disability benefits

TW: domestic violence

I don’t usually talk about this

I went into the education field when I was 15

It was a “great career to have while raising a family.” 🙄

I was pretty sure I wanted kids although I went back and forth some years.

I got my Ed.S. and began working. I had been in a stable, long term relationship. We were engaged for a couple of years after dating for a few. I was getting married and getting set up for my family.

Then I experienced domestic violence in the first year of our marriage. I temporarily got out the night it turned physical. I got my emergency protection order within a month of it happening. I didn’t wait. I did it all the way society wants us to do it. I fought for him to acknowledge we weren’t reconciling. I thought I was moving on with my life.

I became disabled. I dated someone else who was abusive. I never really got “safe.” I didn’t realize leaving meant I would be stuck here seemingly forever.

I tried telling people how scared I was about all of the critical years of my life were slipping away.

All of my friends were staring families. They didn’t have time to even respond to me. They truly abandoned me. For so many reasons

They almost all work in the education field. Their social medias no longer include much else than their kids. One (the one who treats me like garbage) even joked with her husband that she only married him to have kids. I believe that joke, now seeing how she treats everyone as stepping stones to get what she wants. (If you’ve read my previous posts this probably doesn’t surprise you).

They promised me I could be an auntie to their kids. It was such a lie because they wouldn’t even treat me like a friend, much less a family member. They just didn’t want to deal with their own concerns regarding possible infertility since they were all in their 30s and concerned. It hit too close until it didn’t hit at all and i became othered.

30 years of concurrent friendship, best friends with three women, all of it gone in months because they wouldn’t treat me like a friend, or even a human.

Their families mattered over the decades of friendship.

They no longer have the space in my life.

This hurts so so so much.

I won’t have kids. I’m 36 and I just don’t see it as something that would be a responsible choice as a disabled women with very little support. I don’t want to hear how I’m making the right choice. I didn’t really make it. Society made it for me. When I became disabled. By experiencing trauma. By other people. I can’t even get enough money to eat. Yet I have been told repeatedly I would get more assistance if I had kids. Welcome to the dystopian universe.

And all of the people I loved most just disappeared. Their entire identities just disappeared when they had kids. Their social medias have no history from their life before kids. My own history has been robbed as well as my future

It’s been so cruel.

#DomesticAbuseSurvivors #Anxiety #PTSD #CPTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Trauma #ChronicIllness #ChronicMigraines #ChronicVestibularMigraine #ADHD #Disability #DisabilityBenefits #Agoraphobia #PanicAttacks

Hi.
Idk if this is going to make sense
I just feel devastated right now
(Please see previous posts for more info)
I’m two years homeless. I’m disabled and cannot get my medical needs met. I don’t have the resources I need to survive and I’m experiencing a lot of medical trauma and be betrayaltrauma.

I don’t know how to catch anyone up on what happened today. But I just don’t have any plan for safety.
I thought I did but I found out the timeline is going to be even longer.
I’m devastated. All I want is safety
I cannot move on with my life until I have safety. I cannot do any therapy until I have safety. My life is seemingly forever on hold because of negligence and trauma.

I cannot keep moving my things from temporary place to temporary place.

I do it all without support and I am so weak because I cannot eat enough.

I am scared I’m going to never see my belongings again because I cannot go to my storage (massive triggers)
Can you imagine being without the simplest things that make your day easier or more comforting for years? Without things that make life bearable?

I have so many memories stored in there that I never want to remember again after this year.

This is torture
I don’t know where I will be in a week and a half
I have lost years of my life, years of simple things like accessing my every day things that provide me joy and comfort, because of negligence
I do not want to leave everything I own to go to a city I don’t trust with the medical conditions I have when I have already been failed by this system so many times.

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #CPTSD #PTSD #Trauma #Agoraphobia #PanicAttacks #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #ADHD #ChronicIllness #Disability #DisabilityBenefits #ChronicMigraines #ChronicVestibularMigraine #CheckInWithMe

The value that society puts on my life as an American with a disability is inhumane
I am constantly fighting just to survive
None of this is a choice
And sometimes if I say, I spent all this time just trying to survive somebody will say we’ll just work so I can make that choice
If I could’ve made that choice, I would have. I made it for as long as I could
I became sicker as I held out to try to be OK when I was working this was the last thing I wanted to do was to become disabled
And so when people phrase it like “ well, just solve your disability issue by working.” no being disabled is not my issue. Me being this poor and constantly in crisis because of how much I don’t have- that is society’s issue by the way that they treat me by the resources they provide to me by the support that they don’t give me
People talk about disabled people wanting hand outs. We don’t want hand outs. We want to be able to make our own choices about the things that we want, about the things that we medically need as a disabled people, about the things that work for us. I’m talking the simplest of choices like what food we can eat in a day and what toiletries we have access to.
Because what doesn’t work for me is expired food from food pantries
What doesn’t work for me as a box of toiletries handed to me that are intended for a man
What doesn’t work for me as toothpaste that’s expired or that I’m allergic to
I don’t want handouts, but I can’t afford to survive
It is literally impossible, no matter what I do to afford to live on disability and food stamps. I get less than $1000 with the two combined. That’s what I get as support because my life is seen as disposable by society. It doesn’t matter all that I have done and all that I continue to do. The second I became disabled, people started blaming me, minimizing me, and dropped from my life. Many of them in the helping profession for people with disabilities.
None of this will be solved by me getting a job because I’m disabled and too sick to work.

And the worst part about all of this is that so much of this is because I experience so much trauma by choices that other people made, I didn’t have control over this I still don’t have control over this. Again- most of it done by people in the helping profession.

#CPTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #Agoraphobia #PanicAttacks #ChronicVestibularMigraine #ADHD #PTSD #Trauma #Disability #DisabilityBenefits

I am not disabled because I am poor
I am poor because I am disabled

Getting a job isn’t going to cure my disabling condition.

In fact, it is legally suggested that trying to work would worsen my condition

Which is why I am disabled

So I just want people to stop trying to fix my disability by telling me to do things I am too sick to do. Legally.

I feel like others can relate

#DisabilityBenefits #Disability #ChronicIllness #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #CPTSD #ChronicMigraines #ChronicVestibularMigraine #ADHD #Agoraphobia #Anxiety #PanicAttacks #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder

What do I do if I drop my $1 meal? Or burn it? Also- the dollar tree raised their prices to $1.25. So that’s over the cost of my allotted benefit.

Food banks and pantries are under sourced and not accessible. The supports that people think are there, that are widely referenced, are few and far between. I would like that to stop being what is advertised. That is not the reality. Especially as someone with multiple chronic illnesses and little to no daily support.

You’re welcome for the time and effort and life I put into helping others and being a crisis responder and educator. If this is how we treat our “valuable” professionals when they get sick, I would like to opt out.

To whom should I direct this concern? I’ve already sent a letter to the senate.

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #CPTSD #Disability #DisabilityBenefits #Agoraphobia #Anxiety #PanicAttacks #ADHD #ChronicIllness #ChronicMigraines #ChronicVestibularMigraine #Migraine

Those are things you aren’t supposed to say.
I don’t understand why not.

I used to be relatively middle class. As a child, I was in poverty.

Not like this.

This is why I am homeless. This is why I cannot afford the cost of living. This is “adjusted for inflation” for the disability income. I am still waiting for the adjustment for inflation for snap benefits.

I have made countless posts about the barriers I face to accessing other resources.

I spent 15 years in the education field, most of it unpaid bc I was a student (started in high school).

Bc I paid into the state teachers retirement and got sick about five years after I started working in schools on a salary, I am not eligible for SSDI.

I gave everything to a field where my colleagues who are disability and mental health providers won’t even look at me or talk to me anymore bc I became disabled. Where the professionals won’t even listen to my experience despite me previously being a leader in a related field and a valuable and well resourced colleague. It sure feels ironic.

This doesn’t feel survivable.

#Disability #CPTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #ChronicIllness #ChronicMigraines #ChronicVestibularMigraine #DisabilityBenefits #Agoraphobia #PanicAttacks #Anxiety #PTSD #Trauma #ADHD

Hi Mighty friends,
I hope people see this because I would love to start a conversation on how others get the things they need while on disability.
211 doesn’t really help. I can’t find resources in most of the usual places. I know there are things available but at this point- I can’t find them.
Going to pantries or charity shops are overwhelming and I rarely get the things I need. If I do- it’s often an alternative that doesn’t work (if I get another expired toothpaste I’m going to scream).
It’s simple things like hygiene items that actually work, things to organize my space, and the biggest one atm: technology.
My phone is getting older and I have no other technology besides this. I really need to find an organization that connects people in need with things most people take for granted- like a working phone and a computer/tablet to reduce fatigue and improve accessibility.

Any ideas?

#ChronicIllness #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #CPTSD #ADHD #Anxiety #Agoraphobia #PanicAttacks #ChronicMigraines #Migraine #Trauma #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder
#DisabilityBenefits #Disability