Hi, I just discovered this site. I'm hoping to make some friends. I'm stuck at home and lonely. So I'll tell you a bit about myself. I'm cis female, ace. I've been having cancer treatment for quite a while and recently had a stroke. I'm going through a disability benefit appeal. All my friends drifted away when I got sick as I was no longer fun. The last time i saw my friends was at my 25th birthday party. I'm turning 41 this year. I've had no social life or offline companionship since then. I worked several jobs including fitness instructor and carer for the elderly, then went to university in my 20s to study philosophy. I had to drop out due to the side effects of my cancer meds.
My life now revolves around endless benefit assessments, last one I was awarded zero points and had my money stopped. I'm currently fighting it but now have no money at all and a maxxed out overdraft. Food bank access is awful so I'm starving constantly. I've been learning to walk again since the stroke. Previously I was sporty but now it's painful to even walk. So I wanted to take up art as a hobby, start learning to draw from scratch but I can't even afford paper and pencils.
So, life is awful. I need a distraction and someone to talk to. I used to talk to the people on a suicide pact forum (I've already made on attempt and often feel desperate enough to try again) but I just got banned from there for trying to sell my meds on there. Don't judge me please - I was only trying to do that out of financial desperation! So now I have literally no-one to talk to online or in real life.
Obviously I'm a leftist. I'm sick of this world where some people are billionaires while millions starve.
<3. I'm available to chat. My background: Cis male 30s. Unemployed 3 years whilst doing therapy for cpsd, depression, anxiety, before this I worked in low paid jobs such as retail, restaurants, medical and fabrication.
Now I am an active member of a socialist party where we sell paper, dispense leaflets and show solidarity at pickets and demos.
Hobie's: diy, art, writing, movies, social studies, reading and computers.
Again feel free to reach out.
And sorry to hear what you have been going through.
Solidarity comrade.
Well, it seems it's about to get worse. Even if they reinstate my PIP (and they say the appeal might not be til February) they are talking about changing them to vouchers soon. That's no good to me, I need the cash to pay off my OD, buy food, pay for help around the house (can't do much since I became disabled.) It's really looking like suicide is going to be the only way out for me. I've met someone on a suicide pact forum and we're discussing methods and meeting up to help each other. Nothing is going to get better, neither in my life nor with promoting socialism. It's all pointless and I'm so tired of eing hungry and stressed all the time.
The Tories in red only seem to be making things worse, if I were you I'd be reaching out to citizens advice. They really helped me with money issues and told me what to do when handling debts like requesting a freeze, helped with pip and universal credit. Beyond that I have some Devon centric help lines I understand you may feel beyond help but like Lenin said of his brother, we're no good dead (probably poorly quieted).
And you know what's even more insane? I developed vitamin deficiencies because of my lack of food, diagnosed by a doctor. The state's solution? prescribe me vitamin tablets on the NHS. So fucking stupid. They'll spend NHS money to treat the symptoms of deficiency but won't guarantee me enough money to live on so i don't get deficiencies in the first place.
Yea this is a head scratcher. In another post I commented how capitalism feels like a drawn out punishment, then on top of that we get further punished for being punished. Like currently I am bidding on social housing where once a week I must log into devonchoice.com /org to place fucking bids, if I stop I get removed from the programme, why not add me to a list. In two or however many years it takes give me a call and say "you made it to the bottom of the list, here's a flat for you" but again its a punishment and an arbitrary game.
We should have food programmes in Britain not banks but actual programmes that take from the capitalists forcefully to feed our most vulnerable.
No, we should have guaranteed minimum incomes so people don't need charity food. There should be laws against stopping people's benefits so they aren't starving in the first place. When they stop your benefits you don't even get a warning period. They don't even say "We've decided to stop your benefits. we'll stop them in three months so you have three months to find a job." Or pay you while you fight an appeal. No, they just stop them instantly. Instant and total destitution.