Making a SNAP Decision

My shrinky-dink says that I needed to write out my (numerous) problems because as a writer, I process things once they are written down. I have difficultly judging things that are free floating in my head. This is what came out last night. I put my thoughts out into an open forum where anyone can read because I believe that a burden shared is a burden halved. Even if no one really comes to read this.

It's 11:45pm and I'm writing. I should be in bed, but I've put this off all day as I didn't want Jeremiah to see me upset should I lose control of my emotions. Here's what today looked like: I fixed three meals and washed up after those meals. I folded a load of laundry, did some school work with The Kiddo without him devolving into self-injuring because of an incorrect answer, took him to the park to run out all his pent up nervous energy, and then got him an Epson salt bath so he could detox from the meds he is on. 

In addition, I wrote a letter to his father.

It took me four hours, sometimes I was interrupted by Jeremiah and sometimes I surfed around on Facebook and Buzzfeed because I needed a break from what I was doing.

I was having to swallow my pride and ask Jeremiah's absent father if he could "out of the goodness of his heart" do something extra to help out with expenses. I'm embarrassed because I recall a person telling me, "You really should not be dependent on him or child support. You should be making enough to take care of yourself. You chose this life, not him."

Also yesterday, I started an application for food stamps. And I am filled with so much shame. "[It's pathetic] that you are living on handouts and food stamps."

Have you any idea how degraded I feel? I am doing my best to take care of my son, a child that I never expected, was scared to have, was afraid that I couldn't love. A child that has turned my life around.

Jeremiah is a child with special needs. No, he's not in a wheelchair or is undergoing horrible rounds of chemo. He has an invisible illness. No one sees him freaking out when I move the dish drain to the opposite side of the sink. No one sees him screaming when he encounters bugs or his inability to vacuum because the loud noise hurts him.

He is a child that is constantly worried, no matter how much I try to calm his fears. He always announces when he goes to the bathroom, can hardly stand to have me out of his sight, who tonight worried that he had committed a mortal sin. He still won't tell me what it is that makes him think that because "it's stupid and embarrassing and I don't know how to say it and never mind I'm just a stupid idiot."  This coming from a child that can give you an accurate synopsis of Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and A Winter's Tale.

This is not a child that I can toss into school for 8 hrs a day while I work 40 hrs. Sure, I would be making more than enough money to pay all the bills, but at what cost? Him being bullied about his bug problems? When a friend babysat him last summer while the cicadas were out, a girl his own age threw dead cicadas at him for an hour. When I picked him up, he was twitching and stuttering. He said he wanted to punch her but knew that you can't hit girls and he was too scared to tell the adults in charge because "sometimes they yell at their kids and I don't want them to yell at me."

Maybe I should let him punch himself in the face every time he messes up a workbook problem while I photocopy memos. His OCD demands that he do everything perfectly the first time around. He has trouble making simple decisions, like what he should eat for breakfast, because he's "afraid of making a mistake."

So I try to work from home or pick up odd jobs. I probably spend 75% of the day worrying how much money is in my account, but I can take solace knowing that Jeremiah is in a safer environment.

So I have to sacrifice my pride and deal with some extra anxiety to take care of my son. Isn't that what parenthood is about? I do my best to keep him out from knowing about our money issues.

I know as I write this I am saying it for my benefit alone, that I am trying to reassure myself that I am making  the right decision. So why does it still hurt?
 
Why do I feel so much shame, disapproval, and judgements when news reports showcase people like California surfer and aspiring musician Jason Greenslate. Greenslate, drives an Escalade and frequents strip clubs, shows how he supports his beach-bum lifestyle with food stamps, while dismissing the idea of holding down a regular, steady job. I know I'm not that person.

Media Matters reports:

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service, the fraud and waste rate in SNAP is roughly 1 percent, contrary to recent Fox claims that the program is rife with fraud.

Unlike Greenslate, 41 percent of food stamp recipients live "in a household with earnings," and use SNAP benefits to supplement their primary source of income. Furthermore, the USDA reports that most food stamp recipients stay in the program for only a short period of time:

Half of all new SNAP participants received benefits for 10 months or less in the mid 2000s, up from 8 months in the early 2000s. Single parent families and elderly individuals tended to stay in the program longer than did working poor individuals, childless adults without disabilities, and non-citizens. Seventy-four percent of new participants left the program within two years. This is an increase from 71 percent in the early 1990s.

I work. I pay taxes. But why do I still feel like a failure in my own eyes?

It's 1:15am and I'm exhausted.

This fucking sucks. 

Just a Baby Step

My mind is gray and empty.  I'm so frustrated with it.  I want to laugh or smile and have pleasant conversations, but it's so exhausting.  I want to work on my book, but I can't put the words down.  Thoughts that that flowed from my imagination down my fingers at the start of January, are now locked behind a trasnparent door.

I can hear the sarcasm laden dialogue, picture the perfect modifiers that convey Norma Jeanne's anger, and almost touch the pretty prepositions that would couple up next to Gams fat English bulldog.

But they won't come out and play with me.  Until I can get the key, in the shape of a horse-sized bitter pill, all I do is sit and stare at the empty word document.  And check on Facebook to see which people have updated their status in the last three minutes.  And stare at the screen, while the pointer mockingly blinks at me.  And check Pintrest because there might be a new picture to see in the last five minutes since I was on there.  And then back to the empty screen.

A lot of artistic friends I have - writers, artists, musicians, - who suffer from forms of depression/anxiety/mania, don't like to be on medication b/c they feel it stifles their ability to create.  And up until 3 weeks ago, I wondered if that was the case with me.  Would I discover more creative freedom if I didn't have my meds swimming in my blood stream?  Was there another side of me that could improve on what I am doing now?

Michael Scott will tell you the answer is a resounding 



As many years as I have been ashamed with myself for being dependent on my drugs, I guess that maybe this situation has now I helped me achieve some peace.  Quite plainly, I can't function without my meds.  I become a very depressive person.  My ability to see beauty in the mundane, to find the story of the person with a past in the eyes of a homeless beggar, to see the humor in the instances where fear or tears would be an understandable response is all gone.  I lack sympathy. 

For you worried about The Kiddo, I'm fortunate that in these past few weeks my Bipolar II Disorder hasn't affected my son.  If anything, I've been hyper-aware of the fact that I need to keep my sad emotions away from him.  I've had him cook with me and we've actually accomplished more workbook pages in this time frame than we have before (much to his chagrin). 

It's now just a waiting game.  Waiting to get to the doctor tomorrow.  Waiting to make the 1.5 hr drive to pick up the meds on Tuesday.  And waiting for them to get swimming back in my blood stream.

Ugly

I put myself back into therapy last month because I am trying desperately to work out the last kinks in my head.  I've decided that after six years on the bench I'm ready to seek out a relationship, but before I do that I know I've got a few more things to work out.

I don't want to write about this.  But I need to write this out. 

This is the constant chatter in my brain:

• You really don't have friends.  These people tolerate you out of pity.
• No one approves of your decisions and all are waiting for you to admit defeat.
• Your child is going to grow up broken because you are broken.
• You don't have any talent.  
• You're not bi-polar.  You are making it up.  You just need to work harder and stop being lazy.
• Why do you think that person would ever want to have a cup of coffee with you?  They're accomplished/written a book/not two paychecks away from homelessness/done something important.  Do you know just how dumb your daydreams are?
• No one really loves you because you disappoint them and don't do what they tell you to do.

Frustration: Level Six

Up until a week ago, I was fine.
I could write on my novel and write up articles for my social media job.
But two weeks ago I ran out of one of my drugs.
And now I'm off balance.

I can't focus on writing.  I'll sit down and nothing comes.
The waters are muddy.
If I were to peer into my brain, I think I'd find a hollow gray room.

I can't get to the doctor to get a prescription and I can't fill the prescription until I can find the time to drive 1.5 hrs away b/c the closest pharmacy to fill this drug is in Front Royal!

No, I don't have health insurance.  And Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is just not going to fix my problem.  Seeing as it would cost me $235/mo to be insured.  Fail to see how that is "affordable."

Luckily, I live in a state that won't penalize me for not having health insurance.

I'm so angry.  I want to write and it's just not happening.

Amuse Me

Apparently back in March of 2012, I wrote this post, but never published it.  Rather than dumping it into the delete folder, I'm publishing it.  Because at that time, this amused the shit out of me.

Today’s Ronnie Dunn-free post is brought to you by the letters Q,U,E, and the number of Pi squared. This mediocre blogger is still unable to spell February without the aid of spell-check and is a big fan of profanity. Please direct all rabid comments or winning African lotto tickets towards The Diatribest.

Since December I’ve fallen into the terrible habit of sleeping until the last possible minute before I have to wake up The Kiddo for school. Prior to the never-ending-Niagara-SnotFalls-fest at Christmas, I would get my ass up in time to mainline 2 cups of coffee while watching reruns of Angel.* Now I’ve gotten too lazy to get back into a decent sleep schedule so most mornings I run around the house, working harder than a hooker on dollar hand job day to find a matching pair of sock and shirt that doesn’t look like it was washed and dried on rocks.

I’m lucky if I can get ½ a cup down before I jump in the car, cursing as I realize that the travel mug of coffee will be waiting for me on the kitchen counter when I return. So when I get back and nuke the now cold coffee, I will flip on the TV to drown out the noises of the neighbors next door. This morning the Flintstones were not so loud that I heard the bi-speckled TV grandfather clearly announce: “I use catheters; do you?”

I developed sudden hysterical deafness but not before hearing that Brand X “is so silky and smooth.” While I searched in vain for the clicker (which I had been sitting on) I willed myself not to vomit or think of Sally Field’s Sybil. If I could have I would have brushed my ears with Clorax and a Brillo pad.

Here’s the thing. I have such a sailor mouth that during labor I said words that the attending doctor had never even heard. I have no problem laughing at a penis joke. But please, for the love of Kentucky Friend Chicken, DO NOT tell me about your (un)sexy crotch problems. 

Ever since the world was informed that Raymond’s constipation was eased by a dose of Milk of Magnesia, we’ve been bombarded with commercials about jock itch, vaginal dryness, droopy dicks, feminine odors, and leaky bladders. I’m sorry that John and Joan Q. Pubic are having below the belt problems, but shouldn’t that be something you tell your doctor or maybe discuss with your best friend and not me?

Tomorrows coffee will be accompanied by the second book in the Hunger Games series. Katniss might have to brutally kill several more people, but she won’t inform me on their bits and pieces.

*(PS-David Boreanaz? Is my TV crush! I looooooove you!)  

**(Yes, I know he’s married and no, Rachel, he does not have a huge forehead!)

If Wishes Were Horses

Tonight I would give my left foot just for someone to hold and hug me while I cry.
I haven't slept well in days.
Stress has piled up: money issues, car accident problems, trolls and high school drama, doctors bills, health concerns, not making a sale at work yet, Jeremiah's schooling.
I know I have some wonderful friends and I am truly grateful.
But tonight I'm tired of having to depends on myself. And I'm tired that there's no one here to share the burden with me.
I hate being alone in this bed tonight.

Is This What You Wanted?

I am angry.

I cried today.

I am very angry.

I am disappointed in some.

I am grateful to others.

I am FURIOUS.

But I will get over this.

I sat on a bathroom floor and cried today.

The Upside of Having Trolls ***UPDATED***

Things have gotten so laughable for me in the last 12 hours.  What once might have lead me to days of tears, self-doubt, and loads of self-hatred, I no longer find upsetting.  Instead, I have spent the better part of today reveling in the fact that I no longer care about the opinions of fake people.

I love and respect the opinions of my friends, whom I know by name.  I do not respect people who care to advise or castigate me from the shadows like Deep Throat.

It's funny that all this hullabaloo has come up.  And I actually have My Trolls to thank for this.

See, my rankings and ratings in search engines have skyrocketing in the last 12 hours.  The more times individuals visit my page, the higher my ranking in Google.  So each time someone has commented "anonymously" or not, Google congratulates me and rewards me with a higher standing. 

All the key words that have been used over and over and over again are now likely to be pulled up as results if someone were to search for "liar, slander, malicious, lies."  See, once I mentioned Dr. House, MD briefly in a post.  As a result, if someone types "dr. house" into Google, they land on my blog.

Weird?  Yes.  But that is the beauty of algorithms.


***UPDATED***
 I have decided, as it is my right as this is my own fucking blog, that I am removing all of the "Anonymous" comments and those many of those comments that my dear, good friends made on behalf of my defense.  

I changed some settings around for a bit, so anonymous commenter are not allowed and for a while, I will be moderating my comments section because really, this is not why I chose to write.  

So in short, fuck off trolls, get a life, and I'll write.  But seriously, what good are you doing by reporting back to my ex?  

Mexico and Cuba Get Pope'd

Yes, I know it's been for fucking ever since I've written and yes, I've broken my own promise to write every damn day, but what can I say? Depression is a lying bastard:

Being treated with a cocktail of meds that quit working didn't fucking help. Fortunately, the med situation has been cleared up and I'm back to being myself. Yet, I've been afraid to pick up the pen, errrr, keyboard.

But when my Cousin asked me to back him up on an argument, I spent an hour constructing these arguments without fretting if I sounded stupid. I was writing from the heart and I didn't give a rat's ass if I was writing a rough draft of a terrible sounding argument, I just wanted it out.

Here's how is started: A distant cousin stated on Teh Book of Face that "The Pope didn't have "time" to meet with any Cubans like the Damas de Blanco and other human rights activists, but he did make sure to save plenty of time for Fidel and Raul. #AshamedToBeCatholic"

Responses of included the sexual misconduct of some members of the clergy, which wasn't even the point of the Pope's visit. Reading these responses got me going, so this is what flowed from my brain. Warning: this post is a metric fuck-ton long, so if you quit half way through I get it. But these are my fucking diatribes and I'll write whatever the hell I want.

"Hi XXXX and YYYY, I'm gonna butt into this argument. I usually try to refrain from arguments on FB b/c I like to keep my politics outside of my "social media" friends. But as a writer/blogger/editor, I am calling you out. Mi primo, Javier Camps, this is for you.

Point 1--With the issue of the Pope not "visiting with real Cubans": The Pope is the leader of a nation, Vatican City, an official doucumented country recognized worldwide. In addition, he is the head of the Catholic Church. As a leader of a "state" he is correct in meeting with the heads of the "state" of Cuban. Benedict openly criticized Communism and called for the reformation of the system, along with urging religious freedom.

The 85 y.o. pontiff suffers from EXTREME high blood pressure and has been told in the past that he should not travel by air, as the altitude reached during flight could cause him to stroke. The Pope's commitment to spreading the message of Christ by visiting a country where personal freedoms have been quashed for decades shows his willingness to sacrifice his health.

His travels to Mexico have been called by the press as "brief but intense." He arrived in Mexico at 4:12 pm Central Standard Time on Friday 23 and left Monday the 26 at 6AM. There is an 8 hr time difference between Rome and Mexico. Now, I'm hot to trot at just turning 31, but there is no fucking way that I could make my body adjust to an 8 hr time change in 3 days, and I'm betting neither of you could also.

Security was a HUGE issue. The Pope celebrated a Mass before a crowd of 300,000 people. Each and EVERY one of those people had to be searched before entering the stadium where the Mass was. We would do the same for our President; to not afford the same level of protection that we demand for our head of state is to say that the human dignity of the Pope is less than our President. 

Point 2: Sexual Abuse:

This is a hot, volatile topic. I have first hand knowledge, as I have worked with the Church and the FBI to investigate allegations of sexual abuse and those who may come into contact with children. I am also a survivor of sexual abuse and rape (not by a member of the clergy, but someone who claimed to be a practicing Catholic), so I understand the gravity and the intense pain felt by those who have been raped/molested/abused.

Yes, there have been cover-ups. Bad priests have been shuffled around. Men of the collar who should have been thrown in jail alongside other rapists and pedophiles were unfortunately not held accountable.

There is not excusing this behavior. HOWEVER, if you are going to sling mud by singling out sexual misbehavior, you will find that you lose your ground very quickly.

I DEFY YOU to name me a Protestant, Muslim, Buddist, Toaist, Jewish, Hindu or any other religious sect that has not perpetrated crimes against children and has not covered it up. You can't, just like you can't say that our government leaders haven't covered up their sexual misconducts the same way.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that "available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.Statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

The Church is in the process of cleaning out. They have admitted to the faults and errors and are working to make amends. No other religious group is being so openly transparent at this time, yet the Catholic Church remains faithful to it's current mission.

Point 3: The Catholic Faith

The Catholic Church is run by fallaible, fallen, sinful, men and women. No one is exempt, as by default we are stained with Original Sin at birth/conception. All of us, as Catholic men and women, make up the Chruch. We are a collective, one Body in Christ. We have an "elected official" i.e. the Pope who is the "governor" of the Catholic Church, who sets rules and sees that they are followed. Just as we Americans elect our President to set forth rules and sees that they are followed.

Are all of our American rules fair and just all the time? Is justice being served at every moment here? No, not at all. Take the Zimmerman case for example. Where is the justice?

As a Catholic we put our faith into action by making an Act of Free Will "to hold these truths self-evident" (to quote the Founders of our County). We assent to the belief that the Pope cannot error on teaching on Faith and Morals. That does not mean that the Pope/bishops/priests are exempt from making errors in judgement.

Being a Catholic is difficult. There are many rules to follow, teachings that are hard to understand, but as a Catholic, we MAKE the CHOICE to follow these rules. At any time, you are free to not follow the rules of the Church, but when you do so, please do not continue to call yourself a Catholic, for you are no more of a "real" Catholic than a member of the Harlem Globetrotters plays a "real" basketball game. (That analogy and this Point 3 argument is fully fleshed in this article. http://tinyurl.com/7lhqvqo) "

THE END 

The Road To Parenthood Is Paved With Good Intentions

When I was the little Diatribest, my parents did what they could to protect me from what they deemed too mature or inappropriate by heavily restricting what I viewed on TV or listen to on the radio.  I didn't view one-eighth of the movies that may classmates saw (Willow? Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead?) and I wasn't allowed to listen to modern music, so I grew up on the classics, the oldies.  Yet somehow I managed to view The Graduate before I was 11 (which I didn't and still don't understand).  Also, it turns out hearing a little girl belt out "Brown sugar, why do you taste so good, brown sugar, just like a young girl should" is a bit disturbing.

And I respect that.  I hated them at the time, but I understand now what they were attempting to do.  As a parent I attempt to do the same for the Kiddo.  There are some things that I won't let him view because I find them to be downright disgusting, inane, or insulting to children viewers and the adults that created them.

For instance, my parents wouldn't allow me to watch the Chucky Trilogy. (clip NSFW).  So what I gathered about the movies from my classmates was that a little boy had a doll that came to life and killed everyone.  Sounded creepy, but I could separate fact from fiction.  I wasn't afraid my Cabbage Patch doll, which lay on the end of my bed every night along with 30 other stuffed animals, was going to wake up and kill me. 

Then Playschool came out with My Buddy and Kid Sister.  And I confused the murderous doll with a lame doll aimed at friendless, siblingless children.  The kids across the street had a My Buddy, which I swear would follow me around the house.  And it didn't help that the older girl told me her visiting cousin was possessed and would kill all the newborn kittens if I didn't sit on the bed and be quiet.

I'm almost 31 and over-sized dolls still scare the crap out of me.

Nothing. No Thing.

I've got nothing right now. 

My insecurities are popping up again.  I have a fairly easy assignment that would take all of two hours, if that.  I'm feeling to paralyzed to do it.  I need the $100, but I can't put the words together that I need to write an SEO article about an SEO company that wants to sell you their SEO algorithms.  Ughhhh. . . .Even typing that makes me want to shoot myself. 

I'm totally drained.  I've spent the past 30 days nursing my son through a nasty virus which turned into a sinus infection.  I was sick for a good while during his bout and haven't healed properly.  I've been wheezing today which makes me concerned.  Now that he has returned to school, just for today and tomorrow, I want to collapse.  First thing I did after dropping him off at school was to crawl into bed until noon. 

Because that's what winners do! 

I'm feeling lonely.  And a bit jealous too.  And really insecure about writing what is on my mind.  I wish I had the courage to let it all come out, much like The Bloggess did the other night.  Her piece on depression and self-harm was so moving, I would have cried if I could have, but I'm too dead inside right now. 

Emotions, Sometimes I Could Deal With Less

I spoke with a friend this evening who's been having a rough go of things.  It appears that things have taken a turn for the better.  I've cared so much for this friend and didn't realize how heavily these things weighed on me.

Now that I know that my wonderful friend is on the mend, the emotions that are welling up from the dark corners of my soul are astounding me.  I didn't realize how strongly I have been holding my friend in my heart.

Tears, foolish drippy droppy tears, are and having been rolling down my face this evening.  I guess they are tears of sweet relief.

The Dregs of 2011--Or--What Was I Thinking Part 2

When I was writing last night, into the early hours of this past morning, I got kicked into the drafts folder after the computer hiccuped.  I discovered I have a hell of a lot of posts that need to be trashed because even looking at them a second time, I have no friggin idea what my original  intent was.  Want to take a guess as to what I thinking?

• LA Ink Barbie--I hate Barbie and I don't know any thin, tatted up blonds.
• A Physically Banged Theory--Okay, What???
• When I Hear Hoofbeats, I Always Think Elephants and Zebras-- Was I trying to illustrate how I jump to the worse conclusions? 
• Monique--Who the hell is that?  The actress?  Why would I write about her.

So, this post is pretty shitty.  I've tried to write as I watch Hoarders, which is just wrong to begin with.  Hoarding has got to be one of the most pathetic mental illnesses I've ever seen.  When I was a teen, I cleaned the house of a deceased woman who was a hoarder.  I found canned food from the 70's, sweet potato tubers on bookshelves, and three copies times 70 of the same Harlequin novels.  Poor old woman.

I did manage however snag a really neat (read: tacky) red knit scarf that was later used as a murder weapon in a play. 

Well, I'm done for the night.  My resolution to write EVERY DAMN DAY has been fulfilled for the second day in a row. For The Win, Y'all.