Oh - I guess I am indignant, but mostly it's just wondering how people make it across the street.
You know, getting public assistance is a really confusing process (at least to me) and many of these same people know all the ins and outs.
When we applied for disability for my husband, it took I think over a year to get approved, and I had to constantly stay of top of it, and I was pretty organized.
Just one of those WTF things in life I guess.
Many homeless people refuse to go to shelters, even in freezing weather, because they are afraid of being robbed of what little they may have, like a pair of shoes, gloves or a coat. Others choose to simply have a sayso about their lives, no matter how 'stupid' it may sound to you or me.
True, eoe. The problems with robbery and rape are constant. I might be tempted to stay under a bridge than to risk harm at a shelter.
Some street people are simply insane. I remember a former chef who stayed at a homeless shelter for a couple of weeks. The director told me that the shelter had meals that were as good as those you would find at a top notch restaurant. Sometimes he would come in for shelter and sometimes refuse. Again, it is a form of power or, at times, mental illness.
Are we our own worst enemies?
hmm.. yes and no.
I think it was Kicky who said something about a victim mentality. And for the meaning in this thread , I think he is absolutly right.
It has come to the point that vitcims have everything. So, in todays society, it only makes a bit of sense to take on the victim mentality , and the victim role. There is always empathy to be had if you are a victim. Always help to be found and .. usually.. all you have to do is open your mouth.
" Oh , my poor mother, she is sick, and in taking care of her i forgot to blah blah blah blah.. and that cost me my job blah blahblah blah .. not here I am stuck in this blah blah blah.. and if only my mom had not have gotten sick..... "
And you know the reaction that person will get?
"oh man , how horrible, How did you survive? here have a cookie In fact, let me give you several cookies.. would you like me to feed it to you as well? I understand how you feel, and i can se why you dont want to raise your hand to feed yourself.."
It is too simple to get things done for you if you are the victim. If you can play the race card, the poverty card, the single mom card, or any other " disabling places in society" cards.. then WOW.. you can get alot.
A great example would be the people calling for dialysis.. Everyone else in their lives pities them for what they have to do. Everyone else makes a little extra effort to be nice and helpful to them " because they are sick " so.. why not the doctors office too? I mean, on a regular basis, if they miss their appointment, the doctor , nurse, or receptionist usually heds off theri statements with " Im sorry to hear that. It is ok. I can reschedule" . Those simple statements just validated the victim mentality -reward- of instant empathy.
hmm.. im rambling.. sorry.
But , hopefully.. you see my point.
Oh yeah shewof, I hear ya.
actually, I have little pt contact, I'm at a regional office, all the business end.
but when my office was situated in a clinic, I got to see a lot of what you speak of.
Oh, here's a good one.....I had to walk through the waiting room to get to my office. One day, the daughter of a pt is sitting out there (I knew her well) and she looked really weird..and scared, not good.
I asked her if every thing was ok.
She said, no, my chest hurts and I can't breath.
I grabbed a nurse, grabbed some of my aspirin because with all the drugs, they don't keep plain old aspirin.
I'm going to call 911 and she refuses, saying, no, my husbands on the way here, I have a doctors appt anyway, I'll just see him then.......WHAT!!!!?????
We were going to call 911 anyway, but just then the husband shows up and takes her.
When I saw her 2 days later, when I saw her next, there was this big long convaluted story from her that would hardly have made any sense to someone that didn't know her.
We were talking for a while and asked her if she knew how lucky she was it wasn't something worse, and she could have died.
"yeah, I was really scared, I thought I was dying" By the way she had looked the day before, I knew she was really trippin'
but she just waited for her husband. I asked her about that. her response......."Oh, I don't know"
I'm sure you've heard a million of 'em.
There is a mindset among the poorest humans that defies the logic of the rest of the world. Everybody says, why don't the poor get off their butts and work their way out of poverty. Be a self starter instead of waiting for help. Well, when I was old enough to start work (at age 16, because my brother's $1.50 per hour job 'til then was the sole support of a family of twelve) I had no conception of how to find work. Fortunately, I had relatives who built houses for a company that paid a poverty wage. I worked for $7 day and worked as hard as I knew how, never argued with the boss. The boss (a relative) began shorting my pay, sometimes not paying me at all. One day, he drove out of town to do a job and left me behind. I deperately wanted a job, but believed I had no expertise and actually feared to face anybody to ask for work. The few times I worked up the courage to ask somebody, they rejected me, because they could see I had absolutely no people skills. I was physically very healthy and strong and as smart as most people I knew. Fortunately, another relative hired me. I worked for very low pay til I was about to drop five or six days a week. I contemplated looking for work that would pull me out of this situation, but absolutely could not make a presentation to a prospective employer. And, there is one difference between the poor mindset and the rest of humanity - The ability or inability to reach out and grasp the ring, not laziness.
It took me many years to overcome this paralysis of the will to be able to take a place among the breadwinners and movers of life.
As a child, we lived on welfare, until I reached the age of fourteen or so. It was never the intent of myself or my siblings to live on welfare as adults. While there is generational welfare (or was), most of the poor want to do better than that. I dispute those who call it laziness when many can't seem to perform as we do.
Phrase that I loathe: "It isn't what you know, it's who you know."
Sure, being well connected helps, but as Edgar observed the way out of poverty is to know (or learn) the ropes, the rules, the way the world works.
Sometimes poor, bright children are encouraged. Equally often they are accused by their peers and siblings (and even by adults) of being snobbish, of trying to pretend they are better than the people they know.
Yes, Edgar. That kind of poverty is so easily overlooked, the people seem to become invisible.
I think chai tea mentioned that many of the people of whom she was speaking were not living in poverty, but were simply irressponsible.
It really is too bad that the poor that I mentioned and that Edgar lived through, are shunted aside mainly, IMO, because it is so terribly uncomfortable to see them and to listen to them and to actually think about them.. Most people don't want to know about them and eagerly encourage leaving them in their own world.
I see it as leaving them in their own world as "them". I am sincerely tired of them as a descriptive of groups at large, even of people right of center. We aren't all blob parts.
