zenda

Hi.

I appreciate your point about bureaucracy, that you are not making enough to live on and that at least part of your entitlement to aid is ... dis-entitled on account of your having to live with your family.

Thinking of your posts in this and that other thread, the following occurred to me: You are a longtime and experienced member on this forum. I reckon that you are likely to be well versed in examining life's issues and providing valuable insights and perspectives, thus developing your own strength and supporting that of others, and that all this goes at least some extent toward addressing:
.... that you most definitely have been are accomplishing something Even When you don't feel like you have been; that one may, at certain times of life be doing it less, or even progressively increasingly less, takes away not one jot from the heart and the direction. How you are choosing to steer is eternal, and that is valid and priceless whether moving a mountain or twitching an eyelash.

There are times when we do not feel what we know, yet it is true nonetheless.

In this depressing time, if you gather your knowings and understandings of when you have been clear your mind and understanding are greater than you ... 'knew' at any one time, and that they are necessarily greater than you can know. Our judgements are subject to conjecture and we owe to ourselves the next day so that we may exercise our right to reply.

There are times when our mind might not be working in ways which we feel comfortable and there are times when its output might not be understandable or in alignment with standards we have set yourself. Some of those times are more fun than others, others have been 'lost mind' until understood in the light of tomorrow. 'Searching mind' can sometimes feel like lost mind, think of past puzzles you have tackled. Times you have ground through them, times you have had to go off to do something else for a while then return to find them solving themselves more easily, or at least less difficultly than before.

When, however, the 'puzzle' is a war-zone of enormous physical setbacks, impacted by the emotional intensity of the survival-whilst-disabled and gut-punched with a traumatic and abusive inception of care which would have destroyed someone with less strength of mind - for whilst the event was horrifying enough, it's meaning is a slap in the face to what, even as children, we'd have likely grown up wanting to believe; talkabout being kicked when you're down - you got to have a Health Crisis AND to be the 'bad guy' in the eyes of 'the authorities;' when you are accomplishing the skills of ... becoming one who is, even as you read this, riding adversity bare-back as it bucks and kicks, you are accomplishing great things. You are accomplishing things less obvious to popular benchmarks, but great all the same - I bet you know this - greater, actually, because you've been doing them without the support of external recognition or bail-out packages and it's unlikely there'll be any visible medals pinned to your chest for what you're doing.

"I still have my mind" ... in the face of some of the worse things life can throw at someone. It's a tribute to you, unbeknownst to yourself or when it might be most needed, to have developed this strength. Can you have a sense of accomplishment in this battle, Pan? I can, without hesitation, say you're becoming a role model. I can say your sharing this is helping to turn my spine into BackBone for things I go through and will be going through. Your story is on my lips as I let others know what battles are possible and what warriors there are to fight them. You are carrying much. Can you, knowing all this, bear an additional burden of salute and respect? There is nothing complimentary or lickass about this. Anything less would be an insult, for you are carrying a world on your shoulders, and the respect is yours whether or not others, or you feel it now, or at those most needed times, or simply generally.

Best wishes

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ZENDA