Exhaustion Sucks

Emotional, mental and physical exhaustion are all I seem to have been acquainted with over the last six years. I put in a lot of work to overcome my disabilities in terms of employment and long-term unemployment and abject boredom/lack of any stability and routine with no hope of escape or relief are the thanks I get for my trouble. If you don't think this shit can exhaust someone, I've got a bridge to sell you.

It's easy to judge someone in my position as lazy or not trying hard enough, and trust me, America often does due in part to the fact that for this shithole we call a first world empire, wealth often equals success/intelligence even when the person who possesses said wealth has achieved neither or did so on the backs of everyone and everything else around them (the current bourgeoisie come to mind). And those same assholes are blaming their kids and grandkids for killing everything even though we never had so much as a vote on it, but I digress.

What's got me angry this time? The fact that I might have to get a degree in something I'm no good at (I already tried that with graphic design, believe it or not. Ya gotta be good with propaganda to make a living in that.) or even worse, outright hate. I already told you how I feel about business and I stand by it. But hey, that's just how it works in our system. Ya can't go for what you enjoy, you have to go for what makes money, and in my case, since I lived in a hollowed-out area that's little more than retired people, I can do neither.

I challenge any able-bodied person to live as many of us do for a while, if only for a little perspective. That's wishful thinking, of course, but one can dream.

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That’s all I got, Man. Opposite sides of the country and broke as well. Not much help, I know.

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

snoopydawg's picture

at the grocery store. I had already swiped my EBT card and since I bought a non food item I knew that I had to pay cash for it. So I'm waiting for her to tell me how much I owed and she just kept repeating the total price while people were waiting for me to finish. She finally said loudly, "oh I didn't see that you already used your food stamps card, it's $$$$$"" Then she asked if "I needed help out" . It wasn't until I was leaving the store when it clicked that she didn't think I looked disabled and was trying to shame me in front of others for receiving food stamps. I wanted to go back say to her that "you have no effing idea how much pain I'm in right now, you effing b*tch!".

I don't think that I or anyone should have to show any outward sign that I'm disabled or in pain just so it looks like it's okay that I'm receiving food stamps. First off it's non of their business and secondly if I have to limp or change my posture so it does look like I'm disabled it would cause even more pain because it throws the body out of wack. I try to walk every day regardless of the pain level and even during the winter because it keeps my condition from getting worse and I would lose even more strength in the leg that has nerve damage that I'd end up not being able to walk at all. I feel like crap when I get home, but when I'm out walking I try to find the joy and the beauty of the world. Or watch the dawgs having fun.

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So I know how it feels when people judge you without a clue about what your life is like. I'd love to be able to go back to work doing the job that I trained myself to do and loved with a passion. But thems not the cards I was dealt.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

The Aspie Corner's picture

@snoopydawg And when I go shoe shooping I always have to get my left shoe raised by 5/8 of an inch. It does help somewhat, but I also wear a brace for drop foot.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

mimi's picture

people start to understand the pain of their fellow neighbors. It is sad, but I have not had many experiences which would disprove of our lack of empathy and compassion and understanding.
In Hawaii an End of Innocence

Sara Simone Wagner’s Leilani home still stands, but she remains evacuated, staying with friends in Hilo, the Big Island’s largest city. She has touched the hearts of many traumatized Hawaiians with a poem she published on the neighborhood social network. The poem speaks to her love of the land, the sometimes terrifying power of nature and, as she puts it, “the end of our innocence.” Truthdig is pleased to reprint it here.

Sweet Leilani

By Sara Simone Wagner

May, a month of promise and beauty
gentle showers
fruiting trees
budding flowers
calming seas

Rolling shakes wake Puna’s slumber
draining caldera
exploding methane
mounting hysteria
we’re never the same

Fissures appear stage left—and stage right
performance fire
once-verdant plains
landscapes mired
sulphuric stains

Subtle cracks, soon gaping chasms
shifting rift zones
explosive night
mounting cinder cones
nature’s might

Alexander palms against a red night sky
terrain shifting
burning Makamae
pahoehoe drifting
scorching Kahukai

Bolders fly through pressured cracks
tephra covered pain
breaks on Alapai
toxic poison rain
missing pets on Pomaikai

Cruel slow burn and acrid air
seizes homes and structures
collateral damage
civil defense lectures
interrupted lives to manage

Kilauea unrelents with ashy plumes
fingers of lava
hot unwanted embrace
like too-hot java
burns at the taste

Moku gashed open like a battle scar
lava hits sizzling ocean
new land will avow
painful emotions
deep as Halemaumau

Evening curfews with midnight looters
gas masks tightened
tears escalations
anxiety heightened
forced evacuations

Hissing bay with dangerous laze
lava articulates
homes burn slow
caldera again deflates
We mourn Kapoho

Power outages and scorching air
crimson glows at night
our reminder you see
of Pele’s might
in our sweet, sweet Leilani

(Makamae, Kahukai, Alapai, Pomaikai and Moku are the names of streets in Leilani Estates. Pahoehoe is a lava formation that looks like rope strands. Tephra is the name for rock fragments and particles ejected in an eruption. Halemaumau is the collapsing crater at the Kilauea summit. Laze is toxic haze formed when lava enters the ocean. Kapoho is another community that was lost to the current flow. Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of fire, respected as creator and destroyer of the island chain.)

Pele is seen also as a creator and that I hope can give you hope. Hugs.

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Most people won't stop judging until they experience what you describe, and they find the society they used to be a part of rejects their need. They WILL be in that place at some point in their lives. You asked for no advice, but be wary of doing something you hate. The only thing worse is being told that you're no longer needed to do it, and there's no other job in that field. Don't let the anger turn into a bonfire. There is a mind and body connection. You can die of brain cancer and you can also die from a broken heart. You're right, most won't understand your life. You're a fighter, not a loser. You prove that day after day. Many would have given up long ago.

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enhydra lutris's picture

in the US. We have a system founded on competition among ourselves which is in part based on jealousy (or envy) and also kindles and foments jealousy (or envy). I know otherwise generally good people who are truly deeply offended at the idea that somebody might get something for free that they had to pay for, or that somebody might a special discount, etc. Since earliest childhood we are taught that such things are cheating, sluffing, freeloading, etc. and are taught, as well, to be envious as all hell of the recipients.

No matter how much I think of all the ways to amend and alter the system, one thing that I cannot get around is this ingrained visceral envy, taught and pushed by all of our media and institutions from earliest childhood on. WTF, really "The Grasshopper and The Ant", read to pre-literate sentient beings, for just one example. That is something we all need to focus on and overcome.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --