i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

I keep feeling like Phoebe deserves better. Deserves someone who's out of bed more and able to go places and do things and just ... be more fun. I have a small apartment and a small life and I feel hopelessly ashamed that she's stuck here with me. She deserves more

and I can't even take care of her, can't brush her or check her ears or check her paws; even things like cleaning out her ears and clipping nails and picking up poop. it's what I have aides for but it's also unfair to my aides and to P to add more into the mix.

I just. Why is it all I can see is my deficiencies?

Ugh.

Too much shit going down right now.

CW: pet death (not mine)

( Read more... )

and on top of all the aide shit (for those not on my access list, short version = getting into a screaming fight sunday that included lies and gaslighting and emotional manipulation (incl textbook DARVO) on my aide's part, subsequently firing said aide and changing locks and dealing with emotional rollercoaster aftereffects) I'm just

a complete mess

(understatement)

This is not an easy entry to write.

I'm not sure that I have the courage to post it.

(If you see this, obviously I did. If you don't, well, you won't see this anyway.)

#

I sometimes grumble about how the System is set up to discourage me from having a job. It's not wrong: the benefits I get are need-based, but the gap between the maximum allowed income (very low) and the income I would need to make up for the missed benefits (rather higher) is significant.

It was kind of a relief, in a way, because I wasn't able to find a job -- a combination of being female, being disabled, being naive as fuck, being shy, being honest to the point of undervaluing myself and my achievements, being a wet-behind-the-ears graduate with no real work experience, and hitting an oversaturated job market. So having an excuse for being unemployed helped.

But the fact is that I don't have a job, in a society that defines us by jobs ("what do you want to be when you grow up?" for kids, "so what do you do for a living"/"where are you working?" for adults). In a society that sees people without a job as a Burden On Society.

I don't know when I internalized this.

Not about anyone else. Just me. I don't have any way to define myself. I don't do anything. I don't contribute. I am not a Useful Member Of Society.;

I am, but I've forgotten how to believe it.

#

I've also forgotten how to /want/. How to be passionate about something. How to have goals.

(where do you see yourself in five years?)

It used to be that I would have dreams. Ambitions. Things I was going to do.

(about where i am now)

And then I started Getting Realistic. Curbing the dreams that were sky-high; aiming for ones that I could plausibly attain. And without me noticing, the threshold got lower and lower, the reasons Why Not came more readily, and then I stopped even trying.

(nowhere)

#

I.

I want.

I want to learn more languages than is remotely possible. German and Spanish and Russian and Bulgarian and Hebrew and Danish and Polish and Finnish and Japanese and Latin and Greek and and and I can't even think of what else

(except I'm horrible at teaching myself a language and local universities don't have a lot of what I want and the ones I do want tend to be full of actual proper students and also occurring at 8am or 9am and anyway I don't know that I would be up to the physical tasks involved in taking a class)

and I want to be a translator for sff stories

(but that requires knowing other languages, which I don't, and also requires having translation talent, and also requires knowing people in the appropriate field, it's not like just anyone can walk in from the street and translate stuff all official-like)

and I want to be a Blogger

(except I can't think of a topic, or more precisely can't decide on a topic since there's disability stuff and knitting stuff and writing stuff and whatever else and I can't ever settle on one and anyway no one would care what I write there are enough bloggers anyway I wouldn't have anything unique to say)

and I want to get writing published

(except that I don't write, and even if I did there's the whole revision and polishing and critiquing and sending in for submission and, for novel length stuff, getting an agent and getting an editor and getting publicity and whateverthehell else, which is terrifying in its own right but very moot since /I don't write/ and can't write and haven't written in ages and don't think I can any more and can't come up with ideas)

#

and I'm scared. scared of trying. scared of failing; scared of not failing; scared of succeeding; scared of creating mediocrity. scared of disappointing other people, of disappointing myself. scared of being laughed at. scared of you-should-have-known-better.

scared of myself.

scared of hope.

#

I probably shouldn't post this. Especially because it's just more whiny self-pitying drivel. shutupshutupshutup.