Wednesday, September 07, 2011

If Only Josh Could Walk In My Shoes For Awhile

A middle aged man with a fixation on young people with Autism (mocking them is sort of a fetish) wrote this little barb on the Northeast Shooters website discussion about taxes and social programs designed to help the poor and disabled. His name is Josh Manjarrez, and he was a friend to my brother in High School. Josh's political inclinations put him somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. 

That said, here is what he wrote about me:

Because there are a whole load of people who feel sorry for losers who sit at home and do nothing. They want to coddle them, and pay their bills, and let them know everything will be ok, the big bad world won't hurt them. They get to overextend themselves financially, eat for free, have a decent apartment, and get it without that silly idea of paying anything back.

They should be taking care of the people who are figuratively breaking their backs to take of their families and pay their bills on time.


Why can't we have debtor's prisons for those fine folk who don't and won't take care of their own obligations.

I reference: http://houseoffourcats.blogspot.com/
 

Try reading a couple entries if you can keep from throwing up a little.


It pleases me that Mr. Manjarrez throws up a little when he visits my blog. He seems to do it often. I wouldn't have it any other way. A little about myself before I go on.


Between the ages of 14 and 30, I worked. First, as a house-cleaner with my father, which lasted until I took a job as a short-order cook. Over the next couple of years, I worked in an art museum as a security guard, in a parking garage, and as an overnight dispatcher for hotel technicians who fixed PPV movie systems when they broke down. After that, I was a full-time student of the University of Massachusetts at Boston while working full-time on an overnight shift at a Boston hotel. After 2 years of doing that, I started working full-time at the Massachusetts' Banking Association while continuing to go to school.


During the admissions process to a Master's program, I attempted suicide. A diagnosis of clinical depression followed, and then hospitalizations in some psychiatric wards (therapy and medications). This led to my trying 15 sessions of electric-shock therapy, which erased the previous year or so worth of memories.


My diagnosis was changed, eventually, to a more complicated form of severe, crippling mental illness. This killed any hopes of working and/or continuing school. For that reason, I'm currently on Social Security Disability.


During the time in which I worked full-time, I was paying into the Social Security system in case I needed it one day. Either as an old man, or a disabled man. At the time, I had no idea that a form of schizophrenia was going to lay me low, as it were. Still, I gladly paid into the Social Security system.


Manjarrez makes a couple of points I'd like to address in two parts. He says, 


"...there are a whole load of people who feel sorry for losers who sit at home and do nothing. They want to coddle them, and pay their bills, and let them know everything will be ok, the big bad world won't hurt them. They get to overextend themselves financially, eat for free, have a decent apartment, and get it without that silly idea of paying anything back."


1. I'm not a, "loser." Anyone confronted with mental illness of this severity would be reduced to suicide, or get help from government social programs. I hope that Josh never knows what crippling mental illness is like, and that it never happens to his children or anyone else he cares about. Having defeated suicidal ideation, and given that I no longer attempt suicide, I've made myself a winner by doing this, regardless of my job situation. There are people out there who know what I'm talking about. Josh isn't one of them.


2. Nobody coddles me, or tells me that the big, bad world won't hurt me. I've experienced pain and loss that is unspeakably difficult to relate. Few know more than I just how big and bad be the world. 


If Josh were to walk in my shoes, he would know what I'm talking about. He is of a mind to mock the misfortune of others. To mock those with crippling mental illness as, "free-loaders." If it were up to him, I'd be living on the street, or more likely dead. 


Happily, his Fascist politics and laissez-fair economic outlook keep him pissing and moaning in the political margins. Go ahead...cry it out and face the fact that most people don't want disabled people to starve on the streets or commit suicide or whatever other horror you'll meet with apathy. 


Enjoy yourself! But never think for a second that you and others of your social Darwinist ilk will ever get their way. 


Onward!

1 comment:

Apocalypse Cow said...

I wonder how much Mr. Manjizz pays for cable every month? I bet it is more than what he pays(or should be paying) in taxes to support social services.