Unfair Housing

The following is from September 2016:

So while feminazis are raging about wage-gaps that don't exist and others are complaining about how only black lives matter (which I know a lot of people argue that the movement is about everyone's lives mattering, MANY leaders in the movement have stated that other races do NOT matter---so.. yeah) um, disabled people are still left with the short end of the stick here. The minimum wage in California is going up substantially, but disability is not budging.

An asshole manager man of an apartment was hating on disabled peoples. I wouldn't be surprised if he was sexist and racist, too, though. I ran across him looking for apartments back in September.

I cannot even begin to explain how much of a douche this man was to me. I wanted to ask a single question that was super basic before ANYTHING else. It was a make or break question of any apartment I am looking for. Why? What is it? Well, it is because I am slightly disabled. I wanted to know if the place was on the ground floor, or if an upper floor and had an elevator. [Where I am now is on an upper floor, with an elevator.]

Before I could even say, "Well, I just have a quick question--" I was cut off by this man saying that he was having an open house Friday. I said that I might be able to attend if it was during the right time, but I just had a quick question.... still....

But again, he interrupted me and began to pepper me with questions, and I still didn't find out if I could WALK or crawl or wheel into this place!! OMG!!! He asked about the number of people moving in, which I felt slightly offended, as if I were going to try to secret in a small army. He then stopped me before I could again, TRY, to ask my question. Well- what is my credit score.

I don't know my credit score. I'm in my 20s and I've never had a credit card. I've had no need for one. My friend has one and he pays it off every month. I've had medical bills, but I've never had any other issues. I mean... wtf. Then he was like, how much do you make a month? I mean... I am not applying for this place over the phone, I was just trying to get information...

I told him the truth, I told him that I was not sure, but we had plenty for the rent and bills, and we were expecting the deposit to be well over $3000, which we have ready. I am disabled, so I personally am on permanent steady income. Instead he began to take on an even crueler tone and say that I had nothing prepared and they only wanted "seeeeeerious" people to come to the open house. As a reminder I still wasn't sure if I even wanted to go to this place cause was it ground floor or upper with an elevator?!

Rolling my eyes and shaking my head I told him that in L.A. it was a little silly to expect someone to have income three times the rent the so they can "afford" to pay rent. Then he replied that he didn't want "lookey loos" there on Friday. I face palmed and, angry at him, said, "Well, your apartment wasn't a very nice looking one anyway. Thanks, sir. Sorry for wasting your time." He wished me a nice day, though he didn't mean it (I could tell he was being sarcastic lol), and hung up.

The funny part is that he probably believed that I thought that that place was awesome looking and I only claimed that I didn't like it. I must've said it wasn't nice because I wouldn't be able to have it, of course... Sadly it was the-very-last-apartment-that-I-tried-to-call-today. Yes, it looked and read so terribly that I wasn't sure if I should have called for additional details, and now I wish I hadn't.

818 572 7009-- If only I had a name. If anyone wants to find cheap apartments in L.A. and don't mind dealing with dicks.

I won't go into details of what other things he said to me. I brought up that I was disabled and he was discriminating my income level despite it being illegal and he told me to take him to court... so I am looking up the particular parts of the law that I CAN take him to civil court. He was quite specific that it was because I couldn't ever work again that he did not want me as a tenant... I mean, if THAT is not discrimination, what is? I mean, towards the end he was saying that I wasn't going to find any place to rent due to my condition...
[[[To be honest, I forgot about this guy and what he said to me... but now I remember. But it would have been a she-said he-said, and I had no actual proof unfortunately...]]]

I haven't blogged in quite a while. Life has just gotten odd. A weird mix of rights and wrongs. When I was younger I thought by this age my life was going to be a lot different. As a child I would have guessed that I was going to be a singer, or a scientist. As a pre-teen, I thought for sure, I was going to be a biologist or geologist. As a teenager I thought for SURE I would be a biologist or an actress, and my theatre teacher thought so, too.

Coming out to Hollywood though, the closest I got to was a controlling and emotionally abusive boyfriend. He threatened me physically without touching me, but damaging things nearby. He would smash a windshield or a wall when angry, almost as a threat as to what he would do to me. I hoped some day that I could escape and sit on a sunny balcony and just happily write or do artwork, and sit happily drinking some tea.

That sunny balcony I guess is very easy to achieve... but I'm still seeking it out.

Many people are needy, high maintenance, and hard to please. I recognize that I can be needy at times, but I am usually easy to please. Feed me and don't cage me and I will be happy. Unfortunately, my physical impairment, which has caused my inability to walk more than about fifty feet or less, is a cage to me... I just need to move to a place where it isn't.

Every place I look at that is friendly to disabled people I cannot afford. Why is this? This is not fair housing! 

I would be over-joyed with a place where I can move about freely and leave my home easily... and feel overwhelmed with happiness if I could leave it and move about the complex to a courtyard- and if it had a pool---that is freedom from my wheelchair. As I write this I can't stop my eyes from tearing up a little. I used to live near a YMCA, and I would swim for hours. In a pool I can hide that I have anything wrong at all; for a time I feel normal.

I've always looked back fondly at my move from Chicago to L.A. and realized that I do in fact miss several things and people... Even when it was only months that I had been gone.

Something that I thought that I would never have missed was the toxic effect that I seemed to have on males, so imagine my grief when I discovered that I still had the same issues here. Even today as I'm not seventeen and a size 2 any longer, I seem to burn the less fair half of the populous. I'm aware that a lot of the problem does lie with me- I am too nice, I cannot for the life of me tell people off if they have shown me kindness. And uh... well... No I guess, that is the biggest part.

Being female and liking video games, card games, comics, anime, board games, and other nerdy pursuits has put me into a small pool of desired females that my kindness is mistaken for 'OMG SHE LIKES ME!' And it is more, I am just a nice person. 

As I write this another one has finally bit the dust, and I am kind of ashamed to say it is to my relief. I've been feeling extremely uncomfortable by his behavior and comments to me, which has been wildly innapropriate, unsocialized nerd or not. What broke the camel's back? He felt too ashamed to hang out with me after I said that I "didn't miss him" because we've only hung out a handful of times in real life, and we text very often, and his constant barrages of saying that he misses me makes me slightly uncomfortable... True I was slightly dishonest, it makes me EXTREMELY uncomfortable, but he played it off claiming that every time he said that he missed me, it was a joke and now he feels that he cannot hang out with me now. So the dozens of times over the last two months that he has said that he missed me and wanted to do creepy things to me were jokes that I took wrong? Uh, sure... At least he's not gonna bother me, and if he does I can be like "lol, you wanna do what? Haha like I'm a cat!"

xxxxxxxxxx

December 3rd

So I moved and I have to admit, I am glad that a few people don't know where I live now. They were normal seeming at first, but I am happy they cannot look me up now. Mostly the person I mentioned above is of concern.

I have someone who was once a friend, and now I suppose is still a friend, but less. She now goes by a borrowed name, but I have to say that part of the name is borrowed from me and it upsets me. Blackwell is a real actual name I have, and she took part of my name, Black- for her name. I suppose it might have been meant to flatter or show that she was looking up to me, but I feel it hollows out my foundation as a person.

Where I live now there is a pool that I have used any day that it has been warm enough to venture in, which surprisingly there were many in September and October. In the pool I feel freedom because I can move nearly unlimitedly. It is amazing and wonderful. Also here I finally have a bathtub again. The last place I lived I had no tub, only a shower, so having a tub is wonderful. The tub is also quite old with no working that drains water once it gets too full, so I can fill it up really high without it draining. It helps my pain in my back and legs so much.

I can also use the kitchen easier. It is less of a walk, I don't have to walk over a mattress, and I can also litter objects I am using about the counters, heh heh. The oven is electric, which I have to get used to. At least once I turned the range on in the back when I meant to turn it on in the front and wondered why the pot wasn't getting hot and it took a while for me to notice. Allen, who I moved in with, also likes my cooking, which makes me happy. It encourages me to actually make food and eat more, which I chronically under-eat.

Video games in the living room on a large TV is awesome! I also got a 4 foot Christmas tree which is adorable and set it up. Darth Vader nutcracker, and a My Little Pony Cadance stocking I made. The couches we have are comfortable, though kinda ugly.

Finally we have a little balcony with no sun, but it is still nice. It is like my dream has come true. I can always find a nice sunny spot surrounded by plants in a chair by the pool... I have a home.

The price was not something that I can afford though.

Living here, I depend on Allen. All of my disability goes to rent and electricity. It still doesn't cover half. Allen got a raise and he was kind enough to pay a little more... So I wonder, what about those who are disabled and aren't able to pay less than half the rent at a place that is expensive and nice?

Even being here, where the kitchen is closer, everything is smaller, I am still suffering. Last night I couldn't leave the couch. The pain was so terrible. The nerve pain in back has been savage and raw. Getting water, food, going to the bathroom, it was all agony the last two days. Today, too, it is painful.

Always it seemed like my right leg was the culprit, but my left leg began giving me issues a couple months back. Three days ago I merely walked to the couch with a plate of food and as I stepped pain stabbed upwards in my right leg and since then mere walking has been agony for me. Pills don't help, so I don't take them. Lotions don't help, so I've given them up, patches don't work for me... oils I've stopped buying years ago. Only thing that even remotely has helped was Rx lidocaine, and that only barely... that any my baths with epsom salts.

There just seems irony that epsom salts which are something so primitive seeming would be so helpful.

Faking and Censoring

Being candid is not something I quite do on this blog, mostly because it has gotten me in trouble in the past. How? People I knew read it, told other people to read it, who told others, and then realized who I was writing about, but as I see it, this is my personal space to let go, and let out my feelings.

I rent a room with a family currently, for about a year now. What really crawls under my skin is that I have severe back issues in the form of five disc herniations. I began writing this after the internet had been down for about 14-15 hours, and the mother told me to wait for the father to come home... Why? Because I will hurt my back... Yet they gladly want me to ignore doctor's orders about lifting over 5 lbs to take like kitchen trash out. So when I don't take that out, they get upset at me. I would gladly remove it, if I could. Their five year old can literally lift more weight than I can, which makes me feel like an idiot.

So just to be clear, and because I actually have had physical therapy exercises where I kneel down, I asked my therapist about kneeling down to reset the damn router for the internet. She told me that it was not harmful what so ever. She pretty much told me, if it doesn't hurt, go for it.

The mother is just a huge %*#& for no good reason a lot of the time, and I am left completely clueless. She reminds me of my step-mother. Her youngest daughter tries to show me affection, it pisses her off. I go to cook food and eat it in the kitchen, it pisses her off. So next time I eat my food in my room, that pisses her off. I bathe, that pisses her off. My back hurts, that pisses her off.

So the middle daughter, like mother like daughter, she has moods where she has hated my guts and then tolerated me. I am unsure how much this is being monitored. For a while I knew that the severely creepy brother of the father, who was old enough to be my dad, was cyber-stalking me... He was also peeking in my window, too. But the middle daughter, she got into some trouble and had her door removed.

My father threatened me many times about removing my door when I live with him, but he never actually did it... so I was offended when, let's say, on Dannie's behalf, her step-dad actually went thru with it! But as her boyfriend would wait for her to and would or would not be in the house, he began to become a friend of sorts, which lead to  some disclosure. Many of her friends have lightly befriended me, and I have heard wild stories spun by Dannie about me, supposedly from my mouth. It really digs at me, especially because it is public and online, that there are outlandish stories being told by Dannie about me lying and faking things.

While doing poorly in high school, and goofing around since then, apparently Dannie got a degree in neurology, psychiatry, and psychology, at least, to be able to make the claims that she says about me. 

"Mandi fakes seizures, real seizures people foam at the mouth. I know cause I've seen it in movies and stuff." So Dannie has said. Well my main neurologist, and a second one I saw while hospitalized disagree. When I first described my seizures Dr. Abbi finished what I was describing, for me... I was stunned, she got me! She understood!! Apparently mine are uncommon, but still common enough. I have epileptic and non-epileptic seizures. They are super painful to go through so they are no fun at all... I also feel super embarrassed afterwards....... so I don't like having them. With my current medicine regimen I think I have solved it!

"Mandi tries to steal my boyfriends." Well... I have heard this one before. Dannie makes her men and friends wait up to 3 or more hours to finish getting ready to leave to where they are going... meanwhile as a member of the household, I feel obligated to politely speak to them until Dannie takes them, cause I usually have answered the door, and she doesn't say a word to them....... So because I am kind, friendly, and don't make people wait for hours to pick me up, I am more of a people person.

"Mandi tries to seduce my male friends." Um... all of directly above, and apparently when I first moved in there was an incident that I got out of the shower and didn't know there were people over and I was in a towel and opened the bathroom door to a buncha people.... which I was so humiliated from. I have large breasts, shirts often look sexy on me without me trying... I don't need to seduce.

But there is more... I'd heard this in the past and was hearing it again, but a lot more. Making me out as a villain makes her look like a victim which makes her more attractive because a guy would want to protect her. If it comes up, I don't really deny being survivor of sexual abuse and rape. I don't see myself as a victim, it happened, I have gotten past that, but my willingness in dating and life started rather late because I was victimized and abused... for real, unlike some people. But because Dannie says such wild things about me, when people meet me they are like surprised I am not a crazy person. 

Then one day Dannie's boyfriend talked to me because he was upset, so I humored him. We talked and I offered him resources I had received from a social worker, cause we are both kinda poor, lol. But later I found out, when he said, that he had to lie about talking to me and I immediately was like, "Yeah if you have to lie to Dannie about talking to me about getting resource help, I shouldn't be here, and you both need to work on your trust issues." Because he had said things to me that granted reasons for him to be untrustworthy. To be honest, he is a kind guy, but she is nice, too, and pretty, and sweet... And the way he treats her sometimes, I think she could do better. I get annoyed with Dannie, but it is almost like we're fighting siblings at this point in time.... except she is way kinder than my real sister.

So after I told off her bf that I wouldn't talk to him again, even about additional resources again, unless he got an OK from Dannie, he backed off. Ugh, she asked him why he'd been texting me as a set-up for him to fall into, and he did... she caught him. The idea that I would like him makes me cringe. He pretends to be nerdier than he is. Dannie and I know WAY more about comics than he does. He thought Rocket Raccoon was created JUST for Guardians of the Galaxy!! Seriously !!!! Also he is not intelligent enough... I made that mistake once before, and I realize I need a more intelligent guy. But to top it off, when I was offering resources he was totally not that interested in a roof over his head... he wanted me to do ALL the work, which pissed me the #*%& off.

So yesterday I had a rescheduled appointment with my back surgeon's office. It was supposed to be last week, but... ah well. Turns out... turns out... my blood pressure is very low, and a surprising amount of adults steal their crayons.

They used to have a body chart where you would draw a pattern to match how you felt where, now they use crayons, which people now break or steal, which I find highly amusing, but I have to admit, it is much easier than the old method because the pains overlap. By the time we finally got to the damned office... (we were parked across the street and I was pushed in my wheelchair over... I was in SO much pain omfg!!!!)

Without realizing it, I've been overdosing, ever-so-slightly, on my blood pressure medication... meaning that when I was not in pain, or in mild pain, I've been weak and light headed and I didn't know the reason... but now I do. Another thing that people think I fake. My weakness and diziness... but sometimes it is so bad I've fallen over, but I don't have a way to check my blood pressure at home, so I don't realize right away if it's been lower than normal, like it has been lately.

Sometimes in waiting rooms, especially at the E.R. my best friend has told me to, "tone it down" oh and in public... like cry not to loud, stop rubbing my leg so much, stop pulling my hair so hard, stop clawing my arms or face so hard........ but the pain is so bad tone is something I really don't give a shit about. I don't care if a nurse thinks I am faking if pulling my hair distracts me from thinking my leg could just necrotize and fall off any moment. ((Become dead tissue like what frostbite does, from the inside out and fall off.))

Why do I have to change MY behavior because there are bad fakers out there?! When it feels like there is a vice on your leg or spine and every moment it is getting a little tighter, and any second now, it is going to break bone, split tissue, everything will spill out open to the air.... I cry.... It is @*%&ing hard to make me cry from pain anymore. 

When they gave me a caudal epidural, up through the tail bone, I felt like I was dying for days. But now it has gotten so bad I feel that pain from other things now. I have fell off a swing as a kid, flown twenty feet and landed on my neck and head, I broke my collarbone, completely like -_ break yeah ouch, that was nothing, but my pain that is constant is like that collarbone pain... I can't believe I thought that was bad, lol.

So because of how I look, my medical history, and how I behave, it determines how I am treated. I look too put together, I am too young to have such back injuries, and I know too much about pharmacology and medicine. Basically my brains, looks, and injury #*$% me over. I also handle my pain well, and because my dose of blood pressure medication is high, is disguises my pain, too. Then, because so many kids, and adults, abuse pain meds today, I look suspicious just begging for a way to be able to go home and hobble from my bed to kitchen and back. Often a Toradol shot makes me happy! (it is an NSAID, so it is super similar to Advil/ibuprofen, naproxen, etc.)

Someone will come in and see my list of medication and say, "Wow, you're on some powerful medications..." or they will ask what I am taking and once I tell them, and also I explain I haven't taken anything yet today, or like I took a single one in the last 24 hours, they say, "Well that is some strong stuff, and you're still in pain?" Despite if I claim I took one like 2 hours ago, or if I said I didn't take one, they will assume I took like 5. Even if I tell them I took a pill 3 days ago and ran out due to being unable to see my doctor....

"That stuff if usually given to people with cancer," The doctor stares at me, trying to intimidate me. Every time.....
"I am aware... I have a nast allergy to morphine, should be in my chart, which is why I am on the lowest dose of hydromorphone. Oxycodone doesn't help me much, it just makes me high, which I don't like," I explain, EVERY TIME... And the doctor always looks at skeptically. One of these days I should just let them inject morphine into me and swell up and scream in agony till my throat swells and be like, 'See? Morphine SULFATE allergy... lol."

"How much do you take in a day?" the doctor or nurse will ask me.
"I can take like up to 2 at the most, maybe 2 and 1/2, but usually I take none. I go days without it." I explain. I know what the doctor is going to hear. They have selective hearing.
"Okay, so 2.5 a day." The doctor replies and I wanna punch them in their balls.
"That's not what I said," I hiss annoyed, but I have been labeled a junkie now, nothing I say matters.

The last time that I was hospitalized I kept crying because I was in so much pain... According to the staff they were "Giving the medicine you take at home" which meant they were offering oral norco, and no hydromorphone/Dilaudid... A lot of norco leads to getting high and no real pain relief if I'm hurting super bad. So they just kept overdosing past what I was supposed to take in a day. I would even not ask for it, and it would be in with other pills, and I wouldn't spot it and realize after the fact I had taken it.

Finally they shoved it in my face and kept telling me to take it, and so to prevent myself being strapped down, I just took the damned pills... So I learned I had to cry quietly or else. When I was discharged I was treated like a major junkie though. Yeah, the staff forced me to take way more narcotics than I wanted, and then calls me a junkie. I was content to just cry in pain and try a heat pack, but the nurses weren't. Dr. Herman, my back surgeon, had said something about fixing my pain the night before I left, so I wanted to ask into it before I left and one of the nurses was super pissed that I was staying behind. Finally she said to me, "Do you not have all you pills at home?" no... I have pills...
"Do you need pain pills then?!" NO, I don't need pain meds I----
"Okay what pain pills do you want?" O : I was speechless at this point. "No I just wanted to know if Dr. Herman had scheduled an appointment or left a note, that's all!!!" She was offering essentially a blank rx..... which is highly illegal.

When I was brought into the hospital it was because I couldn't care for myself. I was struggling to walk with a walker, let alone prepare food, incontinence, severe pain, and weakness and so much more. Much of that is degrading and humiliating, who would fake that for something so low as a norco high, when you can score that on the street easily? Mostly the incontinence... Depends are expensive, same with protective bedding pads and rash creams. I also have issues with public restrooms when it come to urinating ugh....

As for the seizures, it isn't just my roommate Dannie who thinks I fake, ignorant medical personnel sometimes don't know better. I legally am not supposed to be driving until I can prove I have them controlled. They are super painful and embarrassing as hell. Who would want to fake that, for those costs?!

But I haven't even had an aura (the sensation you have before a seizure, for some people) for a while, but the pain is wearing me down. I went to that appointment yesterday and it got me a recommendation, but pain management doctors were the ones who have made me feel worse in the past. The irony of their name is not lost on me.

So because I am stuck at home so much, doing exercises that leave me in pain, hurt, and hopefully stronger, I blog. I had to block this guy Carlos from my blog because he's become so obsessive over me, and he's intruded upon my life so much, I've tried to avoid blogging about him at all, for fear of him finding out and freaking out and stalking me/obsessing over me more.

I blocked Carlos's Google+ from my blogger, so that means that he must have gone and either signed out to view my profile, made a new account, or done something. He is extremely un-savvy with computers (he doesn't even have one). A few weeks back I went to EQLA which was a convention for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and it was supposed to be awesome, instead it was terrible, and I have had to keep it to myself until now.

Carlos.

Apparently Allen my bestie warned him about me and hotels and how it could be a huge PTSD trigger, and I didn't know that Carlos was warned. If anything it seemed like maybe someone gave him a pep-talk of yes, bother and ignore the girl's pleas to stop until the girl screams. It's like guys who think it's not rape unless the girl puts up a super feverish fight with like a lot of violence, but if you know you are going to lose, it's less painful to just submit and get it over with.

So after he kept wanting hugs, touching my shoulders and arms and hands constantly in an intimate way, like a lover would do, I began freaking out, before we even left for the Con we were going to. I don't mind a guy touching me in a flirty way, but touching me in a way that is perverted and lusty bothers me severely, because it implies sex super heavily. Carlos is an extremely sexually minded person, too, to the point I asked him not to follow me on Twitter because I don't want people to see someone like him following me on Twitter... he follows too much adult entertainment. That is alright and his life, but when he lustily stares at me, and touches me, it is super inappropriate, especially in public and in places where I cannot get away because I am restrained, like a car with a seat belt. It makes me feel dirty and causes a lot of bad PTSD memories to surface.

I will admit I offered to go on a couple dates with him, but that was a very long time ago. I tried to politely explain to him why I didn't want him as my boyfriend, but ever since then, it is as if he has tried to win, purchase, forced, and seduce my affection. A friend of mine cleverly said "girls don't like it when you try really hard," which I object to. A guy trying hard is not an issue, but someone who is not sincere in feelings and remains so, they've lost. I've already dated too many selfish guys who don't have respect for me, my body, my space, and my feelings.

If Carlos reads this I know it will probably crush him, but the messed up thing is, I blocked him from reading this blog, so he had to gone out of his way to read it... At the hotel at the convention he constantly followed me. Every time I leave my house, he actually seems to find out, and it is bordering on stalking behavior, especially because he wants to come along! I was hoping I could remain friends with him, but a disturbing text he sent me a couple days ago shows me that he has grandiose feeling and memories that at one point we were in love, when I've never been in love with him... I've only felt bad for him, as a human.

Allen and I have tried to explain what respect means to Carlos many times, but he never understood... so he cannot understand why I will sever our friendship because he is borderline stalking me. He has become less respectful. He always blames other people or things instead of taking responsibility. 

I really wanted to remain friends, so as I write this I am crying, cause I feel like a terrible person... but I've already had two boyfriends who had to know where I was every minute of the day... we're just friends and he is doing that- so... I can't keep talking to him it seems.

 

Then I hear a knock on my door and I am given notice to vacate. Going to be homeless again. Of course Carlos and my father will want to "help" in their severely messed up way that offers no aid, and is a huge joke and makes me just angry. Why do people offer "help" that is of no actual help?