Letter from therapist (i want to to be a peer support worker):
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I have 700$ a month. 430$ is my rent. I have many allergies, many intolerances, i have issues walking, i have no money for transportation.
I need help so that's why i decided to sell my art, on a "pay what you can" basis.
I will not engage anymore with people telling me i do nothing to help myself, because obviously they haven't seen everything i do. I have not much energy, so the little i have, i want to keep it for those who have ideas without judging.
For those of you who don't believe me when i say i do everything for in my power to get therapy (free), that i have issues with wellfare etc, i will just drop these links here about things that i have. I am too tired to "justify" myself more than the whole story i put here. Putting my personal story might be too much for some, but for me, it is also a way to express myself, to make people understand more, to maybe also reduce stigmas.
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-High school: Struggling with major agoraphobia. Bullied in class, victim of violence, and at home, victim of sexual abuse, violence, very abusive mother. No close friends, no family. Living in my own head, imagining myself a fake boyfriend to cope with reality. Get bullied so much that i cannot go in class anymore (agoraphobia and social phobia). The teachers says if i cannot go in class, i need to do the homeworks and other things in the cafeteria. I never felt as alone and as abnormal. So different from everyone else. A girl and other people from same group were waiting for me in front of school every day to kick the sh*t out of me. I was so afraid that i locked myself in the school bathroom and was waiting long enough to know they would be gone. I was playing music on my cd player and dance in the tiny bathroom. It was Children from Robert Miles. I had to do the same most of my diners, eat there to avoid bullying. I was sick everytime i was eating, every morning the same.
Many years after, i tried to go back to school to finish my secretary course. Had to end it many times. I have a year left to do. But as much as it goes with time, harder it gets. Still fighting with the medical system to get the help i need. All this past resulted in a chronic PTSD. VIdeo explaining my life story (video from 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga8euWETrLM&t=161s&ab_channel=MarjolaineNixe )
People keep telling me i should just forget about the past. They are right. But as the psychologists says, i was completely alone at the time, add with this severe abuse from parent. I still have nightmares every night about high school.
I will at one point fight for my disability. It's either this, or i end my life. I'm serious. I'm tired, seriously tired man. I just need to wait for the diagnosis, i have many tests to do before. And in the meantime i am atrocely poor, ill, with severe executive dysfunctioning related to my concussion last year (frontal lobe). Even the smallest tasks are extremely hard, thinking, writing all this will make me sleep hours after. I cannot plan anymore, organize...
Many times i went to the ER and it resulted in nothing, please do not suggest me that. I am not being rude, i am just very clear. I appreciate the help, any. But when i say this, some keep saying i just refuse help and i just.. i just really do not need that. I am serious.
I am trying to see a social worker at the CLSC also. Waiting list for psychological help for years. Many years to wait again.
But i still have lots of pain and not much can relieve it. And struggling with CPTSD and mental illnesses.
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Update June 2021: What are we supposed to do when we move and welfare decides to give you $ 140 less the next month? (Apparently before that did not apply because I was with Emploi Qc in a program + school) I do everything possible to get out of it but I have no recourse towards this completely ridiculous law which impoverishes the citizens even more . As of June 2021 I will receive $ 140 less on my meager income.
"The Quebec government itself admitted in 2013 that the disposable income of
single people on social assistance covered only 49% of their basic needs assessed at
from Statistics Canada's Market Basket Measure "
Update October 7, 2021. Appointment with the rheumatologist! I now have three medications to try. She strongly believes that I, like my father, have psoriatic arthritis. And fibromyalgia. They saw i have a lot of inflammation. With my chronic inflammation, i take turmeric, ginger, garlic, pepper. Can't take most of the fruits raw, soy, lactose, gluten.
Update October 15 2021: I was in a PAAS-Action program..
Coming appointments with dermatologist, MRI, X-RAYS. Next appointment with rhumatologist in january. She prescribed muscular relaxing medication. Helps a LITTLE. They said i cannot take antiinflammatories because of my blood disease (Von Willebrand).
The only product that helped me so far is the LivRelief cream for chronic pain, that is 20$. Doctor prescribed Voltarin but not covered either...
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I feel like my head will explode... If you need more details, please ask, but kindly.. Please do not judge if you don't know my situation. Or if you wanna judge well at least don't tell me.
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LINKS:
In reality, Quebec’s welfare system has little to do with empowering marginalized populations and eliminating poverty. It is, in fact, a system which strips the most vulnerable people of their dignity and right to privacy, while maintaining them in miserable conditions. The system also provides a powerful disciplinary tool to regulate the working-class. Quebec’s paternalistic welfare system constitutes an indirect subsidy to the capitalist class. On the one hand it maintains some semblance of social order by keeping the most desperate nominally fed and housed, though in substandard conditions. On the other hand, it serves as a warning to workers: “Behave and accept lower salaries and meager benefits, otherwise you will find yourself depending on alms.”
"People living with partners or roommates also face severe cutbacks and penalties. While a single person receives $690 per month, the total amount for two people living as a “couple” is $980. The law says that anyone who lives together in a “conjugal arrangement” are considered a couple, regardless of emotional or sexual involvements, so roommates who live too long together are considered a couple and forced to pay back years’ worth of welfare benefits."
"The investigators working for the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity have wider and more intrusive powers than the police. They can knock on neighbours’ doors to question them about the activities of welfare recipients, hoping to find proof of “conjugal life.” They can obtain bank records, phone records or other documents concerning welfare recipients, without any kind of warrant or judicial authorization.
Recipients can be interviewed by an investigator at any time, and face having their benefits cut off if they refuse or are unable to provide requested documents or sufficient answers. No aspect of their private life is beyond the reach of investigators.
It is a humiliating, degrading experience in which poor people are constantly made to feel like criminals."
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Waiting list for mental health services climbs to 20,000 names https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/waiting-list-for-mental-health-services-climbs-to-20-000-names-1.5447004
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