inertia

Inertia is the tendency of a moving body to remain in motion or a resting body to remain at rest unless acted on by an outside force. This must be the reason living on disability sucks - I have seroconverted into the tendency of a resting body to remain at rest.
Monday - I am on the computer playing stupid games. I go eat. I play stupid games on the computer. I go eat. I check my face book. I look for jobs on Craigslist. I take a nap. I wake up. I go volunteer for a couple of hours. I come home. I watch t.v. I sleep.
Tuesday - I play stupid games on the computer. I go eat. I watch Harry Potter and the (fill in the blank). I go eat. I screw around on the computer. I take a nap.
Wednesday - I would describe it but I have just become too lazy to care. Not only that but I am imagining your eyes glazing over in boredom, wishing I would stop repeating my days. Yup, I wish I could stop repeating my daze, too! Oh wait - I meant to say days. Oh well, thought Eeyore. Nobody cares.

Almost two and a half years since I was able to go to grad school. I have forgotten most of what I learned 6 years ago when I started the three year program. The realization that your ability to remember what you know has been eaten up by lack of opportunity... well, I reckon that just bites. I dunno, maybe I'll play a stupid game on the computer. It won't change anything, except my Farmville crops will be fertilized.

I always wanted to be a therapist. I have the touch to reach into places where people are stuck and help them move through the pain. I can assess a situation and manage a crisis. I am calm in the turmoil of another person's hell. I can do the work. But then, why am I playing computer games. Hamster brain... let's just run in the wheel.

I have come up against the prejudice of the mental health system. They want the people who serve clients to never have been a serious client themselves. I have been asked on interviews if I have ever attempted suicidal, what my personal support system is like, and whether my belly button is an innie or an outie. (I think an outie was a job requirement - not sure. Oh wait, I just made that one up, but the other ones are true.)

I have a sucky voice and sometimes breathe like Julie Child. People sometimes mistake this for slow-wittedness. It is not. The absolute worst interview I ever went on was at Novato Youth Center. I rocked on the interview. They called me back for a second interview. I wash my hair and put on the requisite white shirt. We make starting interview chit-chat. Then the program director starts in with some crap about how there is no easy way to say this (blah blah blah) so I'll just jump in (blah blah blah) "what's wrong with you're voice?" In retrospect, I wish I would have just asked her if she could understand everything I said. If she can, there is nothing wrong with my voice which interferes with my job. Period.
But, we are talking about an interview, so I answer what is asked of me (while staring into the headlights of the oncoming truck). Yeah, my voice sucks. Akathesia. Got sick, got better, end of story. (I think). What's akathesia. Huh, Ms. Mental Health Director? You don't know the side effects of psych meds, and you're on THAT side of the desk. Okay, med side effect, got sick, got better, end of story. Now I am really freaking out here, boys and girls. So, that little interlude over, why don't we do a full interview. I don't think I did so well.
Here's the fun part - akathesia effects my voice. No doubt about it. And yeah, it sucks. But really, this is not the biggest part of things. I have slight brain damage. A little bit of cerebral palsy. Just enough to make my voice thick and my movements slow, but not enough to make me look like I have a real disability. So, people mistake me for stupid. And, my voice sucks. And I HATE it! It distresses me. Now I ask you - would you really want to go there on a job interview? I mean, really. We interviewed you and liked you. Now, we are singling you out because, hey, lets ask you something intimate and shameful and painful and then see how you do on an interview.

Now, I got turned down a lot of places. I've taken a lot of crap in my day. I've got my issues, don't play well with others. But this one incident, well, it hurt me too bad to ever go back. This is the worst pain I've ever felt around a job interview. There is a point in a fight where you should stay down, and there is a point where you are too hurt to stand. I was just past the point where I should have stayed down. This was the point where I became too hurt to stand. And for what?

S0, for now, Thursday I will play some stupid computer game. Then I will go and eat oatmeal. Then I will check my e-mail. Then I will go eat. I will take a nap, watch t.v., and go to bed.
Friday, I will go eat. Then I will.....
Stay busy doing stupid silly things to block out the pain of a time where someone took away my right to have private and personal issues on an interview, and I let them.