#cie's personal crap | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

netherworldwritersguild · 5 years

Text

Cie's Epic New Year's Post for 2019

I have a New Year's Resolution never to have New Year's Resolutions which include asshat phrases like "NEW YOU IN 52!!1!!1!!1" Of course I'll be a "New Me" in 52 weeks. A lot of the cells in the body get replaced during that time! I don't need to make some stupid resolution to encourage my cells to do something they're going to do anyway!

I do actually have some goals for the coming year. None of them involve attempting to hate myself thin. I spent 33 years doing that shit. These are goals such as getting rid of my last storage unit, hopefully by June at the latest, which will save me a lot of money and to continue to get rid of things which no longer serve a purpose for me.

A purpose can include just making me happy, like my collection of stuffed animals. That is a valid purpose. I am also planning to do things like cut worn-out clothes into rags, which can replace paper towels and save money that way. Also, donate old clothes that have no sentimental value.

My other goals include kick-starting my mail-order mug cake mix business on Etsy, continuing my quest for world dominance with my super duper uber exciting internet business blog, and allowing myself to write things that I simply want to write, which no-one else is likely to ever see, which wouldn't make sense to anyone else, and which will never make me one single cent. I was very verbally prolific last year, but I've lost a lot of the feeling of love and inspiration when it comes to writing. I'd like to have those back.

So, I have no delusions whatsoever that I'm going to become Le Svelte Supermodel and snag the Hot Bisexual Billionaire Werewolf at long last!11!!!11

The Hot Bisexual Billionaire Werewolf is a character conceived of by the twisted little minds of Team Naughty Netherworld along with a bunch of hot-to-trot shapeshifting aliens--all of whom are about as real as the idea of becoming someone else's idea of "perfection" and living "happily ever after," if I'm to be honest.

Oh--I also might finally finish the scarf that I've been loom knitting for an age. It's about as long as my hand right now. I need it to be at least as long as my arm. This could take a while.

Happy New Year, People!

~Cie~

#cie's soapbox #cie's personal crap #deliver me blog #naughty netherworld press #write howyalike

0 notes

wincestshippingtrash2 · 5 years

Text

Some weeks are just crap. I don’t think I will even get an order tonight. I am going to cut my losses and head home.

The flying dog 🐕 has fuck all to do with this. I just like it.

#cie’s personal crap #work

1 note · View note

wincestshippingtrash2 · 4 years

Text

More Crap About Me

rules: answer 20 questions, then tag 20 bloggers you want to get to know better.

Stolen from @nancylou444

As usual, not tagging anybody.

1. name: Cara (which gets mispronounced all the time)

2. nickname: Cie, pronounced See 😉

3. zodiac sign: Aquarius

4. height:5′ 6″

5. languages: English. I can read and write Spanish at an elementary school level, but don’t ask me to converse in it.

6. nationality: American

7. favorite season: Autumn

8. favorite flowers: I love most flowers

9. favorite scent: Coffee, baked goods, all sorts of things

10. favorite color: Blue, purple

11. favorite animal: I love most animals.

12. favorite fictional character: Too numerous to mention

13. coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: All three

14. average sleep hours:It varies a lot

15. dog or cat person: Cat

16. number of blankets you sleep with: none or one very light one, even in winter. My endocrine system is very fucked.

17. dream trip: I don’t really want to travel anymore.

18. blog established: This one? Right after The Fuckening, when Bumblr decided to hide Wincest Shipping Trash from the tender eyes of the special snowflakes of Tumblr. Still bitter.

19. followers: I honestly don’t know. It was a little over 200 last time I checked, which surprised the living fuck out of me since nobody really interacts with me.

20. random fact: I have ADD, and I have become really angry recently over the way I’ve been treated all my life because of it.

—————————

Not going to tag anybody.

#about cie

1 note · View note

wincestshippingtrash2 · 5 years

Text

Crap About Me

Stolen from @nancylou444

Nickname: Cie, Cheesy, Old Bat, The Old Broad, That Bitch Over There 😄

Starsign: Aquarius

The last film I watched: The Theory of Everything

Favorite Musician(s): Lots of stuff from ambient to zydeco

Songs stuck in my head today: I’m Free (The Who).

Other blogs: I have a whole bunch of them, but I’m not interested in having them invaded by Destiehellers.

Do I get asks: No, because I don’t have an ask box.

Blogs following: Somewhere in the thousands. I need to cull that shit.

What I’m wearing: A green shirt and a pair of old brown pants.

Dream job: Decently paid author. Not book reviewer. Not editor/proofreader. Just author. I do have published work, but it hasn’t started paying very well yet.

Dream trip: Shit, I don’t know. I have too many health problems to think about that realistically.

Play any instruments: I used to play the piano. I might be able to re-learn it.

Languages: English, Spanish at about a second-grade level, probably.

Favorite food: Lasagna, macaroni and cheese, pasta, chocolate cake, pulled pork, Tex-Mex, seafood.

Favorite song: Too numerous to mention

Random facts: I’m currently in the process of moving to an extremely rural area. Housing is too expensive in the city.

When I was in first grade, I drew a picture which was displayed at the New Mexico State Fair.

I hate the sound of my voice.

I sometimes have precognitive dreams.

I don’t open up to people easily but I am very loyal if I do.

I’m generally a pretty easygoing person unless I feel attacked.

#about cie

2 notes · View notes

wincestshippingtrash2 · 5 years

Text

Cie’s Epic New Year’s Post for 2019

So, I have no delusions whatsoever that I'm going to become Le Svelte Supermodel and snag the Hot Bisexual Billionaire Werewolf at long last!11!!!11

Oh--I also might finally finish the scarf that I've been loom knitting for an age. It's about as long as my hand right now. I need it to be at least as long as my arm. This could take a while.

Happy New Year, People!

~Cie~

#cie's soapbox #cie's personal crap #anti diet culture #naughty netherworld press #create howyalike

0 notes

wincestshippingtrash2 · 5 years

Text

Cie’s Year-End Wrap-Up 2018

Image copyright Conger Design

I love the above image. Back in the late 1990s, I went to school for one semester for graphic design but dropped out. I didn't know it at the time, but I had untreated type 2 bipolar disorder, OCD, and borderline personality disorder, three exciting co-morbid conditions which happen to feed each other in ways that are just, shall we say, really special. I wouldn't be properly diagnosed until 2004.

When I think of how many years were wasted mired in shame and stigma because I had no idea in this Universe what was going on with me, I thought I was just an attention-seeking fuckup, it makes me very angry. Granted, some of the tools available to me now simply didn't exist when I was younger. E-commerce was in its infancy in the 1990s. There were no smartphones.

Hell, even GPS was still in its infancy. (I still have my TomTom Go.) The job I have today could not have existed in the 1990s. Back when dinosaurs and Ronald Reagan roamed the Earth in 1984, I delivered pizzas. Even the TomTom Go was as yet unheard of. How the hell my dyslexic ass didn't get lost more often, I'll never know. When I think of trying to do my job without Waze, it gives me that feeling of waking up with a start after a terrible dream and praising whatever powers there might be that the dream isn't real.

So, I didn't initially come here to talk to you about type 2 bipolar disorder, but now that I've thought about it, I want to talk about it. This is how people tend to think of bipolar disorder, and it's a reasonably accurate depiction of type 1 bipolar disorder.

Image Source

The post that the image comes from is worth reading.

The late Patty Duke had type 1 bipolar disorder. She is a personal heroine of mine. Her book, Call Me Anna, helped me understand better the things that I had gone through and to help me forgive myself for some of the truly awful decisions I made while hypomanic.

Being diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder helped me understand why I had seen some features of bipolar disorder in myself but was convinced that I didn't have it because I'd never experienced a full mania. I tended to go from crushingly depressed to positive and overly functional. I never flew off to Vegas and got married to a guy I barely knew or anything of that nature, although I did convince myself several times that the Universe wanted me to be with guys who raised red flags like nobody's business and who, unsurprisingly, turned out to be horrible and abusive.

When I was hypomanic, I would take on second jobs and be the world's greatest employee that everyone loved until everything came crashing down and everyone ended up thinking I was the world's biggest flake and fuckup. I would be mired in depression which felt like being at the bottom of a dark pit that there was no way out of.

When I would finally, miraculously, find myself pulled out of that pit, I would admonish myself that from now on I would be positive and productive and would never go back THERE again. When I inevitably went back there again, I would shame and berate myself for being a worthless fuckup.

Click to enlarge.

This is a fairly standard bipolar disorder screening questionnaire. It tends to miss people with type 2 bipolar disorder.

Was there ever a period of time when I wasn't myself? No. I was always myself, although I often didn't like it very much.

The late Peter Steele of Type O Negative, who had type 1 bipolar disorder, describes reflecting on occasions following a manic episode where he felt that there was something he could have learned from the time in question if only he could remember it. I never experienced anything like that.

I've never presented as talking extremely fast or seeming particularly hyper. I've never slept well anyway, so the "sleeping less than usual" criteria didn't send up any red flags. The late Julia Lennon described having periods where she wouldn't sleep for a week at a time, and doctors didn't know what was wrong with her. She was institutionalized on several occasions.

I did get involved in ill-advised relationships with abusive guys, but I never flew off to Vegas to do so. I took on multiple jobs and then crashed, often losing all of my jobs. When I was good, I was very very good, and when I was bad I was nonfunctional.

I speak openly about my mental health struggles because I would be very happy if no-one else ever had to fight the way I've had to fight. I've been told that I should keep my psych problems hidden because people would avoid me if they knew I was one of THEM. I was told I would never find a job if people knew I'd been to a therapist.

I was also told that I was "just being dramatic," that I needed to "stop seeking attention," that I was "just being lazy," and that I brought all my problems on myself with my "negative thinking." I can tell you that none of these criticisms did a damn thing to help me improve my life or to do anything except hide my problems and hate myself because I was never able to develop any decent coping skills for dealing with them until I was in my middle years. At this point, I'm still cleaning up the messes made by attempting to hide my problems, such as a storage unit full of stuff and a mountain of debt.

We've come a long way when it comes to mental illness in Western society, but we haven't come far enough. There is still a tendency to see people with mental issues as less intelligent or less capable or as loose cannons just waiting to explode and harm others. The truth is, people who live with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than to perpetrate violence.

There is a tendency to see jobs such as mine as "lesser" and to believe that the working poor, unemployed, and homeless "deserve" to not have basic amenities or a living wage. This needs to end. Everybody deserves the basic amenities, whether or not they are capable of working a "normal" job or at all.

I heard the term "lazy" so many times that I ended up with a terrible complex about taking breaks or doing things that are purely enjoyable and will never turn a profit. I once read a statement from a counselor which said that the term "lazy" should be replaced with "demotivated," because asking a person why they are so lazy shuts down the conversation and thus any chance of helping the person, whereas asking them why they are feeling demotivated leaves the conversation open and may help create a plan for helping them.

Exploitative shows like "Hoarders" should not exist. Like, at all. Capitalizing on people's illness for entertainment is twisted and barbaric. Hoarding is a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is the symptom of malfunction in a certain area of the brain. It is not "laziness." Dealing with hoarding tendencies is exhausting, time-consuming, and life-destroying. People with hoarding tendencies need help from a compassionate professional, not a bunch of lookie-loos seeking schadenfreude at another's expense.

My son is helping me deal with the lifetime of hoarding without help contained in my storage units and the closets and spare rooms of the mobile home that I hope to have in a condition where I can think about selling it by the end of next year. With his help, the storage unit, which is about the size of a one-car garage, is 1/3 of the way clear at this point, and we are hoping to have it entirely clear by June of 2019.

My late father attempted to "help with cleaning," but his help really only traumatized me and made me feel more ashamed, which didn't lead to me keeping up with the process. My son is understanding when I tell him that I can't deal with a certain item at the moment and we'll need to put it aside. We move on to the next thing. He also suggests creating scrapbooks and art from my vast collection of images from magazines, unlike my father, who told me that "anything that lands on the floor needs to be thrown in the garbage."

My father had piles of papers and magazines all over his house. He had OCD with hoarding tendencies too, but he came from an era when one locked their mental health issues in an attic and never spoke of them. This helped nothing, which is why I have come out of the attic and am speaking openly about my struggles.

For years I refused to make New Year's resolutions because I had learned to equate them with "new you in 52" crap, which really benefits no-one but the billion-dollar diet industry. I refuse to have or promote weight loss as a "health goal."

I spent 33 years in yo-yo dieting hell trying to hate myself thin. There is no way I'm going to endorse that behavior. I'm going batshit at this point with all the blogs in my sidebar promoting "get paid to lose weight" garbage. You'll never see me promoting these things because dieting inevitably fails for everyone but statistical unicorns.

Diets don't work. Health at Every Size works. If you want to start exercising, increase the amount you're exercising, or eat fewer processed foods, great, but do it for overall health, not for weight loss.

We'll all be a "new you in 52" anyway. We'll have new experiences behind us, and many of our cells will have been replaced by new ones. Don't buy into the "new you in 52" crap. It only leads to frustration. Instead, pursue things that will lead to a more authentic you.

Your authentic you has nothing to do with a number on the scale or even the amount of money in your bank account. It is the you who is true to themselves, which has nothing to do with looks or status at all.

Best wishes in the coming year,

Cie

amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "ciethehuntr06-20"; amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Related Products"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "Call Me Anna"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "dee73b19cbac48905bedf66555b733ab"; amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "ciethehuntr06-20"; amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Related Products"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "Type O Negative"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "dee73b19cbac48905bedf66555b733ab"; amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "ciethehuntr06-20"; amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Related Products"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "Julia Lennon"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "dee73b19cbac48905bedf66555b733ab"; amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "ciethehuntr06-20"; amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Related Products"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "bipolar disorder"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "dee73b19cbac48905bedf66555b733ab"; amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "ciethehuntr06-20"; amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Related Products"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "hoarding disorder"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "dee73b19cbac48905bedf66555b733ab"; amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "ciethehuntr06-20"; amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "Shop Related Products"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "health at every size"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "dee73b19cbac48905bedf66555b733ab";

#creative and mentally ill #cie's soapbox #diets don't work #cie's personal crap #living with mental illness

0 notes

netherworldwritersguild · 5 years

Text

Cie's Year-End Wrap-Up 2018

Image copyright Conger Design

Image Source

The post that the image comes from is worth reading.

Click to enlarge.

This is a fairly standard bipolar disorder screening questionnaire. It tends to miss people with type 2 bipolar disorder.

Was there ever a period of time when I wasn't myself? No. I was always myself, although I often didn't like it very much.

Best wishes in the coming year,

Cie

#creative and mentally ill #cie's soapbox #cie's personal crap #bipolar 2 #hoarding disorder

0 notes

netherworldwritersguild · 6 years

Text

When Cars Collide: A Shadorma

The little

Mini Cooper car

Backed up and

Quickly met

Me and my mid-size sedan

Meeting unwanted

~Cie~

Notes:

This is a story that's sad but true.

Very low-speed collision, no injuries. The fellow thought that the man in front of him was backing up. He backed up just as I approached, and I didn't have time to react.

My front bumper was pulled slightly away from the body of the car. It goes to the shop tomorrow. The other driver's insurance is covering the cost for repairs.

The trouble is, I work delivering food, my other car needs a new water pump, and I can't deliver food in the rental car that Geico is providing for me. Hopefully I'll have my car back within a couple of days.

#napowrimo #shadorma #cie's poetry #cie's personal crap

0 notes

crazycreativescheerleadingcamp · 6 years

Text

The Cheese Grates It: FML

Image Source:

wallpaperfo.com

The Cheese Grates It:

FML

content warning:

suicide ideation

I honestly hate writing about myself, which is why I deviated from a recent prompt and made it an alternate reality of a character instead. However, at the moment I feel the need to share a few things about me and why I continue writing even though I long ago took the dream of becoming a renowned author out in the back alley and shot it.

I recently received criticism of my work being merely a conversation between two talking heads. Well, I guess that's what it is. Often when I'm doing my writing, I've finished working a shift delivering food in rush-hour traffic to nickel-and-diming customers who think that fifty cents is an appropriate tip. Hint: fifty cents was a crap tip back in 1986, when I was delivering pizzas. All told, I average about ten dollars an hour.

My financial situation is precarious. I need to set aside $1000 to get the water pump in the car I prefer to make deliveries in fixed. The whole time I'm driving I'm hoping that something doesn't happen to my personal car.

I know the conventional wisdom is "just get another job," but that isn't as simple as it sounds. This is literally about the only work I can do at this point.

My physical situation is far from good. I used to be able to work physically demanding jobs, but my diabetes has deteriorated to the point where I have problematic activity intolerance. When standing for long periods of time, I tend to become weak, dizzy, and confused.

"Aha, clerical work!" many of you will say.

Sadly, not so much. My brain is stupid, and when I work the kinds of hours where clerical work tends to be done, I become depressed to the point of non-functional. I've tried to do this numerous times in my rather long life, and the result has always been the same. Clearly, I was not made for life on this planet.

A year ago, I lost a reasonably well-paying job where I was making approximately $40,000 a year. I was working as a homecare nurse. My diabetes was getting worse and I was very sick with a severe respiratory infection. The company reasoned that I could continue working because the patient I was working with was the one I'd contracted the infection from, therefore, they believed, I couldn't re-infect him.

I was fired from that job because I fell asleep during my shift. This was not a light drowse where one wakes when one's chin contacts their chest. This was a deep, dark, dreamless, sleep-of-the-dead kind of sleep. There is a pretty good likelihood that I had a TIA at that point. I don't remember falling asleep, but I was asleep for about 20 minutes. I woke to see the patient's father sitting on the patient's bed, glaring at me. I didn't hear him come downstairs or into the room. I left and was fired the next day.

I worked briefly for another homecare agency with a patient I'd worked with previously. This patient ended up in the hospital and never came out. The agency never found me another case. At that point, I tried working as a rideshare driver. An idiot stoner kid backed into the rental car I was using. Lyft took so long to resolve the claim that I wasn't able to drive for a month. The rental car agency never reimbursed me for the unused week on the vehicle. I was out $1000.

I tried going back into long-term care, but found myself physically unable to keep up with the demands of the job. I became weak and confused when my blood sugar dropped and I was unable to take a break. Long-term care does not tend to allow for breaks for its employees.

I then tried working for yet another homecare agency and discovered that I could no longer handle the physically demanding part of the job.

I worked delivering groceries for a while and ended up with a permanent injury to the median nerve in my left arm. This service promised delivery within the hour. Instead, I would often be greeted by an angry customer demanding to know why their order was three hours late. Customer service never contacted them. They let the driver deal with the unhappy customer. I had severe calf cramps because of having to climb stairs multiple times during the shift. The injury to my arm came about because of having to carry heavy loads throughout the shift. There is now permanent numbness in my left hand. At least I no longer endure agonizing pain in my left upper arm, which I did for about a month.

My anxiety levels are through the roof. I browbeat myself into going to work. Most days I wish I'd just die. Conversely, I have night terrors where I wake up with my heart pounding, thinking "please don't let me die like this."

Antidepressants, the darlings of the psych industry, don't work on me. They make me manic and psychotic. Benzodiazepenes, another darling of the psych industry, have a paradoxical effect. They tend to make my heart race and to cause panic attacks. The exceptions are Xanax, which has a heavy sedative effect and then makes me suicidal, and Valium, which makes me stupid. I mean really stupid, like two plus two equals three or something stupid.

To counter my raging insomnia, I take a low dose of thc plus cbd. It works better than Valium (see thick as a brick stupid) and better than drugs such as Ambien and Lunesta, which cause me to sleepwalk and do things like pee on my car tire at 3 AM. I was given a medical marijuana card for the horrifying pain in my arm and to help with my glaucoma. What I use is actually recreational edibles and tea, which has a lesser potency than medical grade marijuana. It doesn't get me high. It acts as a mild sedative and has none of the crap side effects of pharmaceutical medications. However, there are certain jobs I can't even think of applying for at this point because of my use of a very low dose of thc for a medical problem. They'd be fine with it if I were fucking my head with Ambien, which makes me do weird shit and wake up tired, but a tiny amount of THC makes me a non-functional hop-head, apparently.

This was my response to the person who decried my writing as being merely a conversation between a pair of talking heads:

I take it from your other criticisms that "quite interesting" means "I hate it." That's cool and all. The words weren't randomly bolded. It was to keep up with the Wordle prompt, to remember that we had used the words. Honestly, I'm kind of brain damaged and stupid. I work at a menial job earning about minimum wage. I write when I can if for no other reason than to keep some aspect of what I believe myself to truly be alive. With a little help from my friends I am able to do this. Maybe I'm fated to just be a giant talking head, much like the Face of Boe in Dr. Who. Sorry my work didn't meet your exacting standards. I probably won't participate in this particular prompt again. Really, the only reason I do is as an exercise in constraining my word count because I tend to be overly verbose in my so-called writing.

Note: the bolded words were my bad. I forgot that most people on the Weekend Writing Warriors prompt would not also be using the Wordle prompt.

Honestly, the shitty writing would also be my bad. Gem and Tempest aren't to blame. They were only trying to support me.

The truth is, I feel like killing myself most of the time and already would have if it weren't for the fact that my son seems to still need my help. Here are some things I don't need to hear regarding that statement:

"Go to the emergency room."

If I went to the emergency room every time I experienced suicide ideation, I'd have to live there.

"Get counseling."

It doesn't work. I could probably benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy, but county mental health doesn't tend to provide that. County mental health gives you counselors who frustrate you to no end because they are used to dealing with people who have severe psychosis. I only have psychosis when I take antidepressants or prescription pain medications. County mental health counselors are no help to people who see the reality around them all too clearly and know there's nothing they can do to extract themselves from the steaming pile of suck that is reality. So, they write stories involving talking heads because it soothes them for a moment to do so.

"Get on medication."

See "that shit makes me manic and psychotic." Except for Prozac, which left me emotionally flatlined, staring at my arm, and thinking to myself "maybe I should cut my arm to see if I can still feel anything." This wasn't the normal, self-loathing drive to self-injure that I've dealt with all my life. This was a case of wondering if I could still feel anything at all.

Sorry, folks. Pat answers don't work on me. I'm special like that.

Actually, I'm not particularly special. There are a lot of people that the pat answers don't work for.

I have a lot of thoughts about how society could improve to make sure everyone has a decent quality of life. One of them involves not treating the working class like shit. Most people in the working class aren't "less intelligent" or even less educated than people in white collar jobs, and, even if they were, why should they be treated like shit?

We need universal health care so people like me can stop playing the shitty balancing game of having to keep my earnings under $800 a month so I don't lose Medicaid.

We need a universal stipend. The idea that people would stop working if they were receiving a stipend is erroneous. Most people want to work in some capacity.

In any case, I probably won't officially participate in the Weekend Writing Warriors prompt again. It seems to be a place that isn't for people like me: people for whom writing is a survival tool.

And now, I guess I'll get ready to get out there and get nickel-and-dimed to death once again. Perhaps there will be more from the talking heads who are my characters later. Color yourself oh so lucky.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

#trigger warning suicide ideation #cie's personal crap #creative and mentally ill #work #everyone's a critic

0 notes

netherworldwritersguild · 5 years

Text

Happy Xmahanukwanzyule 2018

(This post was written on the Deliver Me blog and cross-posted) Happy holidays if you celebrate them and best wishes for prosperity in the approaching year!

It has been an eventful and not terribly lucrative year here in the World of Nether, but many of our efforts are still in their infancy and I like to think that things are looking up and that perseverance still counts for something. To a degree, these are uncharted waters that we are navigating with the rise of the gig economy. So, what can we do to make this unprecedented situation work for us?

For my own part, I have a knack for speaking my mind, such as it is, and for telling it like it is from my point of view. This has tended to get me in trouble, but the older I get the less fucks I give.

However, I do not intend to use this so-called skill only to bitch about everything that pisses me off. I would also like to use it to help others.

For many years, I worked as a nurse's aide and then a nurse. I helped those who were too infirm to care for their own needs. This included the elderly and special needs children. However, my own constitution declined sharply in the past couple of years, and I can no longer do the physically demanding jobs that I had been doing since 1988.

My income declined sharply when I was no longer able to work as a nurse. Between 2015 and 2017, I was pulling up to $1000 per week if I worked 60 hour weeks. However, I was constantly exhausted and always in a mental fog working this many hours. In some ways I'm amazed that I never made any critical errors.

I am unable to work full time at this point, and my disabilities put me out of the running for most "normal" jobs. Because of my health issues, I need Medicaid. But if I make more than $1100 a month, I lose Medicaid. To me, it seems as if I'm being punished for being disabled. I think that punishing people for being disabled is one whole steaming load of crap. I also think that Charles Dickens would have a field day writing about the current political climate in the era of Lord Dampnut. In fairness, being British, he might be more inclined to write about Brexit and Lord Dampnut's British soul twin, Boris Johnson.

In any case, I am trying to piece together a life that works. Other than being broke and physically unable to do certain things that I used to be able to do without issue, there are many ways in which I like my life after disability better than my life before disability. I like not being enslaved by a time clock. I much prefer soft deadlines to Draconian ones.

Overall, I am a creative rather than a practical person. If I could, I would spend my days writing, learning to draw, engaging in Photoshop Phucquery, hand crocheting, loom knitting, woodworking, making soap and candles, and whatever other artsy fartsy crafty wafty pursuit happened to strike my fancy. I attempt to keep my artsy fartsy side separate from the Deliver Me blog, but there is inevitable bleed-through, and I'm not going to fight the tide too hard.

If you are interested in opportunities for writers or occasional shares of poetry and prose, visit the Horror Harridans Writing Sisterhood page.

If you are interested in WAH opportunities, recipes, and suggestions for saving money, visit the Deliver Me blog.

If you are interested in reading high quality Kindle smut, visit the Naughty Netherworld Press blog. This blog is safe for work, but some of the places it links to aren't.

If you are interested in obtaining a Tarot reading to help you kick-start the new year, click here.

May you and yours have a pleasant holiday if you celebrate, or a good day in general if you don't.

Best wishes,

Cie

This offer is valid through December 30, 2018

This offer is always in season

#team netherworld #cie's soapbox #naughty netherworld press #horror harridans writing sisterhood #the real cie reviews

0 notes