Survived

[Written on iPod during the blackout.]

Tonight I wrote about foster care.

I know. I’m as shocked as you if you know me well enough. I didn’t think I was ready, didn’t think I could do it and escape without the usual mental drainage and flashbacks- but I did. There were a few times I’d found myself starring off into space for some twenty minutes or more, my mind hazy with memories like smoke in a stoners attic.

But I still did it.

I wrote of abandonment, runaway, being taken away, misplaced, hunted like a feral cat by social service workers and nights not knowing what lurked in the dark as I slept cold and lonely- wondering if/when she would return. Certain in my heart she would but just as certain in my head that she would not.

I opened my own book with the stroke of a pen beneath candlelight. Writing about days when that was the only light. My stories and the stories of others- stories that left me gasping as they resonating with the sting of my own. Beautiful and broken like bloody glass under the sunset.

I wrote them.

I wrote them and my stitches didn’t rip. Scars held with the forever reminder of pain buried deep within my marrow. They held and though I knew what it felt like to bleed, though I remembered how they trickled, I did not.

I just remembered.

I didn’t relive.

Thank you, goddess keeper of sacred inks, provider of convenient paper, walls, napkins, and skin for my stories. Thank you.

Sick Of Greedy People Deciding If I Can Get Help Or Not…

Received a bit of bad news at therapy today. Looks like my Medicaid (or the half ass version I’m privy too) expired and no one bothered to tell me. Not only does this mean I get to enjoy the tedious process of reapplying but any appointments I have during this ‘in between’ period are going to cost me personally. Not that they didn’t before but at least it was a small enough amount that I could chance trying to see someone.

You’d think they could have given me a call or something, eh? Nope. Not a single call, letter, smoke signal. Nothing. What a rip. I only absolutely needed it for one thing and now it’s not even good for that. *sigh*

To top it off the wonderful system that runs things in the mental health industry may have just decided I’m not broken enough to need help. Next week I have to go through a review/assessment to see if I still ‘need’ therapy. I’m not entirely sure what I think of that but it leaves a hollow feeling in my gut.

I kind of feel like my training wheels are being taken off too soon. I like going to therapy, I find it very helpful and a lot of the time it’s the only place I can talk about certain things. Things I’d never write about here…

Things I can’t talk about with friends and family and I don’t say that for lack of trying. I have tried with mixed results that leave me feeling worse despite their best efforts. I’ve tried getting these things out in an online chat group for people with the same problem… but it wasn’t the same. It didn’t leave me feeling any better, only distracted.

The worst part is that all these decisions- the cutting of my useless insurance, the dropping me from therapy are all related to money. It isn’t related to whether I need help or not. It’s related to if they can afford to pay people to deal with my paperwork, if they can pay someone to file my case, or if someone else (in my place) could pay them more than I can (difficult to explain). More so it’s also because the system (still both of them) is overloaded. There are too many people who need these resources simply because no one is helping them in the first place.

If we could help people when they need it instead of making them file three months worth of paperwork… that was me and I can’t tell you how bad certain things got in that time period not to mention with the stress of trying so futilely to get what I needed.

*sigh* I don’t want to type about this anymore. It all comes down to money in the end and that’s just sad.

Protected: Just Venting