Elucidating Questions

People who are in pain often tell me they’re in a bad mood or rude because of it

And I always tell them it makes sense

But the amount of pain I have to be in to become unpersonable is like

I can’t hear you, the pain is louder, and every other stimuli is actually adding to the pain and I can’t think because of it

And I always wonder what level of pain they’re talking about that makes them rude.

Heck I worked for an hour through one of my pain attacks

I wonder what level of pain they think excuses being rude to people

I’m rarely rude

When I am I apologise for it immediately

Pain certainly does put you on edge

It does make you quicker to react

I’ve a measure of control over this

A measure, though, I don’t claim to have mastered this aspect of my pain

I do go on the defensive

Maybe that’s what they mean

But I’m not the type of person to say mean things

It takes pushing me to bring out that side

I wonder if that’s what they mean by pain mindfulness?

Still being in pain but just not letting anyone in on it

Mindfulness of how telling people you’re in pain alienates them for some reason so don’t let them know

I have yet to even hear back from this pain clinic for the first time I was referred there

Apparently there’s no real urgency

Because if I’m alive I’ll be in pain when they get to me and if I’m dead they don’t have to deal with me?

Pain sucks

I understand why someone would be short fused and irritable

I just wonder where their line is and where mine is

Am I not irritable because I know I couldn’t get away with it?

Or do I genuinely not want people involved in my pain so I mask it more?

Maybe people get irritable because they don’t know how to voice what they need?

I can’t voice what I need so I just accept it

No one would help me anyways

It’s raining and my general ache is pretty bad right now

If I have a choice not to interact with people on days like this I take it

Because it’s more exhausting having to care for others needs without mine being met

I wish I could remember what entirely pain free feels like

Moving without the lead feeling in my body

Don’t know how to get there again

I wonder when it will be acceptable for me to be in a bad mood?

I wonder if I’ll ever hear back from head office about my break situation?

I wonder why I’m not a person worthy of making accommodations for?

It’s not fair that I jumped through their hoops and they get to say nothing for weeks after

It took them seconds to take my hours away

Like as much as I dislike my manager I would never try to do something that undermines her ability to get paid and work

But she swept in and took away my hours and kept it that way for months without any sense of even an apology

If she owes me no such things then I owe her no such respect.

As my first act as your manager I’m going to cut your hours and make you pay to get them back

Like fuck you lady

Fuck around with a disabled person’s livelihood?

You’re a monster

You’re a monster on corporate crack

I don’t even know what to do now

I did what they wanted I paid for their form to be filled out

I sent it back to them

I thought that was it

No

Two weeks later

Nothing

I have to call to check

I have to remember to give up my free time on my day off to chase down my corporate grandma to beg for my hours back

I’m livid

But I can’t do anything because I’m a cog

It must be nice to be able bodied

Not have to force your body to work passed its abilities only for the company you were trying to work hard for and accommodate to refuse to accommodate you

Where do I even go from here?

I have no recourse

I can’t do anything to help myself

What do I do?

I can’t go work at just another job, this one took half a year to get

I have so many fucking needs that so many jobs can’t meet

Won’t

This one was meeting them

This store was working

What do I do?

Google, job won’t meet accommodations?

Probably get told to get a lawyer I can’t afford?

Being disabled is just such a chore

I’m so busy with this chore I can’t do other ones

It’s over

My relaxed few months

I have to get back up and go back to clawing my way through

For a little while there I was well off enough to take care of my mental health better than I have been

I don’t think I’ve thought about the ultimate escape since August

If I did it was a short moment and I lived through it

Maybe contemplating returning to this

But now what?

I don’t know now what

I don’t know

It’s just a never ending problem I have to deal with

Being disabled

Anyone who thinks I chose this is crazier than I am

Got myself a Chinese virtual pet

No English option

So naturally I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna learn the menus, but in Chinese

I already know random characters

And when I read my name

I may as well have thrown a party

Hey y’all, I can still read my name!

Obvious ones I still know

And some I know from Japanese

Forgot to put the microwave on

Stuff like that happens and I worry

But I can still read my name in Chinese right?

And I’m still learning Japanese

And apparently I’m going to conquer these menus

There’s a cute little early November storm blowing through

I am nervous

I don’t want to actually disappear

Can’t even remember to set the microwave

I wonder if this storm has any bite

There have been small rumblings

They’ve come in and out

Tiny micro storms

The trees are swaying

Is this leaf falling weather?

Fall, you have to tell the trees it’s Fall and give them time to turn orange first

You can’t just vague Fall your way through September, have window opening weather in October, and then mid October just

Bam

So many sirens today

The space is insistent today

Everything seems to be about something being there

Meanwhile I’m boredly teaching myself some Chinese

It doesn’t feel like there’s anyone there

No one visual

Object permanence

Tugging at senses

A boom in the distance

Who knows

I wonder what the rain says today?

Who are we crying for?

It’s pouring

October rain

Yeah apparently I’m studying Chinese again

That “how do I say “it’s raining?”” point of language acquisition

Maybe I’ll give Korean another shot too

I’ve been preoccupied

You would think I have everything

It looks like it

But I don’t want things

This amassment

And my horde of devices can keep me busy all day but they’re not a conversation

The Rain is falling

Thought I’d have stars tonight

The weather can’t decide one hour to the next

Fall with no focus

We have ADHD Fall

Fall is hyper fixated on something else

I wish I could be hyper fixated on a person who also had interest in me

I’m not the type of person to aim for another person

That word wouldn’t translate

Stupid language barrier

The rush of a song I feel in tune with

I want to be more than a whisper in this world

Being invisible is maddening

I used to imagine it

‘Course I got some watered down bullshit version of it

I can’t rob a store without being caught

But I don’t exist

I go for hours without being thought of

Days?

The only one thinking of me is me

And they’ve insisted I’m delusional

That I can’t be a sound witness to anything

Do I exist at all?

If I stop thinking will I cease to exist?

Unperceived

Oh I’m just making up words today

English doesn’t have enough

I said with a wry grin

The Ocean isn’t far away

Yet I haven’t seen it

The down side of not taking the public bus

I’d like to see it

I wish I could have an Ocean view

I just want to watch it

Ideal setting

A small hut in the forest by the shore

There might be bears wandering around

I’d like to see them but I also would not like to see them

So many thoughts in one person

I can’t keep them straight

Am I holding in a breath waiting for myself to stop thinking?

I’m trying not to sink back into it

The feeling of thinking of you

I know it’s for nothing

All these songs that get you amped up

Saying things like turning dreams into reality

It must be nice to have something to dream about

It’s pointless for me to dream of attaining things

Attaining is somewhere else

Not here

And the wind is running through the trees

If you close your eyes this is paradise

And I’m just fine

And right now I am

But I’m already watching me when everything goes back to normal and I’m hopeless again

Through my fingers

What do I do?

If I’d thought of this before maybe this would be different

But I can’t exist in any moment but this

For all I see the future coming head on

I look away and pretend and then it’s now

Hedonistic

But just, like, enough to not go insane, you know?

And I keep finding out new and horrible things about my disease

In my fantasies I’m not disabled

And that’s the fantasy

It even tries to break into my dreams

It’s funny it took the disability years to break through the dreams

Besides the weird dreams I have where I’m catatonic

But the tattoo took mere weeks

I was showing it off to a store person in my dreams

I could do without any more packages from the gods

Sometimes I wonder what the Universe is harvesting from us

What purpose stars pose

It’s all as integral or unimportant as any other thing in this space yes?

The clouds are blocking out the moonlight

Ah back here

It’s good, right?

These little unimportant bits of information I get?

I miss the stars

It feels less like I’m talking to myself when they’re visible

I’m so far away from ideal

And I’m not even as bad off as most of the population

Screaming perpetually into the deep

Animals fighting in the night

Me too, animals

I don’t know what for

Can I love with half of me and detest with the other?

I need to drop it

This torch

What a time for this song

Can I send you some good vibes?

Wherever you are

I’m still here

Just as always

I’m always at the back door

Stuck here

Why do I always love things everyone hates?

Not everything I love is what everyone hates

But damn, I pick them

I don’t even know I do

I like this thing

And then someone comes along to tell me how hated it is

Sorry

Again, I guess

Today was tame

People are back to buying stupid amounts of stuff

But it’s the season

And a bunch of things that our store was doing have once again been changed against our favour

My ability to give discounts has basically been gutted

And now I have to say no to customers

And I still haven’t heard anything about my accommodations

That they took away because it was “against store policy”

Forced me to get a form filled out for them

But they’ll take their time now that they have it

By the way the accommodation was me getting two fifteen minute breaks two hours apart instead of a thirty minute break

They’ve decided this is undue hardship

And my manager hates me as much as I hate her

Good

Saw her roll her eyes when I reminded her I needed to be off at exactly 2

Because I have a bus to catch that won’t wait and may come early

It was over walkie, so she didn’t see me seeing her

She was off yonder and I just so happened to see

It’s funny she’ll remind me I have to clock in at exactly 10, but I’m off at 2 and before this I was often not getting to clock out until 10 minutes later

And they don’t pay you for 10 minutes

So bye bye my time, but yours is sacred?

Fuck you and the institution you stand with

No concern for how my time has value

Or that I have a life to live after my shift

Man, life is fucked

I wish I could say this to her face

Into the web with it

My life and my time are not important to the business

So why exactly am I supposed to be loyal to this thing?

And she’s making fucking 3 minute long speeches over the walkie about increasing loyalty, while I’m stuck waiting for her to shut the fuck up so I can get a price check for one of those god damn loyalty customers!

You people are a cancer on the stores you claim to run

These stores run in spite of and despite you

Customer and employee alike hate you, head office, hate you, corporate bootlickers

Like fuck off I could do my job just fine for the year before your crusty ass took over store manager

But apparently increased sales wasn’t a good enough sign that things were going fine

It just wasn’t enough, was it?

Fuck

I don’t know, I started somewhere and now I’m here

And now I’m here, what am I doing here?

You don’t even know where I am now I haven’t described it

This isn’t where I want to be