Overheard, a lady talking on the phone in the waiting room at the doctor’s office*. I’m hoping that was a code for something because I can’t imagine what kind of bologna needs advance warning.
*This happened a few months ago but this never got published because with tumblr you get what you pay for.
*sigh*
Wait.. what poverty line are they talking about? Because currently in Michigan, the poverty line for a single person-household is $11,170/year. Actually, that’s the poverty line for the 48 contiguous states.
Also, $11/hour x 40 hours/week x 52 weeks/year = $22,880…
At my last job, a few months before I quit, I got bumped from $11.25/hr at 30hr/week to $25k salary (no benefits). It was the worst thing that could have happened to me at the time, and not just because I was doing more than twice the work for only a few thousand dollars a year more & couldn’t collect overtime. I lost my “community health plan” (*ahem* medicaid) but the health insurance that I had to buy to make up for the missing medicaid cost more than my salary increase.
In the end I was taking home less money than I would have if I had declined the raise & getting worse health benefits. After about 5 months & 3 insurance premium hikes, I couldn’t afford it anymore and had to let my health insurance plan expire.
I was uninsured, with an untreated chronic pain condition for about 8 months before I could find another job with paid benefits. I bought my pain meds illegally & rationed them for times that I couldn’t afford to be sick. All because of a raise. Something I should have been able to celebrate.
God bless America, right?
It was like, “YOU KNOW, YOUR CHECK ENGINE LIGHT HAS BEEN ON FOR A WHILE*.”
I deleted that shit because I’m pretty sure that email is talking about the oil change the car asked for a while ago, which I already gave it, but it took me like a week after that to figure out how to shut the maintenance light off. But the bottom line is that I already took care of the damn light & the maintenance too, so get off my case, car!
It’s crazy how smug I feel for outwitting an automated email. Totally uncalled for.
*Paraphrasing, but you get the idea. Just know that the original text was vague & annoying.
This is the most exhaustive list of advice I’ve ever seen on how to protect & hopefully remove yourself or someone you know from an abusive living situation.
No matter who you are, if you’re reading this you should bookmark these two links, then share them with everyone you know. I never imagined that I would need this sort of information until one day I needed it very badly to protect a friend & wasn’t in the state of mind to google for it or ask around for advice. We did it alone, safely & successfully, and we took most of the steps outlined above. I only wish we had known at the time that we were making the right choices rather than just hoping that we were.
What struck me was how very few people were able or willing to help her. Domestic situations are very “he said, she said” and unsurprisingly, what a scared, hysterical female says holds very little weight with most people, even family. When she’s not in hysterics people become suspicious that things aren’t as bad as they sound. Then they send her back home to live through it all over again.
If someone you know is in danger you cannot wait for a superhero. You have to be one.
I don’t think the rules are different in a lit public area. Do not.
This is a good point. You give an inch…
Personal space is personal space. Creeping up on anyone, even someone you know, you run the risk of becoming a self defense dummy. It triggers a danger response in people & that’s not exactly a polite thing to go around doing to strangers.
I am honestly, or at least I was until I started typing this, sitting here with my head in my hands because oh my fucking god, we are never going to get equal access to reproductive health care and we are never going to get comprehensive sex education. Never. People think that using the word “vagina” to talk about actual vaginas is offensive. SPELL CHECK STILL THINKS THAT “VAGINAS” IS NOT A WORD. God, we might as well just cut our own heads off and throw them in the ocean.
When is the HB 5712 vote? September?
That’s when I’m going to start walking toward the ocean.
Thy name is Family
