From: cerebus@ucrmath.ucr.edu (edward tyrrill)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: welcome to reality?!
Date: 28 Jul 92 03:24:13 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of California, Riverside

In article <54943@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Bede_Jarrow@hikssrv.lib.purdue.edu (Lisa) writes:
}
}POSSIBLE SPOILER--BITTERNESS AND DEPRESSION
}
}
}
}
}Things right now seem so chaotic and strange, it's almost funny.  take this
}week:
}
}1. I get a very bad cold and am up several nights with it; I'm feeling better
}tooday though

Glad you are feeling better!

}2.  Today I find out the following:
}
}a)  the grad house has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to strip all the
}wallpaper off the hall walls on my floor as people are studying for exams. 
}paint chips are everywhere and I'm worried about how it will affect my lung
}disease. This is just after they fixed our drinking fountains (after they were
}out of circulation 2 weeks) amd finished up with the showers (they were out a
}week and we had to use the other ones down the hall), and 10 days before the
}big move (mine).

Lisa.  Don't you know that this falls under the school beurocracy rule that
states that all construction on campus will occur at the *most* inconvenient
time possible?  All schools do this.  :-(

}b) I have lunch with an advisor of a group I belong to; I gave him some used
}books I had and he informs me he'll prob. send them to Tanzania (?!)

Tanzania is just south of Timbuktu.

}c) the wonderful health insurance company tells me that if I wish to continue
}my policy after graduation it will cost me quadruple the current premium. 
}Ouch.  Since I have a pre-existing health condition I may have trouble getting
}other insurance if I don't get a good job (or even if I do; many policies will
}wait a year before paying benefits for pre-existing conditions).  I'm going to
}look at my options, but I'm thinking:  What is this, if you're not healthy,
}tough shit, Sherlock?  Welcome to reality?  What the hell did I do wrong to
}come out of school into a lousy economy and with a chronic illness?

This is a crime.  Socialize health care!

}I was trying to bring some humor into this message but just lost it.

I'm doing the best I can to help.  :-)

}Did anyone see the 20/20 special "twentysomething: What happened to the
}American Dream?" last night?  Depressing statistics (ex. 30% of us in this age
}group are unemployed; 65% blieve we won't live better than our parents
}financially speaking) but it felt good to listen to others who feel the same
}way I do.

I saw it also.  Funny thing.  If I hadn't been in D.C. in a hotel room with
a TV I wouldn't have been watching TV at all.  It hit a lot a chords with me.
Of course I just got a job so I'm ok there, but I am also moving back in with
my mom and they said over 50% of people in thier 20's live at home.  I am
also lucky enough to be buying a house together with my brother within 6
months or so if everything goes as planned.  Life seems like such an
adventure right now.  I love it.

}Oh well, maybe we'll all get AIDS and die; I hear there may be a new virus. 
}Sorry to those of you out there who are HIV positive; I don't mean to offend,
}but it is a concern of mine.  Maybe we should all live it up while we can and
}forget about the future?

A new strain of HIV can still be stopped in the same ways that I hope we
all use.  I use celibacy.  It's worked so far :)  (I have some condoms that
I was passed out in my health class if anyone needs some.  Various colors
and flavors, and I won't use them ;)

}I hope to regain my sense of humor somehow.  This is all so ridiculous.  As a
}book I got from the library today says, "This isn't the trip I signed up for."
}
}I know there are others out there with 'worse" problems; at least that's what
}some people might say, but damn it, these things are important to _me_ and I
}think it is stupid and cruel and abusive to compare people's problems and say
}"Be thankful you don't have such and such."  What each of us has is bad for us.
}
}Trying to hang on to the lifeboat, Lisa
}
}P.S.  The e-mail address is only good til July 31.
}
}P.S. #2.  ON lighter notes, the thesis has been bound and will be deposited
}tomorrow and I felt good telling certain people (the grad director in my dept.,
}my therapist) exactly what I thought (tactfully but honestly; a difficult
}combination for me).  Tying up loose ends feels good; I'm hearing a lot of
}appreciation and love coming from my friends and I'm expressing this to them
}too.
}
}P.S.  3.  maybe I should send the scrapers and painters to Tanzania and pack
}the insurance company along with them.  :)

Sounds like lots of stuff is weighing you down.  Sounds like a lot of
positive things to.  I think it's great that you talked to the grad
director like you did.  That took a lot of courage.  That's also the
same kind of thing I'm working on too.  Though I have more trouble with
the personal relationships than the professional ones.

Good luck on moving back with your parents, and ehugs for you.
-- 
                            ___
Ed Tyrrill                 / | \     The "War on Drugs" is a war on *people*
cerebus@ucrmath.ucr.edu    \/_\/          Don't apply YOUR morals to ME