6.19
Today was a BIG day for me; a lawyer's office
was going to call me and help me re-apply for SSDI or SSI. AGAIN. This office
was different. It was motivated to really help me! Unfortunately about thirty
minutes ago they called, and about fifteen minutes ago I ended the call intears, because it was completely pointless.
A friend asked me what the name 'Neptune Fallen'
was from, or if it meant something, once. It is not from anything in
particular, but it does mean something to me. Neptune
is also known as Pluto, and was seen as the god of the underworld, or even
heaven in ancient times. Also sometimes Neptune
was viewed as the god of the waters, seas, and rivers. Neptune
fallen is literally a depiction of a fallen god, of the heavens and or the
seas. Especially today.
-Cops arrive and interrupt me writing.-
Then forty five minutes after they called the
cops leave... Lovely. Where was I? Um, yes, the person at the lawyer's office
who is helping me is a fucking idiot... I was beginning to feel better, but now
I want to throw something hard against concrete and watch it break...
"Your claim is still active, he wants you
to know that," the cop told me. No, not the claim from before, but the
claim that I haven't even begun... The claim that is upsetting me. The claim
that I haven't even gotten a chance to explain in my blog why it is upsetting
me, because cops literally burst into my home and interrupted me! Ugh! I
suppose he is a kind guy, and means very well, but his intelligence is
something that is really lacking from the little I've dealt with him. Reminding
me of the woman from Fry's and the cop Jams dealt with.
So I hear a firm knock at the door, and I assume
that it is probably someone of the family I rent from, asking something from
me, or notifying me of something... and I open the door to, a buncha cops. The
cherry on top is that Maria Sr. the crazy Spanish speaking-only grandma is
here, along with the army uncle who is nearly stalkerish in how much he follows
people online, including me. Hope he likes this post, he isn't bad looking tbh,
and is actually pretty cool and fun to hang out with.
I nearly run outside to the front yard, out of
earshot of everyone inside, so we can talk there. Even if I had a giant room
that could fit dozens inside, with how thin our walls are, I would choose the
same spot. Immediately, but delicately, I am asked how am I doing, and I
totally bomb it.
"I'm not doing too well," I blurted
out, sitting on the grass, picking at some shoots. "I uh, well my back is
hurting, I tweaked it trying to rush out here... But I am feeling better
emotionally than I was. I had called a crisis line."
"Alright," the cop replied, I assume
happy I admitted that I'd called a suicide help line. I wasn't going to try to
pretend that I was totally happy for the last few hours. "Did you tell
anyone in the last few hours that you would hurt yourself?"
"Uhhh... yeah on the crisis line, I had
pills in my hand, and I was wanting to take them," I answered frankly,
glancing nervously up a couple times. "After several minutes I was feeling
better and didn't feel like that anymore."
The cop looked almost as if a fish had crawled
out of a fish bowl and run away or something. I guess he wasn't used to people
just admitting things so plainly. So he asked me more questions like about me
hurting myself in the past.
"I used to, a long time ago. You can see
scars on my arms, but it's been well over a year since I've actually done it. I might have
urges, but I've not actually hurt myself in a long time." I explained.
"Yeah... I can see some of the scars,"
he glanced at my arms and gestured with a finger at the pale slices intermixed
with the slightly darker skin. "When was the last time you did that?"
I scoffed slightly nearly a laugh, "Pff....
I don't even remember it's been so long," I shook my head. "Before I
moved here, and I've been here a year."
"Okay," he nodded. I'd been very
frank, he seemed to believe me so far, or at least seem to think I was being
mostly truthful. My scars obviously are not from days ago, but do look like
they could be weeks old I will admit. "Have you ever been to a mental
health facility?"
"Like a clinic... or?"
"Like admitted. Have you been to
Hillmont?" he asks this. I shudder and the cops notice my reaction. I
laugh loudly.
"Yeah, I've been to Hillmont," I
answer with a grin, "One of the last times I was there I needed to get my
gallbladder out, they were giving me liquid antacid, as soon as I was released
I had to rush to Santa Paula for emergency surgery. Hellmont just let it fester
inside me. No offense to them, but that wasn't the first time they've injured
my physical health. They make me worse than I feel, hehehe." I chuckle and
shake my head.
"What about ....?" They mention a
place I'd never been.
"Nope, I've never been there... and I was
feeling depressed earlier, and I have been feeling down off and on recently. My
psychiatrist lowered my dose of one of my meds, I wouldn't be against being
admitted to a facility if it weren't Hillmont." I replied.
Again the cops stared at me as if I'd grown a
third eyeball or something. I was just being so mellow.
"Heh I bet I could also get a shower,
too!" I added with a grin.
"You can't get one here?" the younger
male who's been silent asks.
"Uh.... nope," I answer, my voice
still friendly, with a smile.
"Why not?" the main officer asks me,
his eyes wide.
"I waste water apparently. I'm not supposed
to take showers, cause I fall, and I can't take baths cause of our drains, and
then I also waste water, but everyone else can bathe...." I explain with a
sardonic smile. The officer finally is beginning to get a read on me, that
perhaps though I seem mellow that there is more behind it.
"You need to find another place to
live." he tells me. "But before that, can I see your cell
phone?"
"Sure, no problem... and I've been looking
for one."
I go and get my cell phone, while one of the
cops watch me, and they are shocked by my messy room. The biggest contention of
me living where I do. Before the cops left one of them jokingly laughed to me,
"Yeah, and you should probably clean your room," with a kind smile.
My landlords claim fire department people and police will fine or issue other
things if they see it, but so far cops, paramedics, police chiefs, and more
have seen my room in worse states than it currently is messy and are totally
chill with it and only have parentaly suggested I should clean
it up, with a smile and often a chuckle.
Anyways
The main cop has my cell phone and asks me,
"Did you tell anyone that you might kill yourself today?"
"When I was online with the crisis hotline,
yeah, I was talking about it. I did send a text insinuating it to my best
friend, but other than that no..." I answered and then kind of fell onto
my side.
The young man cop immediately reached his hands
out towards me in worry, "Are you okay? Do you need a chair?"
"Oh no, I'm fine, well not fine... I hurt,
but lying on my left side like this is best. Thank you, though." I reply
with a smile. The main cop is looking through my phone and the other cops who
are closer to my age are looking at me weird, as if how could I just hand my
phone over to a cop? I didn't fight, try to erase things, try to explain
things?! Nope, just gave him my phone. He can lol over funny texts between me
and Jams.
Finally he asks me, "What did you say to...
the crisis team... and to Dustin from the lawyer's?" I realize that he's
gone through my texts and call history, and likely might have checked my skype
and facebook and internet, too, in just that three minutes. I don't use them
much.
"Dustin I admitted that the SSI application
was pointless, everything in my life was pointless, I wanted to just give it
up, terminate anything that had begun, there was no reason to keep it going. If
I begin to receive assistance I will receive a gross amount less for rent and
food than I currently get... and I began to cry uncontrollably and I was trying
to get off the phone and just end the process of applying again... with the
Crisis, I admitted I had a buncha pills I wanted to take, and got talked out of
it, by realizing there are programs to help people who have nothing...."
Finally the cop said he was going to make a few calls on it, and he walks away.
The younger girl cop asks me something I could
tell she was dying to ask, "Do you always dye your hair like that?"
I chuckle, "Um, kind of... It was purple
since October, but then I was trying to dye the purple out, and I got this
pink." We all laugh at this explanation and then the younger man
mentions the bright pink is reminiscent of the 80's, and I recall
that I like it a lot because it is similar to Cadance from My Little Pony:
Friendship is Magic.
"Can I ask how you hurt your back?"
the girl cop asks, her voice polite, but nervous.
"Yeah," I reply. "Back in
December 2010 I was in a car accident and got 3 herniations, but then in 2012,
this doctor Ashokan herniated on disc from 5mm to a centimeter. That made it so
I couldn't walk at all for a long time."
"Oh wow..." she said, her eyes
sympathetic.
"Yeah, I deal," I tried to smile
encouragingly. This is my life, I can't live for myself. I have to pretend to
be okay for other people. Finally the cop with my phone returns with my phone
and tells me...
"Yeah Dustin from the lawyer's office wants
you to know that your claim is far from being denied, it's still waiting to be
approved even," at first my heart jumped before I realized.
"Wait.. you mean the claim, from
today?" I ask, confirming the idiocy of trying to comfort me with the cold
hard fact that pushed me into the warm comforting arms of the idea of unlife.
"Yes, the one from today," the cop
replied. "It might not be a lot of money, but you should look at it like a
happy accident."
I have to facepalm, but I don't. "The thing
that upset me was that as soon as I get SSI, I won't get food stamps, because
it is a California
"Well, you seem to be pretty stable. Um, if
we took you anywhere it'd be Hillmont, but..." the cop trailed off.
"That'd be worse, thanks for
understanding," I finish for him.
"So you won't hurt yourself?" he
clarifies.
"No, not on purpose." I answer,
"I do hurt my back all the time just trying to walk around though, but
it's all accidentally." to which I get the sad smile I was trying to get,
while I chuckle, adjusting my pose to ease my back pain.
"Well if you need anything call us."
"Will do, thank you~!" and with that
the cops leave.
--
6.20
6.20
Oh before they left, they did ask me what I was doing when
they arrived, and I explained that I was literally in the middle of blogging,
and they asked what about, and what I generally blog about. I told them that I
blog about being disabled, and I was writing out my feelings about the idiot at
the office I had dealt with.
What I failed to get into real details thus far was what
Dustin from the office said to me that crawled under my skin.
The whole reason I had agreed to make a phone appointment
with this office to discuss SSI or SSDI again, was because, it was mentioned
that I might actually be able to get an amount that would be survivable on. When
Dustin spoke with me, though, this became very apparent, not to be so. Dustin
was very spoken that I was too old to have any sort of disability insurance.
“You are too old to have any disability insurance,” Dustin
told me, as if I was some sort of idiot. His tone of voice was annoyed, like
everyone should already know the information he divulged. “You never worked
long enough to pay into it. You chose
to stop working too early.”
“I’m sorry, I chose?”
I repeated to him, a bit stunned. Was he referring the date of the last day of
work?! The day that my best friend had to help carry me out of the store
because I couldn’t walk unaided?!!
“You also didn’t choose
to work full time.” He continued. “Because
of your age, you have to have worked full time for five years… and you chose not to.” Dustin said this like a basic statement of facts.
Twisting my horrible accident and torturous turn of my life and suffering into
some sort of sweet fun flirtatious early life experimentation! Every time I
heard him say “choose” or “chose” I felt like a knife was digging deeper into
that injury already in the base of my spine.
“I never chose to not work full time,” I corrected him, my
tone as polite as I could manage. “I had to work part time due to my physical
limitations, as noted by doctors.” I
explained clearly.
“Well, because you chose not to work for so long, and not to
pay,” he continued to repeat as if he hadn’t heard me, nor read my case file
that I have 5 herniated discs!! My spine doesn’t work!!!! What the fuck is
wrong with this man?! “You’ll only be qualified for like SSI.”
Which would mean, basically no money, and under 300 a month.
Food stamps would be cut off. The person aiding my rent would stop, also. And I
would lose my housing, and my food in one swift active swing. I declared I
wanted nothing of it, I wanted to give it all up, and he began to call me
greedy that of course I was not entitled to a lot of money like ads on tv
suggested… and that was never what I wanted. I want money to survive by. Pay
rent, purchase food, medication.
This asshole is telling me that I have chosen to
voluntarily, able-bodily-not-worked for most of my adult life, decided all of a
sudden I am now disabled and want a lot of money and am now complaining that I
can’t get a lot, and supposedly I guess all those injuries and issues pre 2014
do not exist, but he can begin to get me 200 dollars a month starting 2015, and
that WILL be enough to live by, even in southern California. BECAUSE DUSTIN
says so… Even if there are no places that cheap, nor places where I can find
enough food for free even if I can find safe housing.
Thank you Dustin, even if I go to the social security office
myself, you’ve made me look like an idiot.
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