In The Assembly Of Fools, I Must Really Stand Out

History is full of terrible shit. War, murder, disease, children starving to death, being sold, sent to work in mills and other shitty places where crude conditions and then primitive machinery killed them.

All of that is more than history, though. It’s how things fucking still are. Just because it’s not right in front of you doesn’t mean it ain’t there. Those lost immigrant children? Nobody talks about them. Can I really be the only one? Is it possible that, in all the world, no one else cares about thousands of kids who were kidnapped by the United States and then vanished? Look at what we have allowed. Look at what we have turned into. I can’t really be the only one who sees it that way, can I? In this pitiful world of idiots, am I the biggest of them all?

Why, after all this time, do I bother thinking about them? Why does wall-to-wall coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic keep all other news, all other investigative reporting, off your TV screen and out of your online news? Why the fuck has the story, whether true or false, that Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine been the main subject on cable news all week?

We are an assembly of fools. We are ruled by greedy, power-drunk fools who shouldn’t be allowed to slice lunch meat. We are fed garbage that manipulates our emotions by the people who claim exclusive rights to the truth. We buy what they want us to because the same four commercials run every break the networks make. They know you’re in shock, hypnotized by constant horror stories. To get through that, the commercials have to get offensive.

In one ad, Progressive Insurance has to have a conference call on video and that should piss off everyone who’s had to resort to video conferencing, but even more so people who they sell their shit to who can’t see a friend in person and have to Zoom just to catch up (not to mention the families who had to say goodbye to dying COVID-19 patients that way). Because let’s face it: phone calls are insulting these days. If someone won’t face time with you, then they must not really give a fuck, right?

And in fact, the commercials are designed to jolt you from your numbness induced by the constant idiotic shit that’s zombified you. The Geico commercial where a family complains about the plumbing is revolting and insulting. First because they think tap dancing sounds like bad plumbing. No, it doesn’t, and no one would think that; for pity’s sake, they’d be far more likely to think they’re in a haunted apartment. But the sad truth is that they would know exactly what the fuck was going on. And the revolting part, that’s easy. If you like this fucking commercial, you’re too far gone and cannot be fixed. Look at this fucking shit! The whole family dressed the same, tap dancing while cooking, eating, brushing teeth. What a load of insulting ignorant bullshit. It’ll wreck your fucking nerves. You should never be the same after seeing it. But one thing is always going to be true: it’ll surely rouse you from any stupor.

Then there’s the goddamn drug commercials. I looked it up because I was sure I was wrong. Humira was advertised for skin disorders. But hadn’t I seen another ad that said it was for Crohn’s disease?

Sure enough, I had. It’s used to treat other shit too, no pun intended. I wonder how many millions of people take the goddamn stuff, but I’m not looking it up. I really don’t give a shit. I may stand out in an assembly of fools, but I take no joy from it; my masochistic tendencies only go so deep.

Now I sit in a wilderness. It was already this way when COVID-19 broke out. It’s worse now, of course. I shrink from others, even friends. I don’t know why. I need them. I depend on their friendship, support and love more than I am able to express. But there’s the depression, so black and suffocating that it renders inert every good thing you can think, do or say. There’s PTSD and the nightmares. Those fucking vile nightmares…and the will to live or even move gets sucked away like wet sand on a beach being taken by a storm. Until there’s nothing left but a body. A zombie that can’t even express what’s led me here, because I’ve forgotten how.

I’m in an adult mental health rehab program. It has saved me. Kept me alive, off the street. Helped me heal at times. The healing stopped long ago.

At first they were my SSDI rep-payee. They got my check, I got a hundred bucks a month. Years went by, my doctors changed. They left because they were pressured to condense visits into 15 minutes. One doctor apologized to me for leaving. He knew he was helping me. He said, “I can’t help you without your input. Fifteen minutes is not enough. It takes away from everything I do because I spend more time updating records and inputting data, and in the end, you suffer and I can’t take part in that. It violates every ethical value I believe in. I can’t treat for mental health with cookie cutter medicine.” Therapists also bailed and now I can’t remember how many years it’s been since I’ve had a session.

It was money, of course. When I became my own rep-payee, I lost Medicaid. Suddenly my copays were adding up. They pulled me into the office one day. Two Indian women. Backed me into a corner and said that if I couldn’t pay my outstanding bill I’d be kicked out on the street. Because if I wasn’t paying, services would be denied. And if that happened, the housing program would “discharge” me, which is a Cloroxed way of saying I’d be put on the street. Where, of course, they knew I would die.

Once I actually had to write an essay on why I should be “allowed” to remain in the program. Wait. You want me to tell you what? Bullshit. You want me to beg for my fucking life, because you’ve got my file, and you know I’ll die out there. You know goddamn well I can’t afford an apartment. You know I don’t have the living and coping skills to survive even if I could afford a place of my own. You’re telling me to beg for my life to be spared.

I wrote the essay. I was allowed to stay. So I was allowed to live.

I’m now in the top tier of the program. I live in what’s called “assisted living” which is a major step up from “supported living”. It’s where I belong. I live in a two-bedroom condo in a wonderful neighborhood surrounded by nature, with my best friend as a housemate. Things are good most of the time.

Until the cycle of depression hits me like I just ran into a fucking wall. And hitting the wall is beyond the understanding of anyone who doesn’t do it. It’s horrible.

But being denied the chance to regularly see a therapist has taken a toll. Where usually I love to listen to people, and occasionally help them feel better in so doing, I can’t at times like this. They become a burden because depression and PTSD, intrusive, racing thoughts, combine to make them toxic and suddenly, everything is about me. There’s no room for anyone else. I have nothing to offer, no comfort to give, no patience even for myself. Indeed, I hate myself. Somehow despite being fucked, beaten, raped and almost murdered, I managed to work for thirty years. So my SSDI check is too large to allow for Medicaid; you should see my bills. Stacks of them in three different places. Without a paper shredder sometimes I have to burn them in the fireplace because they have personal information. Not to worry, though; they’ll keep coming.

One bill went from my cardiologist to a collection service. They called me one day. Among lesser charges was a $200.00 fee. It was for the radioactive isotopes from a nuclear stress test that I missed. Hey, I get it: medical imaging isotopes are in short supply. The biggest facility that produced them shut down long ago. They’re expensive and hard to get.

But I had to tell the woman on the phone, who wasn’t the least bit nasty and was being quite professional, “Look, that test was scheduled for February 14, 2018. It’s exactly the time I would have been leaving for the test that my son overdosed on fentanyl and died. I got the call. I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t save him. My daughter was already dead. Now my boy was gone, too. I was supposed to keep an appointment? I got billed for it? Ma’am, I never understood that level of coldness, not from a doctor. I told them what happened. They either didn’t believe me, or they didn’t care. They should have been sympathetic. They weren’t. They were so cruel on the phone. So now I see another cardiologist, I like him better, and Dr. Alex Chudnovsky who works on hearts, has no heart. So you tell him this: he will never see that money. I’m not paying for something I had to miss because my son died.” The collection woman was crying. She said she would pass it on, but it might affect my credit. I said, swallowing a sob, “You think I care about credit? Lady, my children are dead.”

The rehab program never reacted. They have a whole team that meets every week. They go over the current conditions and recent events of their clients. No one ever said a fucking word. I never got a card of sympathy. No text. No call. When I went into the back offices to pay rent a number of staff who knew me saw me. Not one person spoke to me. Not even in greeting. I found it a singularly horrifying, offensive and heart-rending experience. How fucking heartless are these people?

I’ll tell you. When my facilitator told them I really needed therapy after my son died, you know what they said?

They told her I could have one therapy session at a reduced rate. No shit.

Two years later, I can’t forget such a fucking cruel thing. They left me damaged and bitter. If I ran a program like that, I would be passionate. No one would fall through the cracks. I’d tirelessly beg for donations. I’d show prospective donors what mental illness is really like.

It’s a mental health rehab program. And here am I, expendable. If I’m lost or kicked out now, they get to say they did a good job and I brought the end on myself. After all, past suicide attempts often end in a final, successful act. They’ll cite statistics and write me off not as a failure on their part, but mine. And nobody will ever be the wiser. I told my facilitator today, “I’m expendable. How you think I feel? I began tracing my roots. I found out Daniel Boone is my 6th great uncle. How do you think I feel, knowing there’s such strong blood in my veins, yet I’m running out of fight, no matter what I’ve survived? I feel expendable.”

With COVID-19 killing people in every state, I don’t say any of this in an effort to get your sympathy. I don’t need sympathy from you. I want you to learn from me. To notice that this world treats people like me as if there’s no use for us. That such attitudes and treatment are counter to the concept of rehabilitation. That nobody should feel expendable, worthless and soon their number will come up. And no one will ever miss them. That everyone will forget. Because they never mattered in the first place. And that final realization is enough to break their hearts beyond anything they’ve ever experienced.

There’s no excuse for allowing your clients to be untreated. No excuse to allow money to stand in the way of saving lives. No excuse for never expressing any sympathy or acknowledging in any way that a client lost both of his children while under you care. God forbid you actually let that person feel valued, cared for, supported.

God forbid anyone should take helping mental people seriously.

If I ever say again that I’m not bitter, contact me and call me a goddamn liar. Because I am bitter. I’m offended. I’m outraged that people take up a mission only to reveal they never cared at all. Why treat us like this? Just line us up and shoot us. It’d be more merciful. I was in contact with a second cousin on Ancestry. Suddenly she stopped communicating. Probably because she sees I’m a mental case and a fool. Toxic.

That’s a good idea. I’m gonna go on Facebook. Everyone on my friends list who never interacts or communicates with me will be blocked, never again to have the chance to be exposed to my mental illness or to realize I’m a fool. I didn’t get on social media to collect pictures of people who aren’t really friends. Good idea, cousin.

Mental health workers: I’ve just thrown a gauntlet at your feet.

You got the guts to pick it up? You want to prove me wrong, or just a fool in an assembly of fools, like you are?