#thyroid disease

This is something I’m getting really tired of hearing from people. Something people don’t realize about life is that sometimes when you actively do things to make your life better, there’s still a lot of waiting for those things to take effect. I’ve been going through a very difficult time all year. I really really hate my job. I deliver food for a fast food restaurant. Sometimes I have to carry 50+ lbs of food on my back, walk for miles (they don’t give us bikes) and carry it up 4-5 flights of stairs, sometimes in the pouring rain, boiling heat and freezing cold. When I’m not making deliveries, I’m in the dining room cleaning, taking out the trash, running and bussing tables, running dishes to the kitchen, helping customers, mopping, sweeping and stocking supplies. Sometimes I even help with food prep. The only thing I don’t do is wash the dishes. Now you’re probably thinking, “oh, well that doesn’t sound that bad.” Well, try doing that while the room is spinning, you feel like you just ran a marathon and the chemicals in your brain are telling you to kill yourself…and this is all before you even start your shift. I have thyroid disease, vertigo and a vitamin D deficiency. All these things make my job unbearable. I’m constantly exhausted, depressed and dizzy. Not to mention, I have a communication disorder so speaking to people is very difficult as well. My immune system is compromised. I got an infection on my hand after only working there for a couple of months because the restaurant is always filthy and it’s my job to clean it. My finger swelled up so much that I couldn’t bend it. Since I didn’t have medical insurance, I had to prick myself with a needle and drain the pus myself.

I have been trying like hell since I started this job to find another job. And of course, I keep getting rejected. 

So here are a few things I’ve been trying to do to improve my situation aside from applying for jobs:

• I’m a freelance illustrator and I’ve been trying to put myself out there and try to get commissions to make some extra money. But of course, I can’t just assign myself commissions and give myself money, I have to waitfor people to commission me and I’ve actually gotten a few commissions this year. I also tabled at an art show last month and sold a few prints and copies of a novel I wrote. 

• I illustrated a children’s book for free as part of a deal so that the author and I can go into business together. However, I’m still waiting for the author to get the book printed. I’d like to emphasize the “waiting” part. This isn’t going to happen overnight. I need to WAIT. 

• One of my former teachers got a grant to work on some short films and he wants to create a short series of pilot films/episodes for a film series. I showed up to every meeting for these discussions always prepared with my script, always on time and always willing to take the next step toward making this happen. It’s been a couple of years since we first discussed this and during the past couple of years, we’ve had to WAIT for him to get that grant. Now that he has the grant, I need to WAIT for him to return from traveling so that we can start filming. More waiting. Not much else I can do at this point.

• I reached out to the dean of my college and the program coordinator of the pre-college program that I graduated from in high school to ask for help with finding work. My college’s campus has a career services office which I’ve visited. I asked for help with finding a job at this office and all they could tell me was that I wasn’t going to find a job on Indeed and that I need to reach out to other alumni and network in order to find work–which I’ve already tried. So now I need to WAIT to hear back from the dean and the coordinator to see if they can help me find a job. 

Story Time: The school that I attended is a not-for-profit university and while I was attending the university, I had a very difficult time securing enough financial aid to remain in my classes. I came close to dropping out because of this. I got a meeting with the financial aid director of my school and they told me that since I was in that pre-college program and I spent so much time in high school volunteering and I came from a poor socio-economic background that the school had a responsibility to help me finish school. So, they gave me extra financial aid to dorm and they helped me secure a work-study job. Now that I’ve graduated, I still need help from my school to find a decent job. As a matter of fact, I got my first job after I graduated because one of my supervisors from my work-study job foundme a job. And then I got laid off less than 6 months later…

• I recently had to retake my learner’s permit exam because my permit expired and I didn’t get to take driver’s ed yet. I haven’t taken driver’s ed yet because I’ve been more focused on trying to find a better job, working on the children’s book I illustrated, dealing with my medical issues and just the day-to-day bullshit. I also haven’t had the money since I recently moved out of my mother’s place and drained my savings and whatever money I had to do so. So yeah, I’ve been pretty broke these past few months. Now that I’ve retaken my permit test and went into more credit card debt paying for that, now I need to WAIT for my new permit to come in the mail so that I can start driver’s ed. My girlfriend and I plan on moving to California someday and that’s going to be very difficult to do if we can’t drive. I know, all the Cali people are going “well, you don’t necessarily need a car.” Well, when I visited Cali, my friend and I had to do an obscene amount of walking through the suburbs to get anywhere after getting off public transportation. And having to take trains and busses between each city also takes a lot of time. Having a car would be so much easier. But we’re going to wait until we actually have the money for all of this which won’t be any time soon. Also, a lot of arts-related jobs require that people know how to drive because if you work for an arts program or gallery, they ask people to transport art pieces. So if I get my license, I’ll have more job opportunities in general. But like I said, this isn’t all going to happen overnight. I have to WAIT. 

• I used to work as a teacher’s assistant for a non-profit but I quit because they kept running out of money to pay us. But I recently discovered that they increased their pay rate and that they’re hiring. I really hope this means that they’ve solved their funding issues. Anyway, I told them that I want to work there again because, at this point, I rather work anywhere else. I actually liked working as a teacher’s assistant too. It was easy and sometimes fun. So I have a meeting on Monday, that I have to WAIT for to discuss my availability and where they want to place me. So I already technically got the job, we’re just going to discuss my scheduling for the job. 

• I am also writing a new novel not only as a possible way to make money in the future but also as a form of therapy (since I can’t afford actual therapy right now because my “health insurance” is a scam). I’ve also came up with an idea for a TV show and my teacher suggested that I apply for a grant to create a pilot for it. I have over 50 pages of an outline of events that take place on this show. I made a documentary in high school so I know a little about filmmaking but I don’t yet have experience making fictional films so I am going to WAIT until I have experience with the film that I’m going to be making with my teacher so that I know what the process is like and so that I can use it as a way to hone my writing/directing skills. 

• I’m going to be applying for medicaid today since my health insurance is utter crap but I heard there’s a WAITING period as they figure out if the applicant is qualified so I’m probably not going to get that any time soon. But when I do, I’m going to try to find a therapist and/or psychiatrist.  

So in conclusion, I may complain a lot about my situation and I have the right to do so because if I just kept everything bottled up all the time and never complained, I’d probably be having a panic attack every day like I did yesterday at work and like I did last summer at my last job. I get really mixed messages from people about how I’m supposed to go about dealing with my struggles. I get people telling me that if I’m going through something that I need to talk to someone; that I need to talk to them about it. But then when I do, they often tell me to just suck it up and be glad that I have a job and place to live. However, just because I do doesn’t mean that I have a decent quality of life. For example, my apartment has bedbugs and I’ve called the housing office (which has abysmal reviews), 311, the borough president’s office and they haven’t done anything about it so my girlfriend and I had to take care of it and they haven’t completely gone away. My health insurance doesn’t cover any of my medical expenses and I’m paying out of pocket via my paychecks for it. Doctors’ visits are very expensive. I’m currently almost near $3K in debt and that’s just from getting a splint for my wrist and getting testing done at the OB/GYN’s office. I feel like our society has been so conditioned to believe that as long as you’re not homeless and you’re making minimum wage, you should be happy even when your medical insurance company is trying to drown you in debt, you barely scrape by to pay your bills every month, can’t afford to go back to school and you’re living in a bed-bug infested apartment. In other developed countries, people don’t have to struggle the way that we do. Their tax dollars pay for everything including medical care and college. Their public housing is also better too. So you could live a good life going to school, working part-time and living in public housing in places like Germany but here, in great ole’ America, we have such a terrible quality of life that it makes people want to kill themselves. 

So to anyone who wants to tell me to shut up, suck it up and do things to make my life better, you can shut up now.