Hell, it's not even just for wage slavery. I've had a movement disorder since I was in elementary school. Some people don't suffer much from it. Some people eventually get better, Some people, like me, end up with such a severe case we qualify as legally disabled. I didn't start receiving financial or medical benefits until my mom lost her job when I was fifteen and we had to file for emergency assistance, but I've had them since then. She paid enough in not just from that job, but all the others she ever had, that she was still able to "retire" once she hit the minimum age (though taking it that early meant she also had to take a lower payout), and because I never worked or married myself, I'm considered her dependent even as an adult. But I've been disabled longer than she worked even collectively. There's no way her retirement fund is actually where it's coming from (or at least not all of it).
So I've never worked. I've never paid taxes other than sales tax. I never put money into the system to draw back on if I became disabled later in life or made it to retirement myself (which, given the state the US is in now, that's not how it works anyway, but that's how it was originally supposed to work). I'm exactly one of the "lazy, entitled welfare queens" a lot of these people complain about not wanting their taxes to support. I'm not in favour of a system that would actively push poor, disabled, or elderly people toward death just to free up resources (and I know that's one of the arguments against legalizing it), but there are clearly many of us who wouldn't need to be pushed because we actually want to be on that road of our own free will. I don't feel like a drain on society, but I don't really contribute much to it, either. And that's not something I personally feel guilty about (I know a lot of people do struggle with thinking that they're worthless or a burden) - for me it's just an "it is what it is" thing. But I also don't belong here. I don't want to be "fixed" even if I could be "fixed" because this is who I am, and the point at which you've made me into someone who fits here (or can at least more easily accept being here), is the point at which you've made me into someone else altogether and effectively killed the "real me" anyway. Where's the logic in,
"I don't want MY money going to someone who sits on their ass and doesn't even try!"
"Well, I don't get any more out of life than I put into it and would actually be more than happy to bow out and let the resources I'm taking up go to someone else -"
"You are MENTALLY ILL! No sane, rational person would ever want to die! Death is a sad, terrible thing and it's inappropriate to even consider it no matter what the reason! You need to be locked up and medicated until you get with the nanny-state-approved happy and healthy program, even if that's going to cost even more and you'll still be disabled and sponging off taxpayer money afterward!"
On top of that, I'm in a weird grey area where I'm legally an adult, I don't have a guardian or conservator and should therefore have all my basic rights as an adult, but I do have a payee (in my case, my mother) who actually receives my benefits and is supposed to ensure that they're used appropriately (so rent, bills, personal necessities for me not her, etc). I'm not irresponsible with money (I'm actually pretty neurotic about it, probably because I've never had any I could be irresponsible with); I just have hardcore dyscalculia and can't do the math or time-tracking necessary for handling it myself. I'm also okay taking care of myself on an, "I can get up, get dressed, pop something in the microwave, tend to my pets, and spend the rest of the day waiting to be unconscious again," level, but with the neurodivergent "freak out and/or shut down under stress, emergencies, or dealing with external agencies especially those that I associate with traumatic events" add-on, even I recognize that living completely on my own probably isn't the best idea. I don't feel like I'm incompetent enough I need to have that officially enforced, though, and I thank the omnipotent-or-not power beings of your choice no one's ever tried to prove otherwise, because that would be the end of me.
So, legally? I can go where I want. I can do what I want. I can see who I want, I can date if I want; when I do have a little money of my own, I can spend it on whatever I want.
But realistically? She has most, nearly all, of my money. She's made it clear she thinks it's her money. I didn't have a bank account of any kind until I was 35, that was only because I was moving in with my then-boyfriend, and it was a case of adding me to her account and opening a second account that we also held jointly so that I could move money from one to the other to give to him to pay our bills, not having one that was solely my own. When the living-together part of it failed (disastrously) and I had to move back in with her, I asked about keeping some both to pay small personal bills for online activities and so that if, say, he and I went somewhere, he wasn't obligated to pay for everything for both of us, and she was aghast that I would have the audacity to ask her for "more money" when she provides me with anything I need (which in fact, she does not). If she's not in agreement with what I want and won't allow me to take my own money to do it, what options do I have? People want to tell me "I'm just not trying hard enough," but what is it I'm supposed to try? Beg strangers online to fund my escape (which could actually cause me more problems because I can't have monetary assets and still receive benefits)? Wipe out her account out the day the checks come in before she has a chance to move it all to her credit cards, and hope I can get someone to drive thirteen hours to pick me up, pack me up, and smuggle me back East before she can take it out on me? I can ask the SSA to assign me a new payee if I can demonstrate that she's misusing my benefits or no longer capable herself, and I've more-or-less decided that's what I'm going to do if and when I'm able to get to the space I've been offered at a friend's house - not even just out of pettiness, but because she IS genuinely in mental decline and becoming less able/willing to attend things properly - but it's not something I can do safely while I'm still living with her, and there's nowhere else I can go in the interim because there's no one else I can trust not to kick me out or have me hospitallized as soon as they realize what a mess I really am and what they've gotten themselves into. I don't have any fear of physical violence from her (and frankly, I could handle and probably even thrive on that), but the mental/emotional abuse that would result wouldn't be remotely worth it, so I'm just biding as best I can until I can either catch a ride home, or catch a bus.
So I've never worked. I graduated high school (with no pride for it because it was such a miserable experience I wish now I'd just dropped out), but I didn't go to college. I've never had what normal people would consider a functional or healthy relationship, and I've never had or wanted children. I don't understand people my own age - hell, even people who are younger than me but still emotionally mature - because I don't have the life experience they do, that I "should" have had based purely on a number (the amount of time I've spent on Earth). I don't connect well with people in general because I just...don't like being connected to people, and my thought patterns are as odd to them as theirs are to me. And those still aren't things I'm saddened or distressed by, because they aren't things I wanted or cared about, so I don't feel like I've missed out.
But I claw the walls because I'm more akin to a prisoner or a child. I get an "allowance" from my own money, that's sometimes accompanied by comments about "how nice it must be to have money and be able to buy something just because you want to" (because she has none, because every penny from both our checks goes to me, even though packages show up on our porch almost every day). I have to do what amounts to signing in and out of my own house, because she's so paranoid about someone breaking in (the most desperate-for-victims serial killer in the world would take one look inside and run the other way, if they could even manage to get past the piles of trash and hoarded emergency supplies that are turning to trash because they were never used) and there's only one door. Only one way in or out. When I leave for the weekend, she actively barricades it. I have to ask for permission to come back. If I don't respond to a message immediately, she escalates from chat to text to a call to pounding on my bedroom door, almost the only thing she'll actually get off her ass for anymore, because it's now my job to take care of her, even though I never agreed to do so and I am not able to do so. If I was, I wouldn't have needed (or still need) her to help me. But apparently I'm supposed to be magically un-disabled for her, even though I couldn't pull that trick off for myself.
At one agency, I have to affirm that no, a representative payee is not the same as a guardian, and yes, I can legally make appointments and accept or refuse care myself. At another, I have to beg in tears for forms that will allow someone else to fill out my paperwork and handle affairs for me, because even though they exist to help the disabled and ought to be familiar with neurodivergency, they can't - or don't want to - wrap their heads around the idea of an adult needing an advocate. Some won't even give me that much and refuse to speak to anyone other than me, even when I ask for an accomodation. It was almost impossible for me to get a bank account that's solely mine, that my mother doesn't know about, because I have no credit, no work history, no minimum deposit or ability to maintain a minimum balance.
I'm not someone who was once happy, slid into the mire, and could possibly still be pulled out. I've always been what I am, and I wanted to end as soon as I realized I began. This world has never felt right, has never been home. The few things I enjoy are either so niche I always struggled to find outlets for them (and those I did have inevitably became such an ordeal it was no longer worth what I was putting in to get little or nothing back, or simply ceased to exist altogether), or are limited or inaccessible because someone else decides what I can afford. Beyond that, there's nothing here for me. I'm not going to "fake it 'til I make it" by forcing myself to pretend I like something I have no actual interest in, and particularly not because someone else wants me to be interested in other things in the hope that I'll come around to wanting to stay around.
I'm in physical pain. My disorder isn't terminal and isn't supposed to be progressive, but something's getting worse. It could just as easily be the damage done by all the dangerous, improperly-prescribed drugs, though. I don't want to find out because if I do, I'll have people pushing me to go through it all again. I'm in emotional pain. I have trauma from the medication. From the hospitalizations. From the shit my mother's done and is still doing to me. From the shit other people have done to me. From things I've done myself. From having everything I own, everything precious to me, be "borrowed" without permission, lost, or destroyed. From having multiple senior pets and watching more than one go in swift succession. From knowing I'm going to have someone working against me getting away, because if I'm not under their hand, being controlled, I might "embarass" them.
I'm tired. I'm so tired. I've been doing this for forty-plus years. For some people that's still young. For some it's ancient. Either way it's damn sure long enough for me to know that in my case, it's not getting any better. I'm lying in a ditch beside a one-way road that just keeps going down, and I'm too tired to get up. Even if I'd started with something to give, I have nothing left for myself or anyone else.
But, hey, at least I'm alive, right? Even if it's barely a fascimile of actual life.
(So tell me, seriously; what do you, random-ass pro-lifer who doesn't even know me, have to lose by just letting. me. go?)
