Wednesday, January 29, 2020

How. Dare. You.

The following is an open letter to the caregivers, a brother and sister, plus their mother, and their friend who lives with the mother and brother, who all came into my life….the sister on July 7, 2018, and the brother on August 2, 2018, to become my two caregivers, and to be, as they told me, the loving family i never had my whole life.
Warning, this is another long blog, because, well, i have alot to say, so….okay.
My Backstory First
I am Autistic. Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, my family never understood or accepted me. All of the millions of quirks, rituals, routines, etc. that i had, were always squelched; i was squelched, made to feel Othered, made to feel like i was bad, wrong, defective, and weird.  Instead of being embraced, i was was often taunted, scolded and punished for being me. I was mislabeled as mean, selfish, lazy, spoiled, etc., when i was never those things. Whenever i would try to do the things they all wanted me to do, and i would not do it right, i would just become discouraged and i would withdraw. It became easy for me to just withdraw into my world and give the fuck up. Rather than to keep on trying to do the things, and always end up always, always, always getting it wrong.
My fears were always used against me by my family. Yes, i did have many many good times as a kid too, but i also was made to tow the mark and to mask, to hide the real me by my family, so that i could survive what was for me, sadly, a daily stinking rotten hell.
I couldn’t cope with being born into a family who were so rigid and narrow-minded. I always felt as though i was ganged up on. They all told me, daily, that i would never have boyfriends, never learn how to drive, never have friends…..that i would never work at any gainful jobs. They told me that i would never have any hope. Or any of my hopes and drams for my life, fulfilled.
And guess what? I have fallen through the cracks my entire life. I have never been able to work at gainful employment, nor have i been able to find much in the way of friendship, and real support and acceptance either….because even now in the year 2020 we Autistic are still sadly misunderstood, Othered, and oppressed by the vast majority of non-Autistic people. My life has been a lonely life of me never getting to date, go to parties, concerts, or get married or have children.
In addition, i was what they used to call a tomboy, and later on, in my mid-twenties, i came out to one of my two older sisters who i trusted, that i was bisexual. Today, i proudly call myself queer and non-binary. I have always been attracted to both men and women….and today that includes trans and queer people.
Growing up, i had so many, many meltdowns because of the way i was so often misjudged and then punished. I grew up terrified of my father, and indeed, i was never allowed to disagree with him, have my own opinions, or talk and joke with him. My brothers and sisters were always taunting and criticizing me…and exploiting and using my fears against me. It is no wonder that i grew up so afraid to stand up for myself both at school and at home. And in public. It has only been in the past 25 years that i have slowly overcome my fears of standing up to people, but even now, there are still times today when people’s meanness and insensitivity can send me running away into a crumpled hot mess. And. I. Just. Shut. Down.
I basically grew up feeling like i was my family’s punching bag and throwaway. I grew up feeling like i was unwelcome both in my own home and at school. I grew up feeling like i did not matter and like i was not supposed to matter.
Like i was not supposed to exist.
In May i will be 60 years old. I have still never been to a rock concert, and my siblings, except for two sisters and my mother (yes, i just recently made up with my second nice sister who lives with my mom) all still ignore me. I have still never had an actual job. I never got to pursue any vocational training so i could train for a career…so, i have been surviving my entire adult life on Social Security benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, and Section 8 housing assistance.
In 2012, my physical health (lymphedema in both legs, plus a lymphedema leg lump the size of a basketball on my inner left thigh) digressed to the point where i had to give up driving, give up my car and sell it, and i began needing caregivers. Sadly, that has only added to my lifelong hell, because in the first two years, from 2012 through 2014, and then one month in 2015, when Connie (a nice caregiver i had for four years, and who is back now again as my caregiver) and i took a one month break, all of those caregivers that i had in those time periods, were all abusive.
Except for Connie. Oh, i had problems with Connie as well in the beginning, but that was due to the trauma i had already gone through with the previous caregivers before her….and i still had some ongoing issues with Connie even when we grew closer at the end of her first four years with me, because i still had deep-seated trust and abandonment issues and i still kept misunderstanding her. However, out of ALL, out of every single one of my IHSS caregivers, she has always, ALWAYS had my back,  she has always had compassion on me, and i know i can trust her with my LIFE, because she is honest, and she has never, and will never take my money or steal from me.
Connie was, and still is, my rock. She was my caregiver from March 2014 to March 2018, for four years, and is now back as my caregiver. She has been back as my caregiver since June 22, 2019, last year, when the brother caregiver literally, finally made good on his threats to abandon me, and drove off on me and ditched me….leaving me with NO breakfast, and NO way for me to get mt my dialysis treatment that day.
Connie left as my caregiver in March 2018 only because she got a job offer that was so good she could not turn it down. She felt i would be safe and secure with the two caregivers she had set me up with….but, sadly, i wasn’t okay. They both quit me after just three days, because of the meltdowns i was having over the supersonic loud thunder bass that was coming from a business East of me.
So, in came KJ, who i loved in the beginning. But then after just two months, she convinced me that Connie was not a real friend to me. I foolishly let her convince me to sever my ties with her. After that, KJ turned Jekkyl And Hyde on me, and she began threatening me that she would quit me if i did not start giving her money when she asked for it. Twice a week she would ask for gas money to the tune of $40 at a time. But then she began asking me to give her much larger sums of money that i could ill-afford to give her. But i would always give it to her……because she threatened to leave me with no care if i didn’t give her the money.
I handed over a total of $2109 to her when all was said and done, which never got paid back to me. And she forbade me to write out a running IOU so i would have it documented on paper. Next, she gave me a shower, and when i had two meltdowns during that shower….she took those meltdowns personally, and did not come to help me for two whole days, leaving me all alone to fend for myself again, with me thinking she was going to ditch me…..
I have had caregivers be no shows. I have had caregivers walk out and ditch me. It is the most dehumanizing, terrifying feeling when it happens. So, out of fear, i do what my caregivers tell me to do. Except Connie, she is real with me. I do not have to fear her.
Because of KJ leaving me for those two days, and me not knowing if she was going to even come back or not, i was forced to call a taxi so i could go to the bank to get my monthly SSA money, and that taxi cab was so small, that i ended up skinning my leg lump on the bottom of the door lip getting in and out, and two days later, when she did come back, my leg lump was red hot to the touch, and extremely painful.
A day later, i was still so shaken and upset from her leaving me, from her leaving me to think for two whole days that she was going to quit me altogether, and from all of the money she had already taken from me, that when she came that Saturday, she came in to find me in a state of physical whole body weakness. I was literally laying back in my lift chair almost passed out from the red hot infection on my leg lump, and from just pure mental exhaustion. She grew frightened. I told her i could not move to even go to the bathroom. I made her promise to not take anymore of my money, and to never abandon me, and she agreed she would not do either to me ever again. She was even in tears…..apologizing over and over…promising…that she was here for me for LIFE!
She called an ambulance, and i was rushed to the hospital, where they ran test after test on me. I was diagnosed as having full-blown Type 2 diabetes, sepsis in my leg lump…..yes, sepsis, folks…..plus….end stage kidney failure.
I was admitted, given heavy antibiotics, and then had a chest catheter placed in the upper right side of my chest, and two day later, i began dialysis. I was in the hospital a total of three long weeks. I was no longer diabetic, but diagnosed as just borderline again.
And then i began dialysis treatments in center on July 5, 2018. Two days later, KJ had me meet the sister caregiver, so that the sister caregiver could become my secondary caregiver and backup caregiver. After that, KJ got mean again, with even more threats to leave me, more demands for me to hand over even more of my money……so, with the sister caregiver now in my life, i finally got up the courage to fire KJ. The sister then got me hooked up with her brother as my second caregiver. He started working for me on August 2, 2018.
Note: i have never wanted to have a male caregiver, because i have never been comfortable around men due to my past with my father and brothers, plus my past with a police corporal and another friend that i had had who both also turned against me….but i was told by the sister caregiver, that the brother was gay, was a sweet angel, and that he would have lots of compassion and patience with me, so i agreed to have him work as my secondary caregiver. But as soon as he came on, i had hit it off with him so well because i loved his sweet and charming personality…..that he quickly became my main caregiver….and the sister became the secondary caregiver.
I believed him when he told me he would have my back all the way, that he would not let anyone bully, mess with me, and mistreat me.
The next two months my life was once again happy and blissful….together, the brother and sister both woo’ed me, and he and i, especially, really hit it off great…that was, until after the middle of that September when i had to go stay up at his and his mother’s house so he could rip out all of my carpets in my living room and bedroom….from then on, things all went right back downhill yet again for me. The brother and sister caregiver team also turned mean. Very mean.
And so here is my letter to them.
Dear Brother and Sister,
How dare you?
How dare you both come into my life, along with your mother, to charm and woo me and to tell me and make me believe you loved and cared for me, and then you all turned on me after two months? After i had already bonded with you all?
You woo’d me by getting that nice sleek fast Cadillac sports car with the bomb SiriusXM satellite radio….woo’ed me by taking me on outings, to the ocean, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Solvang, and to lots of restaurants, etc.
You both woo’ed and charmed your way right straight into my heart. I have never been able to have any children of my own. Yet you both won me over with your charming personalities, and right off the bat, became like the son and daughter i never had. Your mom became like another nice sister to me also. And i also bonded with the girl who stays with you and your mom.
How dare you also come in, as so many of my other past caregivers did, and start taking even more huge sums of money that i still could ill-afford to give you? Huge sums of money kept going out to you both, as well as a three pages long list of my possessions that were also taken from me. Even my personal files got taken from me….all of the important papers i had, all important documents i used to keep, important documents that i still need, got literally taken by both of you. Even my birth certificate! All of those important papers got taken right out of my desk, where they were all neatly organized, all in different-colored folders, and thrown willy-nilly into Rubbermaid tubs and thrown out, literally, into my back yard to get rained on and ruined.
All of my personal details about my disabilities were then taken and used, out of context, against me to help build me up to be a villain in the eyes of all of you, so you could use that info to your advantage.
You had NO right to read those files. And to try to use them against me. Yes, as my caregivers, you are also bound by the HIPAA laws.
You convinced me to go to your house for three weeks, so you could rip out my carpets. Yet reliable sources say you and sister were here at all hours of the day and night, spending the majority of your time partying in my middle room. There was always loud music, drugs and loud talking, laughing, and streams of people coming and going out of my middle room.
What should of taken 3 days at the most for you to do…took 3 weeks instead, because most of your time was spent getting drunk and high in my own home. My home is not that big, so it was just my bedroom and living room that needed the carpets taken out, and the hardwood floors sanded and finished. And guess what? My floors are still not all the way finished.
I chose to believe you when you told me, sister, that your husband was abusing you, so i opened up my middle room so that you could stay there to get away from him. But next, brother wanted into the room as well….so he came too, with his computers and furniture, then your friends all came along too…and you both took over that whole room and my home, and me.
There were many times when you would even place large barriers in front of the door so i couldn’t go out there.
I put up with the daily, daily, DAILY games you both played of always getting to my house late, often so late that i would sometimes not get to eat a thing until 3 in the afternoon! When you both knew that i, a borderline Type 2 diabetic, eat my breakfast at 11 AM. The daily games where both your phones would go to voice mail, and then suddenly when i was in full on meltdown mode because you were already a full hour late, you would finally answer my frantic calls, and then tell me you were “On my way, OMW, down the street,” etc. And i would wait even longer….till you would finally, finally show up.
Then i was forced to move up to your house for 3 whole weeks or else i would have to find a new care provider, because my carpets were making your asthma worse. Yes, i had to go, because you threatened to leave me as my care provider if i did not do as told.
After just one and a half weeks at your house, came the day you brought my transfer bench to the house, and you came into the living room where i slept, and as i was waking up, you stood over me and ordered me to take a shower. You. Literally. Ordered. Me. To take that shower.
It was the shower from hell. I got literally yelled at and belittled when you gave me that first shower at your house, brother. That day, when i told you how i do my showers, when i told you the workarounds i needed to be able to handle taking a shower….you suddenly got a dark mean scowly look on your face and you yelled at me and belittled me, telling me that:
*I don’t care about myself
*”Why can’t you take a shower like a normal person does?”
*”Showers aren’t meant to be nice and pleasant. I have to sit with my back against an ice cold tub, and you don’t hear me bitching about that!”
*I could not have the towel like i like on my transfer bench, so i can sit on the towel instead of the cold wet transfer bench, or the towel i like to have on the floor of the tub so that i don’t slip in the bathtub and fall. I’m a fall risk, remember?
*And i also could not have my private parts wiped before the shower like i need to have them wiped, because, and your exact words were: “I am not going to wipe your fucking ass, when you are already going to be taking a shower.”
You refused to understand my need for accomodations.
And you just stood there angrily arguing with me as to why i had to take my shower YOUR WAY….YOUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY.
It was only after i was in tears, sitting buck naked on the bathroom toilet, sobbing, did you suddenly snap out of that fucking pissy mean mood, and you apologized, told me you were sorry, that you loved me, that you loved me SO much, and so didn’t mean to hurt me….. and then you did wipe me, and then you did place the towels on my shower chair and floor of the tub. And the actual shower was fun.
I never forgot that incident though. And that was the start of my life going right back downhill to hell….yet again. It was from then on that you and your sister both began losing patience…and your tempers….with me.
Two days later, that Saturday, you again lost your temper with me when we had gotten home from dialysis. we had brought Kentucky Fried Chicken with all the fixin’s home for our dinner, and you went ahead and and served both our plates, before getting my backpack out of the car. You got angry and bit my head off when i asked for the backpack, and then got angry again when i asked you to fix my potatoes and cole slaw in separate bowls so i could handle eating my dinner.
I could not eat until you came in to tell me you weren’t angry at me anymore. Yes, you did do that afterwards, but that, together with the shower incident two days before, stuck with me. This was how life was for me with my father. My father never had patience with me. At all.
And then, i came home from those 3 weeks at your house to find the awful canary yellow walls that i still hate, to find my computer speakers broken, to find my TV sound bar no longer working, to find all of my belongings all gone, hidden, and put where i could not find them. You had PROMISED me that when i went to your house those three weeks, that none of my belongings would get moved, misplaced or tampered with….that i would have my living room painted either the lavendar or blue i had requested….but no. None of that happened.
You did get my sound bar working again. But i lost my computer speakers and nice subwoofer. The speakers you gave me are shitty, and i still have them because i am still struggling to climb out of the financial hole that KJ, you and your sister put me in.
You got angry at me then for being upset that my house was all turned upside down. You accused me of not appreciating all of the hard work you did on my floors and walls. The yellow walls you knew i would hate.
Yes. You both have nasty mean abusive as fuck tempers.
I put up with the perfume and cologne taste that was always on my oranges, until i could not stand it any longer, but when i began telling you, you got pissed off that i would dare to tell you i did not like having to taste your perfume and cologne in my oranges.
I got falsely accused of having candida on my scalp and body…and got accused of causing the sore that was on your left hand. Sorry, but Connie worked for me for 4 years, and never did i have candida. I have what is called “cradle cap” on my scalp. And she is a licensed LVN nurse.
Even so, you convinced me i had candida…and together, you and sister both talked me into having my hair buzzed completely off. This happened in November of 2018. I wish to God i had not of had you shave my hair all off, because i am now having a horrible time getting it to grow out to what it used to look like….it is growing normally on the back, and sides, but the top of my head is still quite thin, and i cannot grow proper bangs anymore.
When you began to get literally pissed off at me for always asking you if you got my backpack out of the car and put on the back of my wheelchair…or i would ask you to get me my backpack so i could have my reading glasses so i could read the menu in a restaurant we would go to….that was really cruel of you to get pissed at me for things like that, because you were here to HELP me, to CARE for me….you were not here for me to help you to make your life more convenient for you.
And there was a damn good reason why i was always so paranoid about my backpack. That was because when you first began working for me, and you picked me up the first time from dialysis, you had left my bag sitting there on the asphalt pavement of the kidney center’s parking lot and had to make a fast u-turn to go back to get it. Luckily, we were right in front of the clinic when you remembered my bag, and you did not have far to go to retrieve it.
You and your sister also kept losing your keys to my house, and you both kept losing your wallets…and in addition to that, you seemed to always be overdrawn on your bank account, so i was always, always having to give you both money, for gas, for snacks, for all of our meals, out, i paid for every single one of the outings we went on. Also, i would often find money going missing from my own wallet.
I even paid for some of sister’s medications that she needed, and for some of her medical office visit fees that she had.
Again. You and sister were like a son and daughter to me! I loved you both with all my hart, and i loved your mom and A too!
I did not ask or need to be ordered around in my own home. I did not ask or need for you to put me through literal boot camp in my own home. I asked for and needed your respect. Your compassion. Your patience. And to learn about my disabilities of Autism, Lymphedema, Kidney disease, and borderline type 2 diabetes. I needed you to both be here for me. For ME.
We would go to my medical appointments..and instead of you having my back in those appointments, you always sat behind me, rolling your eyes. (If sister took me, she would sit there engrossed in her phone.) If i had to stand up to the nurse or doctor, or counselor, i was always the bad guy in your eyes…..neither of you ever saw the ableism and misjudgments i was experiencing….you only saw my reaction, and you villified ME for it, instead of seeing the ableism i was experiencing.
Next came the face mask. Yes, you suddenly began showing up wearing a large face mask. Connie never felt the need to wear a mask around me…..but you did. Why? I took a shower everytime you ordered me to. I had to or else i would get yelled at and berated again. Finally i was able to talk you out of wearing the face mask. The face mask triggered me because it hid your mouth, and your smile…it placed a barrier….a wall….between us. A few weeks of the face mask, and i finally talked you out of wearing it.
But then next came the awful blindingly snow white medical scrubs…medical scrubs that no one wears anymore. Medical scrubs that you seemed to know would trigger me, because snow white medical scrubs are worn in mental institutions. And you wanted me to feel Othered by those horrible scrubs.
I was told off when i told you how i wanted my toast to be cut, buttered, and the strawberry jam spread on it. And when i told you how much mayo and seasonings to put in my tuna. And when i would tell you i could taste the strong taste of yours and sister’s cologne and perfume on my oranges in the mornings. It was as if i had no say in how i should have my food fixed. That is so many levels of wrong to not respect how i like my food to taste.
I was given an unnecessary guilt trip by your sister, when one night at dialysis, she wanted to rush me out of my chair so she could hurry up and get a Christmas tree for her and her kids, when she could of done that on her many nights OFF from working for me. She even made it a point to tell me, several times how i made her children cry that evening, all because i was late getting off the dialysis machine.
Sister began taking your Cadillac to use for herself, and she did it every single time whenever you and i were going to go somewhere on an outing, and one night began playing a mean “Ya, ya, ya” game with me via Facebook Messenger when i kept hounding her to get back here with the car so we could get out of the house. She caused me to not be able to eat my dinner till well after 8 PM that night due to her selfishness.
How about Christmas at your house? I got treated to another of your dark mean teenage angsty bad moods. You already knew that i was badly hurt in many of the churches i used to go to….so, certain worship songs, certain styles of preaching, even certain Christian rock, have become PTSD trigger for me, yet that evening, after dinner, you decided to put on a series of prayer videos that you already knew upset me, and when i began rocking, crying, and covering my ears, and begging you to turn it off, you got mean, and told me you had every right to listen to that because, Christmas. I ended up having to get up and leave the room……it was only when your mom went into talk to you on my behalf, and yes, she did have my back that night, that you snapped out of your shitty teenage angst mood, then you came into the office where i was, and apologized.
Then i got told i could no longer talk about Rebecca, the sweet imaginary friend who i had made out of the my dialysis machine. You even cruelly told me that you had run over her and killed her when you wrecked the nice Cadillac the day after Christmas. You stopped going in to the treatment room with me at dialysis.
You stopped coming into the lobby to wait for me after dialysis, and the poor techs had to always come out to try to find you and your sister’s cars.
You stopped coming into the lobby to wait for me after dialysis, and the poor techs had to always come out to try to find you and your sister’s cars.
You and your sister were often late picking me up from dialysis. Sometimes even as much as 90 minutes late.
You took me to a much needed mental health appointment, and then left me there stranded, waiting for you to come, and the clinic was closing, with you and the van you had driven us to that appointment in, gone. Just..gone.
When me and my therapist tried to get ahold of you and your sister, both your phones went straight to voice mail. He had to try to get me a taxi, or the Smooth bus to take me home, but he could not get me any rides. As far as i was concerned, you had left me stranded there at that clinic to fend for myself and for me to find some way to get myself home.
When my dialysis social worker finally got ahold of you, you finally came to get me….but instead of you being understanding and apologetic for leaving me there, you angrily lit into me for being upset, even though i was completely justified in being upset. You lit into me and called me selfish and self-centered, and called me a diva.
You literally told me i had no right to be upset.
Whenever i would have a meltdown, you would instantly yell at me and scold me, and then the meltdown would escalate to where you would both threaten to leave me…and this was especially frightening when this would happen on my dialysis days. I began to fear that i would someday be forced to miss a dialysis treatment. I was always in a state of fear daily, fear, of you two being late, of you two pulling a no-show, of you two actually causing me to miss dialysis…..and guess what? It did finally happen. Last June.
All of this caused me to be in a constant and extremely high state of stress. Anxiety. Worry. Fear. That it began to affect my catheter and my dialysis treatments. Soon, i was having to have the clot-busting drug, Acti-Vase pit in my catheter…every two weeks, and then, every week. Next came weekly visits to the cath lab at the hospital, and several catheter replacements.
My blood pressure while on the dialysis machine, was always spiking dangerously high, and whenever i would have a bad time scene with you and sister, i would go into dialysis with my blood pressure literally at stroke level. 
Because i had to go to your house for 3 weeks, i never got to follow up on getting my fistula fixed. I had had surgery that September 14, to place that fistula in my left upper arm, and it didn’t take…it never developed….
Then when i tried to get a new one with a new surgeon up in San Luis Obispo, you had the car wreck, so we were back to using your sister’s car, or your friend’s car again, so i could never schedule the surgery to get a second fistula.
It always seemed like i was on trial. I felt like i always had to prove my disabilities to you. Even then, you still would park us places where it was hard for me to get in and out of the car. You would park places where i had a curb, or a tall thick bush right in my way.
Do you realize that whenever you got upset at me, how deeply it hurt me? We had meeting after meeting between me, you, sister, and my kidney center social worker…in the hopes that we would finally have a breakthrough, and you’d both finally get me, you’d both finally get my autism, and my sensory issues, and what my triggers are. And you’d finally get my physical limitations.
But. It never happened.  Because, both you and your sister did not truly care. In fact, it seemed as though you both would deliberately provoke me to have those meltdowns, so that in the heat f my meltdown, i would fire you, and then you could take me to court for mental abuse. I saw the evidence of this everytime we would have an upset. You would always say things like:
“Brother/Sister, we need to document this.”
“Oh, this is a pattern with you, this is what you always do, this is what you did with all your past caregivers…this isn’t autism, this is you using your autism as an excuse”
“Document this one.”
“Document this.”
Over and over you’d say we you needed to document it evetytime i would have a meltdown.
“You’re not really autistic…my friend is autistic, and she doesn’t act like this!”
No. No. No. No. Just writing this now, hurts. It hurts that you saw me as a threat, that you saw me as a monster, as the bad guy. As a germ, even.
I wanted to die. I wanted to quit my dialysis and die.
It got to the point where i was only happy when i was at dialysis….because….at dialysis, i was and am accepted….at home….all i got was cold hard ableism. At home i got provoked into daily meltdowns…then gaslit…squelched…oppressed….yelled at. scolded, yelled at some more….then days upon days of being literally ignored…..
I began to want to run away from my home because of the hell my home had become. Not only did you and your sister take my money and material possessions. You took from me, my dignity, my joy for living, my self esteem…my very sense of BEING.
I continued to have to taste your cologne and perfume on my oranges.
I continued to feel all alone, and totally on my own whenever i went to a medical appointment.
The sister’s mean moods got even worse. To where i stared getting yelled at and berated just like she would yell at and berate her own children.
You never got the Cadillac back.
Every afternoon i would spend in here all alone while you were all out in that middle room. I was all alone and i was lonely. I would always have to get up from my lift chair or computer chair to physically walk back there to the top of the steps leading from the laundry room to the breezeway and middle room, and call out to you….i often had to even come into the middle room to come to you if i needed help.
If i was in the shower, i had to always call out to both of you several times before you would come back into help me in the shower. Because. You would both literally go out in the middle room and leave me all alone when i would shower. I was left all alone every single afternoon in here, and i always, ALWAYS had to go to you to get your attention.
In May i couldn’t take it anymore. Things got so bad that i was going to actually hop a bus or train, and run away, from my own home. When you both came late to get me to dialysis on the morning of May 7….then you both drove in yelling and screaming at me and telling me my autism wasn’t real, that i was just a bad mean person…..and then i got yelled at even more that night after dialysis for being upset…and once again, rightly upset….about my dinner being completely inedible because of the way the cheese was melted so thick all over my spaghetti…..it just all snowballed….that, coupled with the daily “Being Late Game” you both loved to play with me….all the money you both took from me…all of my nice washcloths and towels all now gone, the blankets my mom gave me, my full length mirror that i had in my bedroom also gone, my Living Bible gone, a beautiful glass pitcher broken, my butterfly wax candle scent burner broken, me, and my home being taken over by the both of you…..how i liked things to be never respected…i didn’t matter..no, i did not matter to either of you….i couldn’t take it anymore…..i threw my food on the floor out of sheer hurt, sheer frustration, and then ripped the pictures that your daughter drew for me off the wall, i didn’t do it to be mean, i did it because i was done with all of the hate you two were throwing in my face all of the damn fucking time.
That was why i had Connie come back to work Mondays and Fridays, and i was going to have you, brother, work the rest of the days and hours. So that sister could be back with her children and have her time back. And so i would not have to deal with her temper and yelling at me anymore.
That worked until you realized you would lose money by having Connie come work the two days a week.
Things finally culminated when you came to work the Saturday of June 22 reeking of cologne, and when i told you i was afraid i would taste it on my oranges, you flew into a red hot rage, gave me your two week’s notice, and then you literally LEFT me, with no breakfast, and no way for me to get me to my dialysis treatment that day.
And then you went to the labor board. All because i refused to sign the incorrect fraudulent timesheets that you kept trying to submit.
You and your sister never truly loved or cared about me, and neither of you ever had my back. If you had cared, you would of treated me and my home with respect and dignity, you would of listened to me, you would have read my blogs, you would have read all of the other things i gave you to read on Autism, neurodiversity, disability, and disability rights, and you would of believed me and you would of had my back. You would of both had my fucking back. I also include you, Lucky Mama.
You wouldn’t have stolen from me and taken all of the money you took. You would of respected my routines, rituals, sensory issues, triggers, quirks, etc. You would have respected me, seen me and heard me. You would have shown UP for me.
I have had nothing but nightmares most nights since you all left me. Nightmares. Nightmares. Nightmares. Nightmares that won’t stop.
How dare you.
How dare you even call yourselves caregivers. You are not caregivers. Caregivers have a real heart, and treat and accept their clients as they are, and work to get to know them, their likes and dislikes, and go out of their way to honor their clients and to make life as happy and pleasant as it can be for us.
You are both liars, thieves, and scammers, and you both belong in prison, and never allowed to be caregivers ever again.
And if you believe in God like you both always told me you did, you will read this and realize the full on gravity of what you did to me.
Sincerely,
Melissa Fields

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

This Needs To Be Said

I needed to put this into blog form because what i am writing about below, is a very real and frightening thing that our current nightmare in chief is actually proposing. He is basically proposing a new rule that will increase the frequency of Social Security evaluations for those of us who are disabled and already suffering at the hands of a very meager system that barely takes care of us as it is.
I have linked an article below which tells more about this proposed new law….a new law that cannot happen, as it will mean hundreds of thousands of us disabled folks will have NO way to survive…because this will cause many of us to lose our SSI and SSDI benefits.
Just the thought of this makes me sick to my stomach, and every other fight or flight emotional response imaginable.
I have been disabled and unable to work at gainful employment my entire adult life. I am now almost 60 years old, will turn 60 this coming May. On top of my mental disabilities and disability of autism, i now am physically disabled and have end stage kidney failure.
Losing my Social Security Survivor’s benefits will kill me.
The vast majority of disabled people receiving SSI and SSDI are not faking it, as i am not, and already, the re-evaluation process they put us through is more often than not an ordeal that is dehumanizing, cruel, and traumatic.
On top of that, they don’t allow us enough time to fill out the very detailed forms they give you, and eval appointments are made to where you cannot cancel them for ANY reason..not even for dialysis, like i have 3 times a week. And the forms themselves are huge books, literally.

This is like a nightmare come true for me. I have been on SSI, and then SSA for the past several decades, and whenever i have had to go through a re-evaluation, it sends me into an anxiety so high that i get literally sick over it…..and that is not because i have anything to hide, it is exactly because these re-evaluations are downright demeaning and terrifying. They often will send us to a psychiatrist, yes, a psychiatrist, who will yell at us and do all they can to antagonize us with the deliberate intent to cause a meltdown. The first time i saw a Social Security psychiatrist, he upset me so badly i ran out of his office screaming, shaking, and crying so hard i couldn’t hardly breathe. My grandmother and mother had to drive a whole mile to catch up to me, and then, even though he wrote saying i would never be able to work or function in the normal world, i lost my SSI for four months, and i went into a horrible depression where my hair fell out in huge clumps.
Me having to see two such psychiatrists in 1981, then again in 1990, traumatized me to the pint that ever since then, when i am met with a notice of evaluation from SSA, i literally go into a full on panic that i will get another mean psychiatrist, and lose my benefits again because of just this same type of Draconian program the then Reagan administration cooked up to weed out the “supposed fraud” in the system.
I had two more evaluations in 1999 and 2007, but luckily, this time i got a very nice lady to evaluate me, and i had friends go in with me who had my back.
But increasing the frequency of evaluations did not work then. And it will not work now.
When Reagan originally did this, this caused countless disabled people to literally become homeless and die. The same will happen if 45 is allowed to unleash this cruelty.
Thank you, Lydia X. Z. Brown for posting this and for being interviewed in this article.
Now you know why i hate 45.