It would seem South Carolina has no love for me anymore. The feeling is becoming mutual.
After almost a year of being unemployed without health insurance or unemployment benefits of any kind, and after several starts and stops and high hopes for a position with the state, I am back to square one.
At my physical for the CNA training program with SC Department of Mental Health yesterday I was told I'd have to provide proof from the orthopedic surgeon that I am able to perform the job.
Hello, clueless fucks, I am unemployed and without health insurance and just one more unpaid mortgage away from being homeless. And you'd like for me to pay out of (empty) pocket for numerous visits and scans to the tune of a few thousand dollars to prove I can perform a job that only pays $8.12 an hour? What about the 300-pounder who had to take a break between her car and the front entrance, did she have to provide any proof of her capabilities? Or the one who is on so many pills to be able to sit still and listen that she isn't even sure of where she is at any given moment, did she have to jump through any impossible hoops? What about the one who came in half an hour late wearing dirty, holey sweatpants and a midriff tee that said "I Understand, I Just Don't Care" to her new position as a CARE-giver? Did she strike you as being fit for a job CARING for a vulnerable population? All of these new hires were hustled in and out behind a half-closed door after being asked no more than how they felt, and being warmly welcomed to CM Tucker. I, on the other hand, had to perform behind a CLOSED door to show that I can walk straight and upright, bend and touch the floor with palms flat, and have full ROM of all limbs. I had to perform an eye test and explain why I wear glasses. I was NOT the only new hire wearing glasses, but was the only one asked to explain why I have to wear them. For the record, when I turned forty-something I couldn't see as well close up, a very COMMON occurrence from what I was told then.
What else... Oh yes, I had to explain my use of Zoloft, a very common prescription for depression and/or OCD. That was a fun exercise in creative lying. Let's see, my stepfather molested me from age three to eighteen in between beating the living shit out of me on an almost daily basis. My entire childhood we stayed one step ahead of the police. It wasn't unusual to leave the house for school one morning to be met at the bus stop later that day by a U-Haul packed with only the necessities, leaving behind such frivolties as toys and books. Friends? Why bother? We were never going to be anywhere longer than a few months anyway. And then there's the husband. What can I say, I always knew he was heartless, but isn't that about as good as I deserved? Siblings? You mean those people who were already grown and gone by the time I came along as a last ditch effort to save a failing marriage? And what a glorious success I was at that one simple task. No, I didn't tell them the truth about why I take Zoloft. I told them I had a common case of simple depression, while casually folding my arms so they wouldn't see my wrists. They just stared at me with no comment.
Fuck my goddamn life. Fuck it in its fat, flabby, old ass.
So, in a few minutes I'll go for my second PPD skin test, driving out the very last gasoline I have until the next batch of stuff I scrounged up to sell on eBay yields a few more dollars. And the nurse will give me the paperwork to take to the orthopedic clinic that did my spinal surgery. And I will explain to her that if it requires an appointment, or testing of any kind that I won't be able to do it. Mind you, HR has already signed me up for benefits and retirement that start the first of September and I've signed a two year contract that will require me to pay SC DMH $2K if I forfeit, but this prejudiced bitch nurse needs me to prove to her I'm physically capable of performing a job she and the doctor gleefully handed to half a dozen other women without so much as questioning their physical soundness. Welcome to middle age, I guess.
I don't know. Nothing seems worth it anymore. I'm sad. Tired. And I just want to be on my own again. Just me and my dogs. That was the plan last year when the floods washed away everything, including my job of eleven years. And then the psycho bastard that owns the company lied to the employment security commission so I couldn't even get unemployment benefits. I have survived off of what I could sell of my personal possessions and have nothing left to sell now. I have clothes, books, a Samsung tablet, and a mattress. Everything else is gone. I gave my family photos to my daughter. She has no idea everything else of mine is gone, she doesn't come "home" anymore. Not since what happened three years ago. Speaking of which, the perpetually drunk husband (who now exists within the solitary confinement of his own darkened cell of a bedroom) writes me a check now and then. After what he did three years ago, he can keep writing them.
I'm tired. Every day I come a little closer to removing any trace of having existed at all. And I'm really okay with that.
10:54 a.m. - 2016-07-27
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