Hi Everyone,

Dunno if anyone here truly remembers me, I have been gone for about two years. Its been a very long time since I signed into this account, but I never truly left. I lurked everyday since I signed out, pretty much, but my mental health pretty much precluded an internet presence. I found out about a few things that really spooked me from posting from this username ever again, but I decided to sign back in, mostly because I am having so much trouble getting over my heartbreak and worry about the recent election. I feel like I am on the floor with nowhere to go. My wife has shut down and doesn’t want to talk about it, to be honest I am super worried about being outwardly political any more, so much so that when it was clear Harris was going to lose I immediately took my yard sign down. Not out of embarrassment, mind you, I am still proud of my vote, but out of fear. I fear ending up on some list somewhere, fear of losing social credit, sticking out like a sore thumb and having thugs show up at my door with a black bag. 

I really have nowhere to go with my fears. Democrats, progressives and liberals alike are getting smeared to hell and back across the social media I visit (mostly YouTube and Reddit), and here is one of the few places left I can think of that can truly empathize with what I am going through. With the existential dread I feel right at the particular moment. Almost midnight on the west coast and I am once again up worrying, doomscrolling, feeling a unique and extremely uncomfortable sense of anger, sadness and powerlessness. 

For the past two years I have been out of work due to disability (post-Covid symptoms including post exercise asthma, delayed onset muscle soreness in my thighs and knees, dizziness upon sitting and standing, inability to lift more than 20 pounds for more than 1 or 2 minutes, brainfog and lack of concentration).  I was also diagnosed with Degenerative Disc Disease in my lower back (without myelopathy). The worst thing of all has been my pre existing Depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and social phobia. Since the pandemic, since I left this website, they have all progressed into basically agoraphobia. I can leave the house for short amounts of time (to do a small grocery shop for instance) but I cannot, for the life of me, be anywhere too long or with too many people. I get overwhelmed and bolt to the car. I cant work, some days I cant get out of bed. As such, I have been fighting for SSDI for two and a half years. I have been denied twice (good old invisible illnesses), but I am appealing with help of a lawyer and am awaiting a court date in front of an ALJ. For the next 12-14 months.

And of course, this couldn’t have been settled before Trashy Don was elected, oh no, my court date had to land sometime while his small, pudgy and apricot fingers are all over the knife threatening to absolutely gut Social Security, including SSDI, the very program I am applying for. I also have student loans I have discharged through Total and Permanent Disability, but wouldn’t ya know it, the GOP has all three branches squarely in their back pocket. Will they get rid of the program that allows me to live a somewhat normal life? Will they get rid of the program that forgives debt I have absolutely no chance of paying? Probably. 

Ellie, my wife, is so down she doesn’t want to hear any of this. I can’t blame her. Her mom is an immigrant who is legal here and has a permanent green card but who the fuck cares? She’s a brown person with an accent so her and I fully expect a call sometime in February/March saying she has been put in some camp somewhere, awaiting either deportation or the Apricot Asshole’s final solution when no country is willing to accept millions of poor immigrants. My wife is distraught and shattered. Luckily, I guess, If we’re hunting for silver linings — my wife has all of her paper work in order and carries her passport card with her and also has a professional degree, I doubt she will be messed with. But then again who knows? 

Speaking of her professional degree — whats gonna happen with her loans? Her PSLF (as she works in mental health care for a county)? We are very lucky that she makes a livable wage as right now I don’t work. But we rely on stuff like Income Based Repayment to pay somewhere near a sane payment for her loans. Without that, it would be hundreds of dollars extra a month. The GOP just planning to…what? Repeal that shit? Make millions of people pay hundreds of millions of dollars extra? This helps our economy exactly…how again?

So here I’ve sat for 3 days trying to figure out exactly what our future will be. Will SSDI even exist if I get through my court date? It been keeping me up at night, through the 100mg trazodone I take to sleep. I am so worried, for migrants, for the homeless, for people with severe and persistent mental illness, for the neurodivergent, mexicans and latinos and arab americans. And I am worried about me, about my mother in law, about people here on dailykos who say they wanna end everything. Everything about this is shit, and we are all knee deep in it. Thats why I think you guys are the only ones that can truly know the despair I am living in. The type of despair you smile away because you dont want to seem unhinged in front of people but deep down you are screaming at everyone you have an interaction with. You wonder about everyone you talk to — did you vote to end my life? To throw me in a camp because I am not useful to the economy? To get rid of the programs that give me a semi-normal life after a COVID infection and mental illness robbed me of a normal one? Are you a person that I have to be on my toes around, waiting for something hateful, ignorant, dark and fully believed to fall out of your mouth? Are you going to be a person I end up respecting only to see a Trump flag on your truck? It drives me away from everyone, because I have to sort out whether or not this person would like to see my life destroyed or taken.

I guess I come back here, hat in hand, out of a profound sense of loneliness. The non-political spaces I occupy are just an absolute shit show of bonkers MAGA crap that I just can’t look at any of it. So here I am, back to Kos. I don’t have anyone in my support system (besides my wife who has made it clear she is shutting politics out of her life for the time being) who really understands my feelings here. You guys do. Probably better than anyone. 

This election crushed my soul.