“I’ve had a day”

“I’m having a day, a week, a month…”
I recognize myself so much in this. I kept chugging along, for years, just one more crisis to manage, where to live, how to eat, how to pay rent. Get through my courses so I’d be eligible for student loan so I could do those things.

Watching this video, really hits home. I’ve not felt purpose in a very long time, until just recently (the past few months).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYqHSo5aKkM

When someone asked how I was doing? “Good and bad, chaotic but smiling. He he he” I’d laugh it off, the bad. The stress. The chaos. Sometimes I’d rant for a few minutes on what’s been up. Like when I moved 6 times in 2.5 years, and didn’t know where I lived anymore.
I still have nightmares of not knowing where I live.

That awkward, nervous laugh… It’s just to stay alive, “if you smile you trick your brain that you’re actually happy”…

last year I made a new friend, who lived here in the house. She always smiled and was very cheerful. But I could see that behind her eyes were unhappiness. She was suffering as much as I was. We met before I got sick-leave due to my exhaustion.

Other people around us said “Uhhg, she’s so false, always cheery and smiling all the time”… I’d sit in silence regarding this, most of the time. Until I didn’t. “we have to trick ourselves, to stay alive, by smiling” is what I wanted to say.

I ended up with, not wanting to out her, out that her mom had brain cancer, and that she was as stressed and broken as I was (the few conversations we’d had had revealed this), saying: “You know, you don’t know what she goes through, you don’t know what’s behind that smile, some people just use it as a coping mechanism, to keep swimming”. Maybe that wasn’t the exact words… But that’s what I tried to say.

Someone who you may see as just false, is probably struggling, every day is a fight. Every breath is a fight.
You have to keep living, until one of two things happen: You catch a break, or you die.

Supporting people in such a situation, with the littlest you can, is a huge thing. Stepping away and not attacking people that You Do Not Know In Depth And Personally is the right thing to do.

I’ve had people help me pay rent in my life. Know what? I’ve helped people pay rent too.

The people who’ve had the least, are usually those who are ready to give the most when needed. They will remember their own shitty situations that they have survived to get to where they are today.

Giving to someone who has very little, will by extension help someone else in a shitty situation in the future, because these people will be so ready and alert to other people’s needs.

Any time when I know I can pay all my bills, and food for the entire month, and that I have another salary / income at the end of the month I do help other people. Maybe not always with much, but something little can make such a huge difference, it can mean the difference between having medicine this month, or having food at the end of the month.
I have a friend who’s fallen outside of the social security system. I buy her food at least once a month.

Today you probably look at me and go “you just got hired for a job, what are you complaining about.” Yes. Yes I did. I am privileged, but also incredibly lucky. Just dumb luck, that @sargoth sent me a message “psst mastodon, register” (before we hit 40k users here), and another series of events leading up to this.

I hadn’t had my period for 110 days because I was stressed about not knowing how to survive the next year, just trying to get through the next few months of studies..


This is a copy paste of a rant I wrote on mastodon.

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