from. Queen Spider did a number on my mind about poverty. She hated herself as the poor farm girl and decided to get money at any cost and did. This hatred was unloaded on me especially as I involuntarily became a poor adult. Sometimes I try to cope with these emotions. I am messed up when it comes to money. Money is the biggest taboo subject in America not sex.

12. Facing the Emotional Stigma of Poverty

Even with my family I believe I would have been cast out for good even if I had not gone no contact. People who are traveling to Europe, and who can afford a new car every two years, don't want someone like me around.

I believe even if I hadn't gone no contact myself, my worsening poverty would have caused the family to cut me off completely anyhow. I was being cut off more day by day.  All of them would travel the world, and buy new furniture and new cars. I am sure now my mother is enjoying her new $35-50,000 dollar vehicle, the second one bought in three years. I only know about it from recent hoovering.

Part of survival while poor is the emotional survival. The world will try and crush you. This is actually more dangerous then any of the physical lacks.  I am working to overcome the damage to my self esteem on so many fronts and money is a big bugaboo for me.  You have to learn to put your own survival first sometimes, and "harden" up to a degree, not in a bad way where you close down your conscience but looking out for your needs.

Even if I had done everything that doctor told me, and not gone on the emergency antibiotics, and waited until Wed when he finally did call, I would have been in the hospital by Monday or Tuesday. It's kind of like that. Same with being poor, you have to protect yourself. When one is vulnerable some toxic people will try and hurt you. You have to find the ones who will help. Don't take advantage of their good will of course. We don't go to the food pantries and community dinners if we can feed ourselves that month, and there are months we don't have to go.

My self esteem during the last 9 years at times took a massive battering. Since working on myself and going no contact with the family, I thought about these issues. Things are improving since the weight of expectations and being called a "failure" got lifted.  They were never there for me in any real way. I even started thinking more about my Chicago years and this may sound like a strange revelation, but my parents weren't the only ones who betrayed me, there were many other middle class and above members of my family, who took the tactic of "just let her die". My eyes were opened wide. My siblings were adults of certain means and knew what circumstances I was in.

A lot of my emotional survival while being a poorer member of society is refusing the judgments of narcissists. If you want to make it, you need to find people who will understand and have compassion. Those of you who are young and healthy enough to make it out of poverty, make sure no one's around you whose drilling a hole in your boat. I tell people on ACON message boards, keep job plans to yourself. Narcissists will do anything to keep a scapegoat especially down. Realize you are a valuable human being no matter your socio-economic status.

If you have any ideas, add yours, or discuss...

Suntopia: Helping People Help Themselves

Housing for the Poor

Finding decent housing for the poor is rare. We have lived in some pits. This place because it is of a certain quality we have hung on to it with a death grip. It is quiet!  I've been in this apartment nearly 10 years. At least we are poor people who have had that extreme rarity of STABLE HOUSING.  That is something you don't want to give up. My first rule of survival in terms of being poor, is finding and keeping stable housing. If you want to know how bad things really have gotten for most poor, read this book, I read it from the library:



We have kept intact housing because of my rules for rent, it gets paid before anything else even food. When I was young, there was no Calvary coming for me. I almost did end up homeless. The boarding house and rental room life is just one step above it.  It is not that hard to end up homeless especially if you are an ACON and there is no family that would bail you out. If you are older and into your middle-aged years, people "give up" on you. You are not some 24 year old they will let move in. They do not want to know, even if you were working in your earlier life and responsible to the hilt.

My emergency plan for housing is keeping track of the disabled housing lists. I sometimes go off and on them now, when things get dicey but for now we have stayed in private housing. Here is the link where you can see all the lists for senior/disabled housing. If you are disabled or grow poor when you are old, there's a few options. On line now just about every state has a "housing locator" website for those who are low income. The one here is saved to my list of links.

Some have said "We should get subsidized housing" but my local one wants only a 100 less then what I pay here for half of the square footage and the rent would be increased automatically for every dollar he made more every month. I already looked at the apartments. They aren't keen on someone who is self employed coming in with the disabled person and one year when we were within 50 dollars of the cut-off for the year and came up on the list, we were told we were too close. The income levels have not been raised since 2008. No, I am not kidding about that even though bills are far higher. They always raise the market rate of the apartments though, the cap on the 30% of the income. Of course a disabled or elderly single  person having to pay 30 percent of a very low income, it's going to help their survival.

I have helped single people online and told them how to get subsidized housing and get on the lists and more. In urban areas, you have to be cautious about safety but the waiting lists are far longer some even 4-10 years in duration. Rural areas, if you are about to be homeless, some of those places you can get right in but the price is less resources. It's still better then the streets though.  Most disabled people need some kind of hospital system so towns over a certain population and with a hospital are probably better. Going for midsized or small towns with hospitals and Dial-A Rides are probably a good option.

It scares me this one disabled friend online told me they refused her disabled housing over having an old unpaid bill, steam came out of my ears as I asked her, "How do they think disabled people have money?"  I think where she applied was kind of extreme. The south seems far more cruel to the poor after years of Republican/Dave Ramsey brainwashing.

I tell poor friends if they are going to move to move to Democratic strongholds. There may be a teeny bit more mercy, but not much. Also it helps if a community has a lot of churches and ones with traditions of "helping the poor". Where I live has a lot of churches. I wish there were churches where poor people could come together but probably with pastors wanting to make good money that's not happening.

I have warned them about urban waiting lists and safety and where their best bets for housing would be. I am exploring now housing for us when we are old and trying to figure out where the BEST Elderly subsidized housing is. I am considering life even 10 years in the future if I make it that long.

I am one of those people who does plan ahead. In my state elderly and disabled housing is mixed but they have elderly buildings too where the disabled who are younger are not allowed in. Some are higher quality then others. I chose this video at random of another state I don't live in....but this looks like a nicer one. Some even have social programs for the seniors and on staff social workers and others. There is housing for the mentally ill like this too in various communities.



Some of the rules with the public housing can be hard. There's things to watch out for. In my town there is a disability building I would never move into, because it is full of bed bugs. This shocked me but I knew someone who had to escape from there, who fortunately had others to move in with. I am afraid of elevators so living in a place that is a tower sounds scary to me. One has to be cautious.

 Even the one decent disabled housing complex here, wanted the present landlord to judge my "housekeeping". I didn't like that. How many disabled people are good housekeepers? I'm not one of them. Maybe if you take the trash out and aren't a hoarder they will write you are okay anyway. We plan to stay in private housing for now, but that's the ins and outs of it. One thing imagine a guy who works for himself in subsidized housing even if his income is smaller knowing every time he makes a dollar more, the rent goes up. It's not exactly motivating. It works better on fixed incomes.

The Orginal Underclass

"So why are white Americans in downwardly mobile areas feeling a despair that appears to be driving stark increases in substance abuse and suicide? In my own reporting in Vance’s home ground of southwestern Ohio and ancestral territory of eastern Kentucky, I have encountered racial anxiety and antagonism, for sure. But far more striking is the general aura of decline that hangs over towns in which medical-supply stores and pawn shops dominate decrepit main streets, and Victorians stand crumbling, unoccupied. Talk with those still sticking it out, the body-shop worker and the dollar-store clerk and the unemployed miner, and the fatalism is clear: Things were much better in an earlier time, and no future awaits in places that have been left behind by polished people in gleaming cities. The most painful comparison is not with supposedly ascendant minorities—it’s with the fortunes of one’s own parents or, by now, grandparents. The demoralizing effect of decay enveloping the place you live cannot be underestimated. And the bitterness—the “primal scorn”—that Donald Trump has tapped into among white Americans in struggling areas is aimed not just at those of foreign extraction. It is directed toward fellow countrymen who have become foreigners of a different sort, looking down on the natives, if they bother to look at all."

The Original Underclass

The existence of poor whites is denied on the left with even Bernie Sanders saying "when you're white you don't know what it is like to be poor." I lived in the ghetto right next door to other races, so he's wrong there.  The right is no better, claiming that everyone who is poor deserves it. They put forth boot-strap dreams and idealized lives that don't match reality.  Sadly too many poor whites will think wrongly Trump will rescue them out of the economic malaise. I don't think that's the plan from either two wings of the same tyrannical bird. I watched my old rural town die, and the factories close, almost like a stereotype I suppose though in my case I didn't live in a coal mining area.

I have as much in common with the "polished people" with their gleaming suburban homes as a Mongolian sheep-herder.  Even with my education which gives me a few pleasures and resources denied to some, they speak a whole other language. I told my husband the other day, "I don't understand what these people are all about!" And it's true I don't. I think how little I have in common with many people even from socioeconomic realities alone. I've been poorer then this, we are eating and just got our car starter fixed but it's strange. What happens to a country where so many are "disaffected" or treated as "throw away" people even in some cases by their own families? What happens when a sliver of a professional class makes all the rules, and defines a reality, that has nothing to do with your real life? A lot of America is checking out from the talking heads.

When I watch TV, no one's life on there resembles my own. I am not living in a shack in my case but a basic two bedroom apt although one with a dirty rug and walls that needed painted 6 years ago. Do people on TV match your life? I feel like I am watching a whole other world, and their motives and view of life makes no sense to me. But even in everyday life, I meet people in that polished world, I and my husband never were able to enter. The chasm that grew between my family and me even was summed up with that divide beyond the abuse. One thing I did not mind moving away from was the depression that had taken over my old town, where the first idea on everyone's mind was to leave. There's a certain kind of sadness when towns enter that decaying state. 

You want to hear one irony, I am the first person on my mother's side of the family who ever graduated from college.

I still think the racial divide the elite are so much into pushing is to cover over the class divides they use to rule.

Even in a more affluent tourist town, we see the decline on the edges and away from the richer areas, closed shops, tattoo stores, people walking who lost their cars long ago and lots of people who are mostly white, with those cardboard signs out by the highway. 

The Lonely Poverty

 

Life Hacks of the Poor and Aimless

Life Hacks of the Poor and Aimless

"The slow collapse of the social contract is the backdrop for a modern mania for clean eating, healthy living, personal productivity, and "radical self-love"-- the insistence that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, we can achieve a meaningful existence by maintaining a positive outlook, following our bliss, and doing a few hamstring stretches as the planet burns. The more frightening the economic outlook and the more floodwaters rise, the more the public conversation is turning toward individual fulfillment as if in a desperate attempt to make us feel like we still have some control over our lives."

Consumers

If no one can afford to buy anything, how do they expect their businesses to succeed? Some even undermine themselves and cut off their noses to spite their face in their own greed.

The Poor and Disabled in the Churches

[As I write this, some churches are exceptions to the below. Some area churches have helped me and offered the community charity.  Some have done so with a good spirit as well. These are trends I am seeing out there otherwise in the church world]

Some time ago I noticed the pastor's wife of the church I had just left posted this meme on her Facebook wall. It was otherwise full of gung-ho anti-welfare Republicanism. You know I can understand those who argue for limited government to a point but one thing never escaped my notice. They never offered any other real options for the poor or disabled outside of plucking their new middle class level job off the rainbows and unicorn Fox News job-tree. Their lives have been so different from my own.

Sometimes it got very tough being in that church. The pastor would rant and rave about how those who don't work, won't eat. Yes, it's in the Bible but there's a lot of verses that are ignored too, about fair day's wages for a fair days work and not oppressing the poor.

Psalm 12:5King James Version (KJV)
⁵ For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

We both would cringe inside as the pastor lectured about those who took advantage of welfare or people who "didn't want to work" over and over.  Fox news ruled his mind. He never took the bankers to task. I tried to tell him different but failed. He would say nice words to me but not really listen.

As I wrote before I walked from that church the day it raised it's praise of war to the zenith. The pastor's son had taken to the pulpit to discuss his times in combat, unlike his thousand yard stare brother who had been there too, this guy seemed gleeful as if military combat was like summer camp. That was straw that broke the camel's back and I knew we didn't belong there anymore.

Class-wise we were the only poor people in that church, from what I could tell the lowest level above us was lower middle class. Everyone owned a home and had large intact families. Four families in the church were related to the pastor. There wasn't one single person outside of one widow, or child-less person in that church either out of 100 people which always gave me a strange feeling. I've seen that in churches I've visited, Single over a certain age? Childless? Those people just were not there.  It was like only nuclear families were allowed. It seemed a given that the people in that church, expect certain lifestyles and incomes. Sadly this was the outlook of the entire church. To be poor in many of today's evangelical churches means you are considered a "bum" who did not work hard enough. You didn't do what was "right" to get ahead. You don't fit in. It's like the white picket fence life is mandated.

Sadly classism is a growing problem in the churches. I am sure there are exceptions to this rule but when Rick Warren got a hold of Drucker a business executive to write Purpose Driven Life, there is a reason that churches were affected by the change of churches into a business model. Some churches of course reject Rick Warren but some of his work has had a cultural impact that has infiltrated society as a whole.  Churches are more focused on solving global poverty rather then dealing with the poverty right across the street or the train tracks. Pastors are more like business men then ministers and the most successful "sell" and get as many butts in seats as possible. Years ago the whole "seeker sensitive phenomenon was more about sales. Churches became more like 'consumer" organizations where salesmen or pastors were told to get in there and "hustle".

Poor church members don't work well in that model. If you are poor enough and groceries are negotiable and you can barely keep a 12-13 year old car running, there is not going to be any money for tithing. I don't believe in the 10 percent tithe but that is a whole other article and subject. In my old town I had people telling me, they didn't go to church because the pastors were always demanding money. Some told me point blank, "We are too poor to go to church.". I'm in that boat now.  In my case, I have strong beliefs that have taken me out of the churches, I'm not interested in things that range from Patriarchy/Quiverful to the Prosperity gospel, but yes, being poor influences church membership.  

Poor people don't make the pastors rich. I hope that doesn't sound too cynical, but think about the pastor who wants a good salary, a church full of very poor people who can barely throw a fiver in the basket weekly isn't going to pay his bills. His attention is going to go more towards the established and wealthier families handing over 10 percent of their entire income. More and more I'm with the people who start discussing how Paul was a tent-maker and provided for himself.

 Some of these people were going without medical care and necessities so I understood even as I was in a church myself back then. One thing that always got me, is I noticed some pastors living far higher socioeconomic levels then some of their church members. It seemed odd to be trying to dig out money I didn't have for some guy to have a newer car and huge home. We see the super-wealthy televangelists and others who live like millionaires but this happens on the lower level a lot. There's still a few humble folks out there, but there's many pastors living large who are out of touch with realities of the USA economy.

I became a Christian as an adult, and well, having recently left the church world for good, I'm mulling over a lot of stuff. I'm in a "wrestle" with God moment, arguing night and day. The best I can say is "I am still talking to God." I already had my atheist years so throwing down and walking away from the Christian faith is not an option but I do fear my own falling away. Maybe my faith is growing more real and this is some kind of "growth" process. A lot of what I saw in the Christian world while I had much to enjoy in my first good church, bothers me now, it seems appearing good there is actually more important then being good.  The fakeness doesn't appeal to me nor false displays of righteousness. I have discussed before in other articles along with a guest blogger, how people are told God will solve all their problems and guarantee them a great life, which in my mind is ensuring there are lots more atheists and others against God out there.  It is concerning how  "No" seems to be the answer to so many prayers lately.

The "Christian" world is troubling me on many levels. "Christians" seem "meaner" to me. Not all. I have good Christian friends and others who have a kind faith I meet all the time, but around a lot of Christians, I felt "judged". Hey I was a non-Christian long enough to know how that can go down, how I was screamed at for going to hell and told I was no good. It affected even the way I witnessed the gospel to others. Today I will witness once or twice but don't harangue people.

Among the church set for so many years, I noticed a lot of the same attitudes about the poor, that bothered me. Many loved the politicians that told people to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and went on and on about self reliance. They believed poor people had become poor via sin. That laziness, sloth, and drug and alcohol use were a given among the poor. In my case, they saw us as "lazy". My first church was rural and poor and more friendly, but I encountered more of this later as our own fortunes fell.

No one would imagine that my husband worked 14 hour days at the newspapers for years. Even now as poor as we are, he can spend the whole night hunched over the computer doing work. I was looking for more freelance work for him today and checking out job listings for him. The jobs are jokes, many jobs he can't physically do because they are manual, but all part time, temp and paying 8 dollars an hour. I swear wages have not advanced since the 1990s. I even checked out some newspaper jobs for him, we don't have money to move, but they are very few in number, and the pay for one was $25,000 a year which is what was offered in 1999 for reporter jobs. We know he is not in good enough health with caretaking duties to go back to the long days required in newspapers, it's troubling figuring out what to do.

 Of course many "Christians" have told me disability and welfare are evil, and to be frank, it was hard to be on social security disability and have a bunch of smug people tell me social security was a "slave system" and that only the wicked depended on the government. Roosevelt was still discussed as evil incarnate for the likes of Ronald Reagan who seemed to destroy the economic system that worked far better before. I noticed the Tea Party and Libertarian types who sought to shame me, always owned their own homes, had land and extensive families networks and safety nets I never could dream of. Their jobs and businesses were secure. Life for them had an easier path. To me the dogging out the poor and disabled made no sense. Why not have the attitude of "By the grace of God, go I?".

Here too, with Christian Republican set, they never offer any real options in place of social security and other helps. Some would sneer at me saying I hadn't overcome my liberalism of my UU days. Lets get real.  What church, charity or family is going to cover thousands of dollars in medical costs? A medicine I need to breathe daily and I have to use a nebulizer to take costs $1,066 retail PER MONTH. This med changed my life by the way, in terms of functionality, it helped my walking.

That's just one of my medicines, at least 2 others cost $700 bucks a monthly pop and I'm on more. I manage to keep myself out of the hospital via lots of maintenance medical care and nursing care when needed, but lets just say to me none of these people are realistic. They also scream about people "sucking off the government tit" at the behest of their brainwashers on radio stations and news programs. I have said to a few, "Ok so your answer to me is to go to the gutter?"

They thought they were special. I got the feeling many believed their blessings came to them because God had specially blessed them and they believed people lacking those things, did not obey God or did something to deserve their lot. Even if a church was not immersed into Word of Faith teachings that taught that prosperity came via closeness to God, I feel like this was a belief in many churches nonetheless. Really even in your non-Word of Faith churches, even "conservative-evangelical" the prosperity gospel has filtered through, like when the pastor at the last one taught, that if "you do right: God will bless you for it". What's that say about all the good people killed in wars and concentration camps and martyrs. My brain feels confused. Good home lives meant you were a good person. Identifying with the poor was identifying with the wicked and those God had not blessed.

 One guy who has influenced the churches greatly is a man named Dave Ramsey who had had financial seminars in the churches for years. That fellow had advanced "hate the poor" philosophies in the churches. His books seem to think expendable income is a given and that frugal living will save us all and anyone can afford a house and good cars if they are just practical and don't make budgetary mistakes. Many of the financially struggling were assured that Dave Ramsey would show them the way out.

 His prejudices are plain to see on his own website. Supposedly rich people are more moral and read a lot more. What would he think of my apartment with it's literally thousands of books. I never buy books, books can be gotten for very cheap. We used to sell books on ebay years ago for a little bit of money. This man's prejudices against the poor are sickening.  You mean poor people don't make to-do lists? I have right now detailing what car repairs need done. What is the deal with #11? What's wrong with speaking your mind? The idea that the poor sitting around eating junk food is also pure prejudice. Many poor people cook beans and pre-plan meals to the extreme.

When poor in the "Christian" community one is literally pounded with the "self reliant" gospel. Ayn Rand who was a Theosphist by the way and anti-Christian to the core is more adhered to then anything Jesus Christ said about the poor. Her gospel of selfishness has definitely taken root in some of the churches over the gospel of Jesus Christ. I read Fountainhead and her books in my 20s. She definitely seemed to advance self-service and a sociopathic attitude towards life. One pundit wrote of Ayn Rand I read years ago saying there were no children, old or disabled people in her books. Well children need care and giving, so wonder her fictional world was a child-free one.! Her philosophies today is one reason that so much of the "evangelical" right wing pairs themselves up with the most heartless bastards. It's one reason that Trump who has been divorced several times and who has lived by the gospel of "me" for decades--by the way he was born rich with a business owner father, is being endorsed by the Republican party.

There is a cold cruelty in much of the church world and it is showing in their politics. Some here may tell me why don't you go into more liberal churches, but I don't agree with their teachings either, so I will remain an outsider for life. There are Christians leaving the church system.

One of my husband's said to me, "Well the best Christians don't go to church" and I got what he meant.  Religion is used to shame the poor, time and time again, and they teach totally against what Jesus taught in this. I get the feeling that if Jesus broke out the loaves and fishes for the poor around these right wing evangelists types, most would get angry and say he was making the poor ,more dependent who wanted to suck off the system. Hey when their politicians say this stuff, they give them more votes. They don't care about billions being handed over for wars and bankers, the poor are easy scapegoats, they want to toss overboard. I believe many will find Jesus saying to them, "I never knew you". The war praisers I left in that last church definitely are in a precarious spiritual position.

Many of them are fearful of identifying with the poor and this is one way the politicians get laws passed for people's own demise. Even the anti-union movements had a lot to do with this. Why do right wing Christians hate unions? Even if some went corrupt, I don't get that one. It worries me how America is growing to be a more hateful place, and the 1% are laughing and running to the bank as more is handed to them from all the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" Steinbeck style.  Many of them call themselves "Christians" as their love of money and propriety takes precedent. They are choosing denial rather then truth and throwing all ideas of Christian charity under the bus. They scream and shout about the socialists, as the "threat" while advancing the powerful and corrupt themselves.

More and more their wolves in the pulpit are united with the powerbrokers of our society and they have gotten their congregations to do likewise too. Forgotten is that Jesus was sent to the cross via the religious and state system married together. Today religion and state are unifying in a muddle-mess of power and sociopathy worship, this is why the poor are being disenfranchised from the false Babylonian churches.

I think the cloaks of denial is bring more coldness and cruelty to the poor and disabled too. They are afraid of seeing us and want us hidden away. They don't want to know what all the empty store fronts and full soup kitchens and food pantries mean for their future too. Many disabled and other people have learned to be careful of do-gooders who will beat us down with a present in one hand and a boatload of criticism and false judgment in another. Philanthropy can be  used for sadism. Many poor get tired of in some religious circles of being the "pitied" and of being the "other".

There are good people out there who let you keep your humanity, there is one Lutheran woman in my town, who I believe has a true love for the poor but there are many who do not. They want to take it away. They see the poor as less then "human". You literally are not a human being to them. I know this feeling all too well.  Their own fears lead them to deny that they could be in your boat. When I see someone worse off then me, I don't think "Oh look at that old drunk, or what did he do to end up behind that shopping cart?" I think "What happened to him?" He is a person to me. Compassion is an emotion getting in shorter supply.

I had a discussion with an older man at a church food pantry on this. One thing I had said during that course of the conversation was, "How come poor people who are Christians don't have our own church families taking care of them?" This poor old man told me three churches had treated him like he was invisible. I said if Jesus showed up wearing his robe and sandals with some dust of the road on him, they'd throw him out and yell "Get a job you bum!" He told me about his last pastor who drove a Cadillac.

Yeah some of the liberal world isn't much different either. It's not any easier on the poor. The New Age went into that book "The Secret" think and grow rich and money will come to you!  This became a new Social Darwinism of it's own. Strange how there is an overlap with Ayn Rand there too.  Rich New Agers told me "I lacked good karma" and have directly told me I must have been a very wicked person in my last life to have these severe disfiguring health problems and money problems." One psychic--medical intuitive to be exact,  I visited during my UU days, told me, that I had been a very wicked woman in my past life. He gave me details of these lives which seemed very made up and was now equalizing my karmic position via suffering.

This oddly happened to me with some of the "Christians" too.  It is an overlap that I was sure to notice. By the way I am learning to keep my mouth more shut about any problems outside of this blog. I think it will help me. One person I dealt with basically became a spiritual abuser using my abuse, and troubles to tell me that in a Christian context, I was "wicked" and "paying the price" for it.

[this verse is supposed to be spiritual healing not, you will never have any health problems in your life]

 The spiritual abuser told me because of my abuse and severe health problems I needed freed via "deliverance". She told me God wanted to heal me. She told me I did not have a natural disease--well the one I took 17 years to get diagnosed but at that time it wasn't diagnosed yet. If disabled be very careful of any Christians that promise "deliverance" or "healing" via prayer. I even faced this in the Catholic church where some charismatic Catholics told me, that if I had enough faith God would heal me. Problem is if you are still sick 5 years later, they see you as not having done what you were "supposed to".  I can see many people already having lost their faith under some pressures I've been under. Here the message too was, same as the karma New Agers, if you suffer, it's your fault. If I had not read the book of Job, they would have destroyed me with their false teachings.

 It is a place where many abuses and false theology and doctrines can abound. Even if one is questioning, and keeps an open mind that examines what they have to offer, these religious types can wiggle into your mind in an insidious fashion. Deeming themselves always the supreme experts, being a deferential scapegoat here, is not a good position.  I thought surely something is spiritually awry being so poor and sick. Isn't God supposed to be blessing me? It only troubled my mind. Thankfully I broke away from the person in question, but one question I still ponder in that context, why are the suffering always the ones who are deemed wicked and the prosperous are the good? The Bible actually says the exact opposite.

Psalm 73:12
Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.

What does that say about Jesus Christ who ended up suffering the most on the cross? I never attended any Pentecostal or Charismatic churches in my case, but they are notorious for this. I've met ill people who took a pounding from those who told them they need their demons and curses of illness and financial problems drummed out of them.  Those are dangerous places to admit you have any life challenges. My spiritual abuse came via an online "friendship", but in those churches, a disabled person will be told they have been "cursed" by the demon if illness or told that once delivered God will heal all their health problems. They are not seen as human either. They are seen as a problem to be reckoned with. The only answer is to be healed. If you failed to do that, you are a spiritual failure.

I never judged poor people myself this way but I figured out even in the churches I was in, that the main message was "Bad Things happen to Bad People" so what does that say about Jesus Christ on the cross?

There seems to be an open war on the disabled, suffering and poor in many of these churches. Their bad politics speak to their dark hearts.  I believe that false teachings have taken over, and they are not preaching the comfort and goodness of God but drawing a net around people giving false hopes and dreams and answers for this life they focus on instead of eternal life. It ties into the sheer hatred shown many groups of people too. I can't go hate everyone like one certain party seems to want me to do. I'm not politically correct but I figure that is a path of evil too many of them are going down. The whole "Lets blow up the Islamic world"  following the Plan for a New American Century "Christian response", gets on my nerves, and yes I care about the Jewish people too.  By the way Iran is next on the list for the war mongers. The churches seem like they will be cheering to the day mushroom clouds are on the horizon.

The day I sat there, watching the pastor's ex-soldier son gleefully speak of killing people of another religion made me sick to my stomach. It's even hard to explain. A dark spirit has taken over many churches and I was feeling it that day. That very moment I knew I would be walking for good. Really they have become religious sock puppets to the elites who want their globalist wars and wars of civilizations. Evangelical churches almost seem to lust for Armageddon and can't wait until it gets here.

So why should I expect the treatment of the poor and disabled to be any better? All I know is I am done with the lot of them.  I will see where God takes me now.

Generation X: The Scapegoat Generation is Dying Young

Age 45-54 is now Generation X.

Generation X is dying young...The above study spoken about in the above videos makes it clear.

The death rates for our group are rising. Yesterday's "slackers" are kicking the bucket far faster then their parents.

Some articles blame the drugs, and AIDS.  These are window covering issues. The power that be outside a few alternative media outlets are hiding the real issue which is the dying economy and changed life-styles. NAFTA and other trade deals like it have changed life in America and are stripping things down.  Other races and minority groups have greatly suffered themselves with higher death rates for decades so this study concerns mostly white people. It's obvious the economy has kicked Generation X in the face. There's a reason that Baby Boomers have 47 times the wealth. 

Being 47 years old, I have noticed my friends have died far younger and been more sick, then my parent's generation. None of us expect to live as long. One friend died at 46, one man at 55, another in his 50s, my husband's best friend died at 39 and this doesn't include the people who are already disabled. Generation X is not living as long as the Baby Boom generation. Why not? Our parent's generation had a far more economically stable life. They had more access to medical care. They had more secure lives. They had stable families that stuck by them, who did not abandon them or constantly move away. My mother has never faced want or loneliness as an adult. She has never gone to a hospital fearing a resultant tens of thousands of dollar bill from lack of medical insurance. My mother's life has been nothing like my own. She has never seen the inside of a food pantry, she had stable employment that was 8 hours a day, which included retirement benefits and allowed for a life with vacations, a nice home, and expendable income. Many of her peers have shared in the same easier lives.

 I will be talking about generational trends.  So yes, there will be a broad brush applied to some of these issues. There are good and bad people in every generation so I post this with the caveat again, this does not apply to every individual and there are good and bad people in every generation.  The Baby Boomer generation being one of most selfish generations in human history in America, has thrown their own children--Generation X and millennials under the bus for their own benefit. Do any of the wealthy oldsters around here enjoying their retirements, giant bank accounts and new cars, notice the people my age, walking in the rain and snow from their low wage jobs?

While Generation X sunk further down and the millennials have not even been able to afford their own apartments or homes, the Baby Boom generation benefitted from this. The Baby Boomers were told they were special over and over, and boy they never let us forget it! Thus they did not care about what happened to their children after them. Most generations want things to improve for their children, the Baby Boomers, put up bumper stickers on their new Cadillac that said "Spending my children's inheritance"---and boy did they!

The narcissistic sabotage for Generation X, started when we were in our twenties. Don't you know there was a reason when they labeled us all lazy slackers? We couldn't do anything right and we just got out of college. Like narcissist parents do to the scapegoat, we were handed bags of hot air and false illusions that did not pan out. Baby Boomers got the full attention of the world's media, and intelligentsia, and still even as they age, this has not ended. Did you know the millennials are a bigger generation in numbers then Baby Boomers? Bet you didn't. Why? Because all of our lives we have been told how the Baby Boomers are the biggest and the best generation and others did not matter. 

We are reaching late adulthood and still hearing about Kennedy getting shot and the rest ad nauseum, while our youthful times get mere nods. No one's talking much about the 80s, sure the Germans got their show Deutschland 83 and there's been a few movies, and memes referring to movies like Back to the Future, but it's like the 60s never ended. I never expected to be this old, and still having it shoved down my throat.

Everytime it seems I read a book even, it's a Baby Boomer doing the talking. Even a recent book I'm reading from the library on education Mission High, featured a teacher who had been in the Weathermen as a youth and graduated in 1967. He was another old hippie pontificating to me the virtues in this case of Common Core. They couldn't get any younger teachers to interview? Generation X still remains invisible even as we ascend into late adulthood and middle age, behind the attention hogging Baby Boomers. 

  “Generation Xers are the forgotten middle child generation,” says Faith Popcorn, a trend consultant who advises companies on generational differences. “They’re worried about both the present and future. They understand more than millennials that they could be replaced by robots and a lot of them don’t think they’ll ever be able to afford kids or qualify for mortgages.”
Popcorn says “6 in 10 boomers and millennials think their generations are special but only one-third of Gen Xers do. You wouldn’t want to be a Gen Xer.”

We were gas-lighted and told we were "entitled" for having basic wants and needs like an actual full time job that paid the bills instead of pieced together temp work and part time jobs at the coffee shop counter. While Baby Boomers enjoyed the benefits of worker rights and unions, today many of them join the Tea Party and make sure to vote away any of the same breaks for the younger generations. Empathy must be gone, because aren't some of them seeing their adult children doing far worse, because of the cut-throat job market? Selfishness is winning out at the polls. None of the partying in Florida Baby Boomer set, seems to care that most of their adult children will be cooking a can of beans over a rusted metal trash can when they hit their old age, because retirements and pensions are a thing of the past. Even as we get older and sicker, they tell us we deserved it for "failing".

 A life time of being called a "loser" by your parents has taken an extreme emotional toll on Generation X. Broken homes, constant moving, lack of stability and then financial insecurity with huge loads of stigma for not measuring up to parental expectations has hurt many members of Generation X without measure. Our lives were destroyed via our parent's selfishness.  Narcissists to the end, they sabotaged their own children and competed with them and never let them in the door. Financial pressures that never ended where cash-starved twenties became still struggling forties and fifties took a massive mental and physical toll in Generation X. We never could relax. In too many of our lives, while our parents had fun and shopped while they dropped, the answer for us was always "No". The false dreams we were handed by a bunch of narcissists were crushed by the hard cold hand of reality.

The Baby Boom generation up rooted marriage with their constant divorces, and destruction of traditional values, with the counterculture and drugs leading the way, Baby Boomers led us to many of the rotten places we are today. The old Woodstock navel gazing hippies who only cared about themselves graduated to the career and money obsessed yuppies of the 1980s.  The "freedom fighters" became the world's biggest neo-liberal fascists or fascist Tea Partier/Republicans. They codified lack of mercy and the worship of monolithic power.  They told us "God is dead" and spat on natural human emotions like affection. Earlier generations were taught family cohesion, loyalty, and defending the weaker and young. Baby Boomers weren't interested in any of that. They were more interested in "finding themselves". Baby Boomers being the most godless narcissistic generation to ever exist, have paved a path of destruction through this country like no other generation before them.

Do the Baby Boomers have empathy for people younger then them? Surely there are some good souls among them, but empathy is lacking in many places. How many Generation X people were told they were "losers" and couldn't do anything right as the carpet was ripped from beneath them? How many were told by the often New Age believing Baby Boomers, that they didn't think positive thoughts? So many of us are told "thinking positive" will deliver the cash right to our door. Sorry it doesn't work. Our media expresses no empathy for the younger generations. They repeat over and over young people [and now middle aged people]  are selfish, and lazy.

The SAME exact thing happened to Generation X [this magazine is from the early 90s]

"Hard act to follow"? Anyone want to barf along with me? Maybe there's a reason we wore nothing but black in our twenties. We were already in mourning knowing what awaited us. I had three years in my life where I wore nothing but black. We were already told we were LOST and that it was ALL OUR FAULT, and had nothing to do with the horrible changes being wrought in the economy. There's a reason we went goth, grunge and had the depressed Kurt Cobain as a spokesman.

In other words, Generation X was SCAPEGOATED TO THE MAX.

and they are still doing it to younger people too. "It's your fault there's no job, it's because you are too immature!" is the subtext on this Baby-boomer insulting cover.

Two Thirds Of Gen X Households Have Less Wealth Than Their Parents Did At The Same Age

Let's not forget the gas-lighting is part of the Baby Boomer game too. The poorer generations have been gas lighted to death. Told they are not achievers or as "hard working". There is a reason that many wealthier Boomers have joined the Tea-Party and want to do away with welfare and help for the poor.  It's not about improving the country, it's about protecting their own money. How many of us younger people were told we were personally responsible for all of our economic troubles? My husband was blamed for his lay-offs and so was I. My family in my extreme case literally threw me away for my money problems, well before I went no contact. The insults never stopped coming. Lest some see this as just my personal experience, I see the same treatment all over in different degrees.

Young people and middle aged Generation X are called "bums", "losers" and more. They move home to angry older Baby Boomer parents who are outraged at their child's failures and don't let them forget it. How many Baby Boomers did I see complaining about their adult children living with them, who "couldn't get it together"?  One still sees in in the magazine articles complaining about the young people and middled aged living at home with their parents. Gas lighting here, covers the real situation which is the 1 percent busy destroying the economy and opportunities within it.

Baby Boomers as a whole are not a generation that is aging gracefully.  Since they have more money, life is easier, they seem younger then people my age, in a certain way. My husband took me to this 50's/60s music show where he got some free tickets. People 20-25 years older then me danced around, a few were on canes and sitting at tables who were less mobile. They flirted as much as high schoolers, the women shook their booties, some wearing tight jeans and halter tops and were all dressed "sexy". It was perverse display with some of them. The good times never ended for Grandma and Grandpa Baby Boomer! I felt like a peasant woman sitting there in my long dress and with my walker entering some kind of altered world where these people were experiencing reverse aging while I was growing older at an accelerated rate. Narcissists don't age like the rest of us. A predominantly narcissistic generation will cling on to youth with a death grip.  There seems to be little admittance of the passage of time or the normal introspection that should come with age, I've seen in people a generation ahead of them. 

When I was in my 30s, I liked to befriend older people. Most of my then elderly friends were from the SILENT generation. They were different, and more traditional.  They believed in self sacrifice, they didn't tell me "think positive" or that everything was the young person's fault, they told me younger people have it far worse today and that life changed for the worse. One lady who was a mother in the 1950s told me, "We were happy and had time to spend with our families, now you see these women, and it's nothing but "work, work, work". Another elderly friend who was around 80 was direct, "You younger people are getting sick and dying far faster. Young people are not as healthy, especially in your generation and younger. I think it is because life is far harder for you.

The above statistics in the videos speak for themselves.

Babyboomers Don't Care if Generations Below Them are Poorer

Materialism, Crushed by Bills and Baby Boomers

What Happened to Debi Thomas?

Debi Thomas Broke, Living in Bug-Infested Trailer.

This reminds me of the story of the lady who played Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days? Her real name was Erin Moran.  She had a drug problem which definitely complicated her circumstances. It seemed the world fed on her like sharks when the story broke she was homeless. The same seems to be happening to Debi Thomas.  What has happened to Debi Thomas?

This world loves you when you are on the mountain top but unless you stay there, they are ready to kick you in the face. One pundit would say, "You're only as good as your last work", or something along those lines. It is odd she just couldn't get a doctor related job but maybe the constant required  hoop-jumping destroyed things for her there.  Maybe she lacks the money to update a license. Her practice collapsed for whatever reason. Today I was told a local radiology office is going out of business. The medical establishment is having some troubles not really widely talked about.  While people are getting emergency care, a lot of preventative and elective surgery is falling by the way side, so how would an orthopedic surgeon do in today's environment? Maybe she could not afford to transfer her license to a new state.

 The reality show may be a ply out of desperation rather then a PR stunt. The strange ramblings got me lost many times. With the odd 'get rich' schemes included, something is very wrong here. It seems like people grasping at straws to me.  It's hard to know what is happening here. The Tea Party and pissed off Republican set sure are reaming here out over at her Go Fund Me page. They are angry.  I have to admit I wondered myself why not just go get jobs? It seems they are more employable then a lot of people who can't get work but there may be more to the story. However, the controllers have done a great job getting the poor to turn on one another. Perhaps her story is meant to outrage us in general and get society to label those who fail after success as "losers" and "victims" who deserve no better and who need their "lives fixed". Remember my other articles where I have stated avoid the fixers?

 

 

Click here to support Help Olympian Family - Debi & Jamie by Debi Thomas

This cause has been developed as an emergency fund for Dr. Debi Thomas, her fiancé, Jamie Looney, and their family to restore financial stability after severe sudden financial losses over the past couple of years associated with a combination of financially crippling life challenges.

 

I went digging trying to find out what happened to her medical career? I don't know if this article gives us some clues.

 She was upset with the lack of patient care in 2006. Did she pay for this whistle-blowing? Did she pay for disagreeing with her bosses over bad patient care and neglect? I noticed in the video discussing the reality shows and get rich schemes, she seemed upset by trends in medicine. I find myself wondering what happened. If the hospital she worked with had limited surgery theatres how much work could she do?

Surgeon Criticizes Hospital Leaders

Dr. Debi Thomas, a world champion figure skater turned orthopedic surgeon, lent her considerable prestige to…

 

I have seen a lot of articles talking about her struggles with her alcoholic husband and others surmising she had serious mental disorders. Losing everything like this would be enough to affect one's mental health so what came first, the chicken or the egg?  I don't know.

 

 Maybe she got burnt out. Think about it, you compete in the Olympics and win a bronze in one of the sports that takes years and years of intense training. After that you go and get a college degree and do the long haul of medical school and residency. Maybe she just got old and tired. One sad thing about our society since there are fewer safety and social nets, more people are slipping through. There are once SUCCESSFUL people who slip through or slid down. My husband tired from his 14 hour newspaper days. Sometimes this happens in middle age to people as they have less energy.  They slow down and the whole thing falls apart. The reality show ideas and the rest seems like the desperate ploys of people trying to tread water as fast as they can.

 

Will thinking "positive" make us rich? In the above Los Angeles article, it seems she was trying to stand against reduced patient care in 2006. She could be the type of person who is willing to take up for the underdog and not all organizations will like that very much. The word "black-ball" is one that came to my mind. Did some narcissists gang up on her? Was the destruction of her career something that snowballed outside her control? What kind of institution was she sent to? Did she disagree with it's philosophies?

 

 

She needs to stay away from Iyanla. the New Ager who will tell her to think positive and all her problems will be solved. My mother loved Iyanla bestsellers which gives me pause. The New Age philosophies that teach that you totally control your own life and it's outcome, are beneficial to the powers that be in this society. This is where they get every person to blame themselves individually and easily turn people against each other.

From such types you never get real help. Fishing poles are never thrown, just a few fish from those full of resentment. Even if you want to craft your own hook, people get angry.  Funny how Oprah never helps anyone get a job even with all her power and money.  One thing watch out for narcissists who want to enjoy keeping you down. Mood disorder NOS doesn't necessarily mean bipolar disorder. It could include even depression and natural reaction to life's circumstances.

 

 

Iyanla talks to her in a very patronizing tone, which distresses me. "Are you willing to entertain the possibilities that your brain is not functioning?" Sure, it's called stress and poverty, it's called living with bed bugs. How does embarrassing someone on national TV help with any mental problems? Was she paid for this appearance? How is she supposed to be lift herself up, and dig herself out while being told her brain is not functioning? Maybe the next idea they will get is labeling poverty itself as a "mental illness". Oh. I better not give them any new ideas.

This is one oppression the poor are under. Such types will spit in a poor person's face and berate them for not thinking of "positive" ways to escape poverty. Iylana is a New Cage con artist who as Oprah's sychophant has helped advance the false "believe and achieve" gospel. Poor Debi, I wish I could warn her. These people won't offer real practical help. They will just teach you self condemnation. The way out is not more beating yourself up and being beaten down. Hey I don't have all the answers but that hurts instead of helps. The criticizers who jeer aren't the ones paying your bills. Some of us ACONs have just managed to escape. I hope Debi can too.

 

There does seem evidence she is caught up in a bad relationship, with domestic abuse. It seems she says things have improved. We don't have the facts there.  If it is truly abusive and no changes have been made I hope she can get out of it. I don't like the fact that her family is gone, being rubbed in her face. What happened to her family? Did they abandon her as she slid down the ladder? Imagine being someone who realizes the hard way, you are only as good as your last skating trophy.

 

 

This video is especially revelatory. Win a bronze at the Olympics and it's still not good enough? What disheartens me here, is such a person driven like Debi Thomas even making it to the Olympics is especially vulnerable to a narcissist playing "Are you a winner or a loser" games on her. The mind screw being done to her here, is absolutely nauseating. Every competition people face distractions, and questioning themselves, well maybe the narcissists don't so they don't relate. Debi seems to be someone who still has a heart. She failed to be a good narcissist robot who lacked concern over an international skating contest.

 

 

Debi cries, "I did the best I could." Did Iyanla say "No you didn't"? My hearing isn't so good. This is the main message in this society, "You did it to yourself." "You are poor because you did it!" Now think about this, this is a woman who was an ACHIEVER most of her life, she lost a business, she suffered in troubled relationships, she could or could not have serious mental health issues, and now she is being unloaded on again. In the King and Queen of the Mountain world we live in, one thing I have realized seeing things from the bottom of the mountain, is the narcissists keep busy kicking everyone in the face, who struggles even a little bit, and if there is a lot of troubles, they can go to town. Troubles are to be exploited. That's one bad thing about fame, and Debi is vulnerable to it. This is not a world where one can admit troubles, without facing a barrage. We have too many wicked ready to patronize and judge someone.

 

We don't know the whole story here. Who knows what her upbringing was like? If you have heard of the film Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, maybe you can guess some of what I am hinting at here. She could be a PTSD or CPTSD case from that alone. The last thing she needs is more condemning controllers. However it sickens me to see someone set upon like this exploited, her poverty and troubles used by some to kick her in the face and hold judgment. Even if she made some bad decisions and needs mental help, metaphorically stoning her will only hurt.

There is something insidious about these celebrities on top are now homeless poor and failure stories to me. The narcissists in charge seem to be advancing them constantly now.  Here the message remains the same, that you can't look at the world around you or different factors, but must always blame yourself. So wonder people are growing more depressed and despondent. It is not a message of hope or healing but one of blame and shame. No real help or lifting one's self up will come from the finger waggers and do-gooders using your troubles to shine next to.