Re: Resentment

[Guest guest]

So I'm like you, I resent anyone thinking I just want to goof off.

As I sit here reading this, a couple of things come to mind. First, why would anyone want to cut their pay by 75% of what they are used to living on--because that is what we had to do.

SSDI is only 25% of your average pay over the last 3 years you worked. Hopefully, you didn't get downsized or demoted to the mailroom, and minimum wage.

Also, to get SSDI- you had to have 40 quarters--10 years-- that you have paid into the program.

When I went in for my interview, it was "expressed" to me--that SSDI was "welfare." I think that was in the hopes that I'd say "Ya know, I just can't bring myself to the point of needing "welfare."

Bullshit! It is so hard to be sick enough to have to give up careers, jobs, professions- that you not only paid the tuition to achieve, but loved. Work is -or should be- more than a paycheck.

I think for most of us, we are fortunate enough to have had careers. When you look at the fact that 40 hours each week are spent "working", 40 hours are spent sleeping, and 40 hours are spent trying to do chores, family life, shopping, cleaning, etc.-- it makes sense that not only do we face the "grief" and "loss" that this illness has rendered upon us.

We've all lost friends that can't handle our inconsistency, our exhaustion, fatigue, pain and suffering--and they haven't a clue as to why we can't take an antibiotic and get "well."

A dear, dear REAL friend asked me just the other day-- "With all you've been dealt- how do you keep from being bitter?"

I explained that I have been "bitter." I have been angry. I have been so depressed that I thought seriously of suicide.

Then it came to me-- through the loving compassion of a friend and therapist-- I can choose to stay bitter, angry, depressed-- and if I choose those emotions- they will eat me alive.

I could wallow in the grief, and I can let that take my energy, my life, my heart.

Then I realized, if I choose to stay in that place-- I will miss out on what life I do have. That my friends, is not an option. This disease does not deserve my heart or my energy.

The only way I can empower myself in dealing with chronic illness- is to celebrate and live each day. It may be all that we have.

With love,

Tracie

NS Co-owner/moderator