From: Bede_Jarrow@hikssrv.lib.purdue.edu (Lisa)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: welcome to reality?!
Date: 23 Jul 92 22:35:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: mentor.54943
Reply-To: Bede_Jarrow@hikssrv.lib.purdue.edu (Lisa)
Distribution: usa


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

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).

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 (?!)

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?

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

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.

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?

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.  :)