hestipod

I am not in NY and it costs a lot more than that as a rule. But that's not even the issue. getting a flight is not a block. It's how to survive long term financially when there. How to legalize without some immigration means which is mostly predicated on money. How to do all that with poor health and people actively fighting you and trying to take away more agency. It's a lot more than just "moving". "Moving" has been my plan since the day I came back from there. I'd have done it then if it was realistic. If money were no object I would have never left, or once here packed up myself and my cat and moved back. Back then my health wasn't good but wasn't as bad and I might have had even some good days. Now it's worse all I want is mostly not miserable days, mostly survivable days. I would accept that. But I cannot even get that.

I am so stressed, distressed, angry, in pain that I don't even know at this point. I need stability so I can assess things. See what the baseline is without all this bullshit here. I need to get back to Warsaw where I lived before and my only friends and reliable doctors are,or at a minimum some European city with dense services, affordable healthcare, and transport so I can live within a small area. This country is too costly and lacking in services in this rural hell, and I don't trust the healthcare anymore in general. But anything will require money. I cannot earn well or at all because my health requires all my energy to endure most days except for basic household stuff and even some days I don't move much at all. I simply cannot dig down like one can when they were a 20yo and scrap and build a new foundation. I don't know if I would EVER be able to work reliably...but for sure never full time.The money I have access to isn't enough for anywhere and there is no safety net. I have no insurance. When they ruined my health they took away my means to guarantee that financial security...and then denied assistance. Nothing went right.

People always think you should be able to do more than you say but my body is the boss and will fall out from under me and that takes my mental state with it...as you can see now. Nearly two years ago someone here offered me a very bespoke job part time with the ability to immigrate, but my health problems and personal tragedies (family betrayals and death of the person I loved most...one I may have been able to prevent had I been back there instead of across the world) all came at the right time to confound even THAT chance. Now things are even worse physically, financially, and mentally and my capabilities less. In a modern country I'd be on social aid so I could have stability and time to assess and long term help if I couldn't improve...not feel I would be cast out at any moment with no survivable path. Maybe I'd be like this for the rest of my days...maybe I can improve a little and do more. I can't know until I have that security and access to trustworthy doctors and systems...and those are not here in America.

Yes of course. Fought for it with lawyers for years. Denied despite evidence by a very biased judge. Appealed. Same judge denied again. The system is broken. I am out of credits to apply now. I have done everything you are supposed to and that people think works. It doesn't. It's just the same advice recycled and disbelief it didn't work...then on to blaming me for it...and me getting more upset and hopeless. Over and over. I know who I am and what I have done...but it doesn't matter.

I won't make it through the end of the year and it's all preventable. Nearly everything I see posted about suicidal people from non-suicidal people, and ESPECIALLY doctors get it wrong and avoids root causes in some self serving attempt to justify their failures or live with that existential fear. Most people I have known professionally when I was a provider, and personally since I became a victim, who were suicidal didn't have some unexplainable mental illness. Their depression and psychological issues were entirely rooted in real life things that could be solved or mitigated, but people, systems, society refuses to solve them because it costs money...and money matters more than lives. Very few people have primary, intractable mental illnesses.

I tried one last time to talk to my family recently...very right wing, faux Christian, self-righteous, bigoted people who think those in need are weak, didn't try hard enough, are to blame. They have never been decent people and I avoided them my entire adult life but was forced to grovel when my health got worse and I was denied official assistance. It's been nothing but misery and makes everything worse. It's a gravity well I cannot escape, I am powerless to do anything but scream online between gurgling breaths as the riptide takes me away and they seem to enjoy that power and getting me back for all that time I did avoid them. Despite a career seeing the worst people did to each other, you never want to accept those who claim to love you are that bad as well. But people show their true selves when they have power over others, when they have an opportunity to exercise their wills, when there is someone smaller/weaker/needier in their path...people will show you who they are every time. Every time.

I am not depressed because of some temporary situation. I am not suicidal because of a chemical imbalance. I had my health stolen, my finances decimated, and my life punched down on hard by anyone who was supposed to be there for me...for whom I would have been there. I am clinging to Maslow's bottom rung and losing my grip and nobody who can do anything cares at all. Everyone I have ever known who is suicidal has some real, actionable reasons like this underlying it. But all people say is "get help"..."take pills"...."meditate". That's all putting a bandaid over a gunshot wound and ignoring the trauma underneath because dealing with that is harder and costs more. People just aren't worth that to others. I am going to die angry and alone and they all know it and do nothing but antagonize, threaten, and make it about themselves. They have important things to do like rage at "liberals" ruining the world and how unfair everyone is being to Trump. Their kids and neighbors and everyone else are tools and threats to them, nothing more, they are so incredibly ego driven it's astonishing. They say "not with MY money" to everything social for others, even as they collect their social security or use subsidized systems. That's what matters to them...their own gain and power. Not me...not others. They are legion in this country. By an accident of birth I was both ruined and abandoned. Both rooted in selfish profit driven mindsets. Had I been born in the fist world the profit driven surgery likely wouldn't have even happened, but had it I would get social assistance. Not here...here I get to go live in a ditch or die.I am too old, too broken, need too much to survive and I refuse to suffer MORE because of this backwards culture so option B it is. Thanks Murica.

No SSRI or deep breathing solves those situations...and most people who end their lives didn't have to if people would do the right thing. But the right thing isn't profitable. So they push pills, write articles, cherry pick survivor-biased tales that show someone who "got better" who didn't really have any problems at the core. They show this as some enlightenment or evidence and hold it up but the light is focused on that and ignores the piles and piles of bodies underneath who were ignored or bypassed because it was too hard and not good for business. Most people don't care about you...they don't care about society...they care about themselves.

I had a nightmare just last night about a victim I recall from early in my career...in such a horrible personal situation...who died in such a terrible way. She didn't have to. She was pushed to it and then allowed to because nobody she reached out to would help. I've seen dozens like that...and not a single one of them had to die. Every one of them was failed by their family, by their neighbors, by systems...it's shameful. But enough about silly bleeding heart things like people and the planet and whatever. There are important things to do like get those likes, those dopamine hits, shut down those losers in a political argument or downvote someone to signal how wrong they are, make those dolla dolla bills convincing someone to buy that useless to society "product" or cash out big to someone else who will because those luxury status symbols won't buy themselves. After all anyone who is suffering only has themselves to blame and didn't want it bad enough or step on enough other heads to get it. Losers.

HN doesn't allow endless comment nesting to prevent arguing so this has reached a rate limit. This isn't me not hanging on anymore than telling someone drowning with weight around their neck and more added with time to just "float harder". I did my part...other people refused and more bad things keep happening blocking me from even doing more with less the once a decade even a slim chance comes along. People and systems have been fully capable of helping all along...the refused an continue to. I have always been here...always asking for help...always contactable in person, by phone, by email...I have always been clear about my needs from day one and nobody would help when they needs were much lower. People and systems in this country who can simply will not. It's everyone for themselves and all of those people thinking they deserve it and are the sole reason they succeed. Not a single system that I paid into and is meant to support people like me has done so. Not a single person who promised to stand by me like my former partner and family has done so. The ones who said "trust the doctors and dont worry we will always be here for you" when I was doubting more surgery. In all this time only one person has EVER offered a realistic potential plan for bespoke work that theoretically met all my needs, but my health declined more, the person I loved the most in this world ended their own life, and I could not get things in order enough to take that opportunity and it is now gone forever. My family who has seen what has happened to me have decided it has to be my fault since so much bad cannot happen to someone good. They blame me for their own failed 3rd and 4th marriages or any other miseries. They don't give a shit about me and I was only ever allowed to be here so they can lord it over the other family and have someone to punch down to and blame for their failings and that utility isn't even worth it for them anymore, because everything is about them and their egos and greed.

So what can I do? I can't squeeze blood from a stone. You can't plead with me to rescue myself from a riptide in a hurricane. You can't expect me to make desperate advice that never really works, or works one time out of 100,000,000 to somehow work THIS time. I don't have that power. I am sorry it worries you but even that's about your feelings...doesn't do anything practical for me but make me. I am sorry it upsets you but how someone else feeling bad about my betrayal and end isn't something I can do anything about. Should I pretend its all ok so nobody has to feel bad and die quietly Nobody REALLY cares...proof is in the pudding. People act in their own self interests nearly every time and my life doesn't further anyone's own self interests. I was a naive idiot to believe most others thought like I did...like the handful of rare souls I have met in life like my grandfather...altruistic and quietly helping. Doing the right thing and not blaming victims/ The distress anyone may feel momentarily reading this...like they do when they see any tragedy...will pass and they will go back to their Starbucks. 99% of people simply DO NOT CARE about others and the proof is there every minute of every day. They have far more important things to worry about like egos and profits. They will be far more angry about me in my last breaths criticizing them than they will be about my life collapsing entirely. I have seen it happen to people all my life...nothing changes.

When I needed a leg up to get back a sustainable life everyone who could help and every system ignored me and failed me. When it got worse and I could still manage partially but would need some help long term everyone who could help and every system ignored me and failed me. Now that it's in a state that will require long term support for me to even survive at all everyone who could and every system ignores me. I have done all I can...nobody does it alone but I am expected to as I hurtle toward the bottom. Gravity will win and I can't do a thing about it.

I cannot afford to live anywhere without help and even the poor quality help with mean and resentful family that I have where I am now is going away. I haven't just NOT tried to find alternatives. I've fought and failed for years. Things don't work, you are blamed, and people always betray you. I'm not wanting this end. I didn't choose this. I just will not survive homeless, or in constant stress, and am sick of being emotionally abused by shit people. My quality of life is already so poor I cannot suffer worse. I have reached my coping limit in all ways and there is no help. If I could afford to live on my own sustainably I'd leave this miserable country who's systems ruined my life. All a moot point anyway. There is no love, social support, family, anything. Who wants to live in a world where most people are so terrible anyway to allow this to happen to so many people as long as they get theirs. My cat is the only life I care about anymore and I cannot even ensure her future because I cannot ensure mine. I know how I sound. I am out of options and it enrages me. I know who I am and what I have done...it's everyone else who forgot.

Even if it were legal where I am...and it's not because of more American nonsense...I cannot afford it. I cannot afford MORE expense and am already sinking as it is. And again at this point pain control is like splinting the sprained ankle on a drowning person...they are still going under. If my basic life were not so terrible the pain would need less management. Even healing it entirely now wouldn't solve my problems since I am so far down in every way I'd just die pain free. It would take a long time of stability and security to stabilize and even then I am never getting back the quality of life I earned and deserve. But it's all pointless anyway because I am not even getting the splinted sprained ankle.

I don't mean to sound rude toward you and I know you mean well. Thank you for that. I have just crossed that line from despair into rage because I know I COULD live...but that I will not because it's not profitable for anyone for me to do so. That would enrage anyone but people deny this can happen to them while ignoring the actual solutions for those it does happen to. I have fought, begged, and raged about it for ages now and I will still be gone and it won't even register. I have learned I simply do not matter. Most people are terrible and most people are who make the rules of the game.

I have tried multiple radiothermal sympathectomies in Europe to some effect, ruled out spinal cord stimulators years ago after talking to docs in Europe I trusted and patients who were unsatisfied with them (plus the cost is insane). Every procedure done in this country has made me worse or just cost me for nothing. I have no insurance. Fall in all the gaps for things. Honestly a low stress lifestyle with control of environment and temps etc is the best pain management I have ever had. Last time I was able to move to Europe and have a small flat in a place amenable to me and away from the assholes here I felt a lot better and managed without strong meds...meds which cause other problems, cost too much, and are increasingly difficult to access.

But my living situation now is very unstable and hostile and stress worsens pain and hopelessness. You can't solve that with pills and procedures. On top of that it's not as simple as "solving pain". I have lost all forms of security, have no family or social reliability, have obviously severe depression and anxiety because of all of this, keep taking more hits in all regards, and you can't just plug one hole while there are 7 others in the boat and an 8th about to blow etc. I will never have a full and good life, but a survivable one is possible just not accessible. I don't want to disclose my location online since I have been very candid about my situation as all I need is someone calling the authorities and causing me more loss of agency and massive medical debt. They won't help with what I really need but will 100% "help" by locking me up and feeling good about themselves.

I don't want more surgery or devices or procedures. I don't need more doctors. I have (actual not dramatized) PTSD about doctors and hospitals now. I don't trust them with the exception of two in Europe who actually helped me. Here the have never helped and have literally ruined my life. I need my basic needs secured and a peaceful and stable environment away from hostile people, in a place where I am not one emergency or major problem away from complete and permanent debt losing the tiny bit I have left.

Orthopedic surgeries on lower limbs that was never needed...made even worse by another round of surgery meant to "fix" the first wrong one. The second was done incorrectly as well and was something different than I even consented to. This all created a lot of problems, new damage, and pain. Then the rest of the dominoes fell. Every system meant to protect and assist failed to do so. The doctors lied and their lawyers were more powerful. The disability system was adversarial and cherry picked the doctors lies whilst ignoring evidence I provided. The appeal went to the same judge who was hostile and denied me the first time. There was never any help throughout this. Nothing but failures and blame. After all if someone loses so often it must be them right? Then when you get depressed they retcon THAT as the cause of everything. That's what my family decided as they turned their backs. That I should have known and was somehow at fault. I would never trust an American doctor again, and hate this country and it's hatred for social systems, but I am trapped here now.

I am not just playing emo and choosing not to go on because life is a drag. I have lost everything and everyone and live in severe pain and just existing takes all my energy. I have tried over and over again to work enough to have some sort of life but my body fails and that takes the mind with it. I was denied social assistance. Abandoned by family. Nothing has gone right since this was done to me. While I would love to help others again as I once did...I cannot manage myself and there is not sufficient help here. I want out of this country back to the only place I have ever really enjoyed living in Europe but I have not been able to realize that either. The last thing I have the energy for is something like law school. I'd need a lot more of Maslow's lower rungs secured before I could attempt something like that and I'd never be able to do it on a normal schedule. I am old and broken and on a thread. I have reached my mental coping limit after many years of pain and decline and abandonment.I need consistent help and stability in a healthy environment to survive. That has been denied and I have had nothing but the opposite. So there will be no survival.

I was advised to have surgery I didn't need and it ruined my life. I will be ending it soon because of all the pain and loss and abandonment and not one of them will care or help prevent that outcome because they got paid. Nobody said "do nothing". They all advised surgery. They advised surgery multiple European doctors later said was never needed and wasn't appropriate. Every one of those doctors attacked when confronted about the outcome and necessity...called me a liar and mental and that the pain and disability was not real. They said I was just trying to get a big payday from them. Everything was about protecting their profits. From the moment I was victimized people started blaming me and trying to discredit me. Doctors, staff, their lawyers, administrators. They never admit fault and will cover each other's back. I have met many people like me...victims of this system. American hospitals and doctors operate for profits not as a public service. They don't get their big houses and fancy cars and status without that precious surgery income. It's very much about bad faith in the American Healthcare Business. People don't want to believe it and think because they haven't had their life taken from them that it's great and people like me are extreme outliers. The number THREE cause of death in America is doctors and hospitals killing people. But nobody cares until it's them. Bad faith is part and parcel with for profit anything and healthcare is one of the biggest for profit cabals on them all in America. Anyone who believes otherwise is just preserving their own income stream or sanity because they need to believe the system will be there for them. As long as "other people" are the victims then for most people it's all fine. I had a life...I had a future...I deserve to live safely and without pain...and I am denied this because they stole my health and means to earn. They made my value zero. Bad faith is their mission statement.

I am greatly offended by your post. I don't understand why people use the same excuses like survivorship bias over and over again when they are so obviously unfair and wrong. I don't understand why people need to prop up their own successes as something innate to them and their hard work while dismissing others who work just as hard but fail as "sitting on their asses complaining". I simply don't understand human ego and how it drives most people and causes them to elevate themselves in their minds while tearing others down. I don't understand how they can actually believe everyone else is just lazy or not as deserving.

I will be dead by end of year because I am broken in about every way and have no survivable path. When I was not broken and was a firefighter I was treated entirely differently by society and by individuals. I must be BRAVE and STRONG and GOOD and DESERVED my life and praise and whatever. I tried to be those things but they judged me on their ideas about me and my job and as long as those were "good" then I was a "good" and "deserving" person. I didn't get that job, a notoriously difficult field to get hired in, on my own. Sure I tried my best to prepare and be a good candidate, but luck and connections helped too as they do for anyone who succeeds despite their belief it's all them. No matter how "admirable" one's station seems to society nobody thrives alone and EVERYBODY deserves basic human needs and respect. Once I lost all of that life and "status" due to doctor inflicted disability a predictable downfall ensued because people are mostly all the same self serving personalities. There was a period of sympathy and promises of assistance to help me "get a life back". Then as systems and programs inexplicably denied my the help everyone was sure I deserved, and they were sure would be there for them when they needed it, and when my attempts to do MORE with LESS failed, people shifted their behavior towards me. Suddenly I was a threat to their egos and this their security in themselves. A threat to their own view of the just world and what they wanted to deny could happen to them.

As one would expect when that happens to you...when you lose your physical health...your mental health declines. It snowballs as your finances and relationships declines and disappear. No matter how hard you try or what SHOULD happen things keep falling. Everyone starts tearing you down and spending your energy for you in unrealistic ideas because they can't lose that way...they get to believe they could do it and they get to dismiss you and not feel guilty when you cannot because it's obviously your being lazy or not deserving it. Once in a blue moon someone offers you a much needed PIECE of the puzzle but since you are flying down the hill you cannot even keep a hold of that piece and it flies out of your hand and the person offering it usually gives you an exasperated tut like "well I tried you just didn't want it bad enough". You get angry because you KNOW it's possible to live and even thrive in some way if you could just have consistent help...but you know help isn't profitable so nobody is going to do that. You get MORE depressed. That depression is blamed for all your ills. You are blamed for people's advice failing. You are "sitting on your ass complaining" to everyone who doesn't realize how lucky they have been, how they could manage things when younger or with the help of society or others that people cannot manage when they are older, broken, broke, abused. Who think a drowning person can just "swim harder" because they need to believe they will be able to if they ever get caught in a riptide. This is soul crushing...because it happens over and over and over and you cannot even read things online anymore because you see people blaming, judging, denying policies that can help...and you know it's hopeless.

Think about that next time you get upset at people who didn't succeed like you did. Try to understand they wanted to live...wanted a future...just as bad as you did. Try to understand they don't deserve it any less than you and that you didn't do it on your own even if you think so. Try to understand we are human beings and not slights to you ego or proof that you are better or that anyone can do it. The world doesn't work like that and many good and decent people suffer and sink every day because instead of working together and helping it's all Thunderdome and ME ME ME...even more so in the USA where people have decided basic social protections are "theft" and "wrong" and since I cannot get to and stabilize in a caring first world nation I give up on humanity entirely. There are not enough people who don't live in ego for anything to change in time for me. Even this...will just "offend" people like that rather than change anything. It's venting of hopeless pressure and ultimately nobody really cares. Another empty rant of agonal breaths and the same false beliefs about victims and those suffering will just march on because I have learned with humans it's 99.9% all about the ego. That's one good thing about being rid of this life...send me to cat heaven because people suck and I don't want to be around them even in some afterlife.

Like most behavior in living things, cats are a product of their environment, how they are treated, how their needs are met. Lots of people "do it wrong" then blame the animal. The family I live with for a while longer went through a dozen cats in 3 litters over the first year or so I was here as the matriarch kept getting pregnant and they would never take her to the vet. Most of the kittens disappeared quickly. They had to live in a garage and I assume they were killed by wildlife in this rural place. I had enough and took the eldest female kitten to get spayed and intended to take the mother next and the others when of age but the mother and the remaining little ones ran off or were killed as well and the one I had was the only one left. She is the best, and really only good thing in my life now, and she is expressive and has clear emotions and personality around me because I spend time with her and treat her well. She isn't "allowed" in the house by them but when they are gone I bring her in and she will curl up with me and purr away.

The family generally ignores her. They are "put food and water down once a week" sort of people. One does the occasional petting when walking in or out and it's convenient, and one person especially claims she is "mean" and hasn't once gone out just to socialize with her. She isn't mean...she just doesn't trust them. That's something many people don't seem to innately understand and I don't get it. You have to build trust and be consistent in how you treat life. If you treat them like things, shout, swat, or ignore them, it's you who are unfriendly and wrong. In my opinion your true character comes out in how you treat life you have power over. Whether a kitten, puppy, homeless person, employee whatever. I do the best I can for her given the "rules" they set in their house, but not being able to ensure her future as my life declines rips my heart out. I know they won't take proper care of her and I see no future where I have stability to protect her. I've tried to adopt her out before, but they refused to allow it out of some weird ego driven feeling of insult they are crap pet owners, which is a demonstrable fact. The thought of claiming she ran off and sneaking her to someone has crossed my mindm but there are so many homeless cats here its near impossible to find someone in short order. I put in my will that I want them to rehome her and left some money toward it, but I expect that to be ignored like all other requests are.

I know all of that may sound mental or ridiculous to some. My life is collapsing and it brings out intense emotion and focus on what is truly important. She has been a light for me. My family are "its just an animal/tool/mouser" types. But to me she is a living thing that feels emotions and pain and deserves a life. To me that's more important than some TV show or Facebook argument or "I don't want hair on the carpet" or the new boat or whatever other stupid egotistical material bullshit they think matters more than making sure she is fed or not locked out of the garage. I am sure my own situation magnifies my empathy, there but I wish people would consider what really matters more often. Life matters more than things. I am going to go feed her then bring her in now for a stealth cuddle session. She will probably claw bloody "play" gashes in my hand today as a reward for talking her up ;) The love scars are worn proudly. I need to start wearing some leather gloves when I antagonize her.

In my experience moving from a culture that's miserable for you can make all the difference. I have lived in places that were night and day from where I am now and want to get back but cannot find a sustainable way.

If you are moving from Ohio to Indiana or from one town to another where you are then sure not much will change. But I don't think a lot of people realize how different societies and priorities are outside their bubbles. Where I am is the worst sort of bubble culturally and socially I could possibly be in for my mental health. Completely opposite to my core values. But desire isn't enough to "move". You need health, money, assistance.

My email is in my profile if you are inclined. I would be interested to know if you have come across ideas I have not. It's usually somewhere from nothing to useless on the advice scale. Then you have to not only deal with disappointment, but people's "offense" at their advice not working as well. I tend to cycle from waking with some desperate hope something will present itself...to becoming despondent and resigned to flip the switch by night, especially the days some new pain or problem presents, but try to get by thinking "just try one more day and hope"...but an artificial limit of days has recently been placed by others so even "one day at a time" indefinitely doesn't work. People can only take so much.

I hear you. I was denied all SSDI etc after years of fighting. Credits expired entirely now. I am "too poor" for a subsidized ACA plan. If I was a little MORE poor I could get one but you know how it is balancing things as one change cuts you off of another needed thing. You cannot win.

I've been trying to get out (back out) for a long time. It always went under because of the my health getting worse and family bailing from any support as a result, so I couldn't maintain residency another way. If everything that's happened to me had happened in a country with social systems, which likely wouldn't have since the surgeries that disabled me were profit driven and unneeded, I would at least have a chance to live. I want to live. I am not some emo woe-is-me case. There is just nothing but closed doors in front of me and the place I am now in is closing to me as well. The ONE time in all these years one DID open thanks to someone kind, more went wrong with health and family and I couldn't get through it before it shut. Your life shouldn't depend on one lucky chance from a stranger.

I think it's great you are working to better lives and applaud that. It's not for lack of effort by the truly good people that things are like this. It's not a failure of yours and those like you. The failure is of the selfish, greedy, narcissistic, unempathetic, etc and the system they built. Nothing is going to change in my lifetime, let alone the actual, short, practical time I have coming up to effect any change. The hope is gone and that's why rants are all that's left and even those get snuffed out when they can with arguments and voting. I hope you change the world with your efforts...I really do.

Sorry you experienced that. I understand you intimately for all the good that does. I've been both provider and patient and know how wrong it all is here. I have been done with this country for a long time, but every attempt to stabilize elsewhere was ruined by the damage done to me here as I cannot independently meet the requirements. Some sick irony. Taking away someone's health, in a pay to play society without safety nets, is mostly a death sentence. If I had a way out of here back to Europe that was sustainable I'd take it but the clock is running out on me. Other people are always the one dictating if I get to live or not and I have lost all agency. Opting out of it all is the only power I have left and if I am not careful even that will be denied and more trouble added. The same system that won't help to live will forcibly prevent you from saying "no more". Ah but for an accident of geographical birth. Wrong place and wrong time. I hope you can at least get back to the EU and have a better chance...if that's possible for you. But I also know damage done travels with us as well.

I've spent every night for the last few months trying to find a way/reason to keep going mentally. Before that it was every other night, a few times a week, few times a month etc. Before the inciting event for this decline, badly done and ultimately unneeded surgery fifteen years ago taking away everything, I never ONCE considered this. In fact I was positive when discussing the topic that I would NEVER do such a thing and that there would always be a way, always be family or friends, always be a system there to hold me up. Because that's what I had been indoctrinated to believe. It wasn't true.

I worked hard, in a career beneficial to society. I helped people, always had great empathy, and treated others with respect. Even then I didn't really get it when I would come across someone like I am now. Someone who suffered and lost it all. Someone on the edge. I did what I could to help them but I was as ignorant and naive as ever believing the rest of the system and society would give them that same attention and value. I thought it would be ok. It's not ok.

The truth is in American society has decided human life and security isn't the most important thing. It's decided INDEPENDENCE and profits and ego and the chance to be wealthy and powerful is. Everyone for themselves. Guns are rights but healthcare is an "entitlement". Equality is somehow "wrong".If you need help you are "weak" and a "loser" and "nobody is going to live off MY tax money". They think if you can even open your eyes, or type an occasional rant online, that means you can grind away like everyone else and "why don't you just" and they KNOW this is true because they KNOW they would be able to when they reached this unfathomable state. Saying this will make a lot of people angry because nationalism is an identity for many and ultimately proves the point.

About the same time my health was ruined a friend in Belgium had a similar experience. He was given social support to keep his flat, healthcare, spent a few years reeducating in a new skill and was able to reenter society and function. He has a happy life and family now. My experience was denials from government assistance programs, struggling to manage with savings and small private pension but no health insurance, watching a family full of puritanical hypocrites turn away and blame. My friend lost something of his life, but was allowed to regain one worth living and not fear every little bump being the end. He gets to have a future as a result. I do not.

Next came cycles of motivation and disappointment and trying as hard as I could to hold it together only to have things collapse because with more limits and needs nobody can manage that alone despite what everyone needs to believe for their own mental security. The root of victim blaming right there folks. Some people are always going to need help. Some can rebuild at least some but still need help doing so. Stability. Access. Caring.

After you see that help isn't coming comes the anger...then that anger slowly morphs into despair. Then one day comes this indescribable sensation that even the moment before you couldn't believe would ever TRULY happen even thinking abstractly about it. Acceptance. Not acceptance of the decline. Not acceptance of the despair. Acceptance that you aren't afraid to let all of this life go anymore. You don't WANT to not BE...but you want to not be THIS. You want suffering, judgement, isolation, pain, complete lack or agency in LIFE anymore. You are exhausted all the time and it's not worth the tiny if any moments of joy anymore.

You are still rational. You aren't running around with your underwear on your head and flinging you poo at people. You are just running on empty, You swim as hard as you can and you sink, you relax and go with it and you sink, nothing works. It's always said to be your fault, not the fact you were unceremoniously dropped in the ocean and told to fend for yourself whilst people give "advice" from the shore like "just learn how to swim" and then get offended when you cannot as if your drowning insults them. You have walked over every "next hill" for years looking for petrol, and it's never there. Or if it IS there 1/1000000000 times and some nice and truly well meaning shopkeeper is smiling and waving you there, someone else swoops in front and takes the rest or the shop closes right as you straggle up to it because you stepped in a hole and that slowed you down even more.

Despair isn't some inexplicable thing. It's 99% of the time rooted in clear, multiple causes. But this society, ESPECIALLY this society, won't face or address them. Most people like me don't end up like me out of some fault in themselves or some unsolvable problem. But it's easier to punch down for both ego fulfillment and to bolster your own feelings of personal safety because YOU are better than that and it will never happen to you. You were smart, and planned, and have good people around you. Well guess what...the "Just World" isn't.

There was a time I was an activist for health and social issues. It never had any macro effect. I tried to "just get out of you don"t like it!" Doing that alone is very, very hard and I could never get it to work permanently. The damage done here would follow me everywhere and ironically block the path to even a life in those better conditions. There was a time I thought about crazy things like applying for asylum in a more socially conscious country, but the truth is people in this situation don't get approved. I am out of fuel and hope, there is no petrol station over the next hill, and my bootstraps were worn to dust years ago. There are countless people like me and nobody here ever thinks they will be one of them.

Suffering isn't a competition and you live your own pain. Worse doesn't matter. We should all be there for each other and nobody should be left behind but there are too many selfish people who try and justify that selfishness to make it logical or unavoidable. It's a hard thing to experience when you realize the people and systems and ideas you trusted were lies and that many people live in denial of that for their own mental comforts. It's like a kind finding out there is no Santa Claus x1000.

I didn't downvote you if it matters. I agree with you about society, but American culture does not in large. Even the family who has seen this happen to me is still staunchly hard right and against their taxes funding any social programs.

"there is no version of the future that is better with you gone"

While I appreciate you as an individual, the above has objectively been proven false. Throughout this entire thing from the first surgery that took me out, no system or person here who was in a position to stop the "bleeding" and help me rebuild, or provide true safety to live, would do it. There were many people, programs, and moments where it could have turned around and they refused. Nobody here did what the promised, what they should, what was right. It was a series of blame and selfish rewriting of history and THAT is what really depressed me. Only one kind stranger from abroad offered a truly potentially workable situation a while back and my health prevented that from happening at the worst time. So the reality is whether I am here or not in a day, month, or year doesn't matter and won't matter. The ability to assure I would be has been actively denied repeatedly. Proof is in the pudding. I'd joyfully grab any realistic plan and take my cat and live a life...but there isn't one. Nobody chooses this...its forced upon them.

I was born in the USA...lived abroad for a time...had to return to the USA as my health deteriorated as a result of the American surgeries, which resulted in work aspect of European immigration failing, and then fiancee abandoned me right before our marriage so I had no legal way to stay. I never wanted to return to America. My life would never be amazing because of what was done to my health, but it was much better there. Here it's a dead end for sure.

This is me. Bad surgery and a failure of all the supposed support systems to help has ruined my life. Burned nearly everything I earned for my future. I've tried to get out of the US back to Europe where I lived before but the very losses I incurred here in health and financial security keep me from immigrating. The usual responses are victim blaming by nationalists, suggestions to pray from the religious, and "get a job" (ignoring all the health limitations I have explained as if I am making them up) from about everyone else as they deconstruct what THEY would do in their imagination. As if I would choose this life if I had better choices. I'll die in mid 40s because of this and if I was born in an actual first world nation with social systems I wouldn't have to. So add me too the statistics.

You cant take away someone's health, career, life, and leave them in constant pain for years and years, deny them assistance, and then expect them to live like any young/healthy person fighting in the grind for the "right" to pay for life, and then act shocked when they are forced to opt out of life. But if you bring this up to people all they have is the idea of locking you up in a mental hospital and adding more 6-7 figure bills. I want to live. America isn't going to let me. Most days anymore I am resigned to it and glad it will be over...but some I am angry af. The only thing I will miss of this miserable place is my cat, the only good thing in my life, and I cannot even assure her future here as the people I live with aren't responsible and nobody adopts around here. Maybe I will win the lotto before end of year and can move us both abroad.

He was not wrong. So many people define right and wrong by some system of made up rules and laws, and if someone breaks those rules or laws, even for right, people still say "they should be held accountable" as if the rule and law matter more than anything. The bad guys don't follow those rules and laws and exposing them for that, even if it violates said rules and laws, is not "wrong". It's brave and moral and right. If I was on that jury he would get a "not guilty" or jury nullification from me because despite what rules and laws he may have technically violated the system was wrong, not him. I don't care about idealistic excuses like "he should have....." because those things don't work as history proves over and over again. There are times the ends justify the means. Life is not a series of black and white rules or rule violations. The only wrong part about all of this is that they were spying on everyone to begin with, lied about it, and that nothing has been done about it since everyone was made aware. They have done a fantastic job of convincing the masses Snowden is the REAL bad guy. Shameful. If anyone insists on a trial it should be of the USG for its nefarious activities. Not the little guy for exposing them.

I am not a sw engineer and cannot work consistently or enough to earn like a normal person. That's the entire problem. My health was ruined and my finances decimated. Since without social aid your health is required to work and buy a life that puts me in an unsurvivable situation.

When the system is a competition for even the most basic human needs people will judge and define others by anything that puts them a rung up on those others. People are very fast to put people into "deserve" and "doesn't deserve" piles here. I've met loads of lying, cheating, philandering, racist etc people who would "never" hire someone who had been in legal trouble despite their own poor, often technically criminal behaviors. It makes them feel "better than" and positions them for a better chance at a life in the pay to play society.

Answered above. I cannot work in any consistent and significant way and without enough money and legal status none of the things you have when ill are available. It's not just about a location. I can't live rough or in an unstable situation. It's also not hard at all to be deported.

Because as someone said below it's not going to fix things just by being in another place I like better. Being illegal is a hard life with constant risk and lack of access to many things. It's not "really easy" at all and I don't know why anyone would think that. I need MORE stability than I have...not less. I said I am going to move because I refuse to die in this miserable country after what it's done to me. The only power I have left is to choose where it ends. It's not like I think moving will solve things in itself. I am in bad shape all around and am sick of suffering and the common response being to teach myself how to swim and get a job as a swim instructor as I am drowning. The clear lesson is society here thinks if you cannot produce consistently or enough for their ledger then you don't deserve to live. That's that.

Thank you for your kindness, but it won't happen. It's not happened in all these years and the need and issues are worse now. If I had been born in the first world with a proper social safety net I would have had help rebuilding from the start of this, and support to survive were that not possible. I've known people in my shoes who have that safety and live because of it. In this country its all about profits and if you aren't a producer of profits you don't get the privilege of life. I have to accept its over. All resisting that and fighting does it take more away and make the end worse and take away more agency. I can't stand anymore "Praying to Jesus changed my life" or "just do this hard and unstable job that even a young healthy person struggles with" advices, and seeing how many people respond with arguments about how "the market" is the right answer without caring that human life is involved. I am sick of all of it.