@Passerby #184167
Everything you describe feels "normal" to me, in the sense that it is familiar. The way it's always been. It's "normal" in the exact same way that growing up with teachers who regularly ask their students to come to an OBGYN clinic to protest and offering them extra credit if they do is "normal." Or working three jobs in order to pay for the most basic services and necessities. Or being afraid to call the cops to report a crime or an assault because there's a real, nonzero chance that you'll be arrested, tortured or outright murdered by those same officers you called for help, or have your property and money confiscated legally by them and sold with no hope of it ever being returned (yes, this is a thing that actually happens, and no, you don't have to be found guilty of a crime).
A friend of mine from France once described America to me as the New York of the world: everything is here, and it's amazeballs, *if you have money,* and if you're willing to be as vicious, feral, poisonous and unforgiving as the next dozen people in line who desperately want to kill and eat you, knowing full well that you'll be the next victim if you fuck up or even just get unlucky. I'm paraphrasing here. This is what *normal* to me is like: not good, but familiar. I do understand that things are different elsewhere, at least to some degree, but I have no good basis for comparison; it honestly feels unfair, and always has, but I am called stupid for wishing it could be otherwise and so I usually keep my peace. For me, this is is just the way the world has always been.
As to my situation, I...guess it could be worse. I have ongoing balance issues due to a combination of the antibiotics I was on for most of this year (Google for cefepime and it's side effects), severe muscle weakness, and the altered architecture of my left foot. My vision is likewise affected. I seem to have issues with food and drink now that I didn't before, and what feels like permanent, neverending brain-fog. But I can walk, and I don't have to wear a prosthetic. I'm not dead. I get a whiff of the uncanny valley from what my foot looks like, but it works. I hope it remains that way, though I suspect that at some point, it will become an issue again. I was warned by my doctors that it might.
I didn't take your comment as a dick measurement contest. Quite the contrary, in fact. I've lost homes before; I've lost everyone and EVERYTHING before, though not quite so badly as this might yet cost me. I don't wish it on anyone (well, almost). There isn't a pain that compares to it. I don't want to compare my pain to anyone else's, but I would spare you that if only I could.
I don't know how my current situation is going to turn out. I'm not in a good place, I've tried to limit my exposure to news and cut my social media consumption to try to preserve what shreds of optimism and hope I still have. I do not.even know if I'm going to survive this. I'm terrified and lonely. But that doesn't mean I can't look at someone else, a friend, and feel real, visceral horror and sympathy for what they're going through.
Good luck to you.
