And you're important. And as you are still alive at this moment, your task here isn't finished.

I completely relate to your problem. I'm struggling a lot with food allergies but my safe foods aren't heart healthy. So every day I try to tweak my diet and test new and healthier foods, while trying to keep the immune system and stomach happy. I've been struggling with this for 6 months now and it is awful. At least my health care is covered but there's no magic medicine for me, just trial and error.

I can also relate to your depression. I'm with you. I find that exercise helps, but I keep getting injured so I have to tweak that too. It's important to persevere though. I'm walking and doing yoga. I hear meditation helps but I like yoga better. Also I'm trying to read some cheery and funny books between reading depressing political news. We really do need to deal with our emotional balance, to make it through another day. Or hour.

Take care of yourself. None of us can see how this ends. We worry of course, but we don't know the future. There's hope.

I wish I could find a little hope. It is very difficult to see at the moment.

You matter. But i don't know what to say about this country. Please keep posting and reaching out here

Neither do I. I find it difficult to understand why just under half of the nation wants us to be like some cartoon villain on Saturday morning.

Maybe we were always that and we just kept on staying deluded because the truth was too much to deal with? I dunno.

But stay alive.

I swore that I would never just 'exist'. And, that is exactly what I am doing these days. Hell, I wrapped three packages in brown paper for shipping on Sunday. I still can barely use my right hand today because of it. From wrapping a few packages?

How freaking worthless is that?

Maybe you can get disability and cash in!

Had an attorney both times. Social Security told me to kiss off. Both times.

Sorry.

But, it is why I find it very funny when people praise Social Security. I have found that they don't mind giving it to the wealthy, who absolutely do not need it, but they balk at doing so for everyone else unless they are forced to. And, about half of us cannot afford to force them to. So, we just slowly waste away. I mean, we are not making anyone rich, and we are not rich ourselves, so in the modern America's eyes, people like me have no worth or merit.

You'd think they would at least try to streamline the ability to remove ourselves since they don't seem to want us around. But, that would start a revolt, so they act like they care while in actuality making it impossible for most to get anything from the fund they paid into their entire lives.

By design, of course.

I’m just so sorry. I feel like anything I say is completely inadequate.

I wish I could make you a cup of hot chocolate or anything you might like and sit with you awhile.

That is why I am glad I found the DU. I sometimes feel that this may be the last refuge of the sane.

I went to the ER around 9 a.m.. They took my vitals and drew blood. The results of the bloodwork were on their website in about five minutes. After seeing the results of the vitals and the bloodwork and after seeing just how insane the ER was at the moment, I decided to leave. They were slammed and they had more than one 'Karen' walking around berating everyone as if the entire staff were put there just for their convenience. Plus, lots of hacking and sniffling. I did not want to keep my hubby or myself in that environment just to have them send me home anyway.

But, seeing as how our hospital systems are all going to be like this soon enough, I guess it is time to really face the reality of the situation. Healthcare is dead for most of us. Oh sure, it is out there, but after the financial damage, you might as well be dead anyway.

I don't know why I expected society to progress. The evidence to the contrary was right there in my face the entire time. I was as deluded as the rest, I guess. Too much Star Trek. Too much 'hopeful' science fiction. Too much dreaming. Well, dreamers get rewarded with dream solutions. We need real solutions. Which we as a nation don't seem to want, it seems.

Moral lessons from the Twilight Zone too. And the dawning of the age of Aquarius…

I’ve been watching us go in the wrong direction since 1980. I was born in 1961 so I saw some of the optimistic times.

Interestingly, to me anyway, peak energy coincided with the start of the decline of our nation. As the pie started getting smaller, things got worse and worse.

But I’m old now. I feel sorry for the younger people. I’ve had cancer and have MS/transverse myelitis. Chronic kidney disease. I really doubt I have more than ten or fifteen years ahead of me. I rather hope I don’t have more than a year or two ahead of me, to be honest.

But I guess I will take it one minute at a time. For today, I have a bed to sleep in, a roof over my head, food to eat, access to medical care, and a vehicle. That makes me luckier and wealthier than 75% of the rest of the world.

So I’m okay, today.

Hope you are okay today too.

Whether or not this a good thing depends on who you ask.

(There are a few folks out there who would celebrate my passing. What is funny is that I never did anything to them. They just decided that they hated everything about me and that I should contract a wasting disease and suffer the longest anyone has suffered. I have no idea why they want this. They just do. I suppose it is part of the dangers of doing a public job (i.e.: performer).

I am glad you are doing okay at the moment.

Sometimes people hate out of jealousy.

Or maybe someone else did something to them and they mistakenly attributed the harm to you.

I’m glad you are still here.