Worthless or Priceless?

English is a weirdly put together construct.

According to Merriam Webster, "priceless" means having a value beyond any price and "worthless" means useless, contemptible, and despicable.  However, "price" means the cost at which something is obtained and "worth" means the value of something measured by its qualities or the esteem in which it is held.

It would seem, looking at the words themselves that "priceless" and "worthless" ought to be synonyms.  The words "price" and "worth" used to be considered synonyms, after all.  That is not how the English language works though.  Priceless is something beyond all measure of wonder, and worthless is the bottom of the bucket, scum of the earth.  Two words, that by all rights and means should mean the same, are turned into antonyms by English.

My depression often makes me feel worthless, but at one point someone who cared turned that word around for me.  Worthless then meant worth more than any price.  I'm struggling now, but I am holding onto that.  I have people showing me that, even when my brain is loud and raging against me, my worthlessness is in reality priceless and that I truly matter.

This is the dichotomy of my life.

Her Guardian

The uneven forest floor tore at her feet, her stockings long since shredded in her flight.  The cold of the moonlit night barely numbed the pain and the faint sounds of pursuit growing closer confirmed her trail was impossible to hide.  She threw herself down among the roots of a tree, her heart pounding as she gasped for breath, hoping for concealment among the shadows. She burrowed the fresh gentle curves of her body into her shawl in a likely futile attempt to hide its treasure from their ravenous eyes, dread filling her as the crude slurred comments drew ever closer, leaving no doubt to their intentions as though the already forming bruises had left any.

Curled up tight, eyes screwed shut, silently praying they might miss her in the darkness, her body stiffened in shock as an unexpected wave of safety and comfort washed over her with a wafting scent at once familiar and exotic.  The sounds of the men dulled in her ears as she felt soft, heated velvet nuzzling against her, the musky, sun-drenched scent of horse and jasmine enveloping her. Her eyes opened, her face tipping up, caressed by draping strands of deep midnight forelock and mane, his curling obsidian horn standing guard over her like a sword for a mere instant.

The brutal men forgotten, she blinked transfixed by him as he stepped back, his hooves silent on the leaf litter, instantly gone in the stillness of the night.  The stench of booze and man suddenly crashed down around her, the alien glow of torches intruding on the magic of the moment, her breath catching in horror as reality clarified around her.  Rough calloused hands grabbed her, ripping her from the scant safety of the tree roots as they ripped at her clothes. She fought against their grasp, twisting and biting with strength she didn’t know she had, gasping breath to scream into the uncaring blackness.

Still kicking and fighting, it was a moment before she realized the attacker in front of her was gurgling a scream of pain, his back arching, arms flung out, hot flecks of his blood soaking onto her night-cooled skin.  She staggered back, frantically trying to take in what she was witnessing as the men around her reacted too slowly, releasing her too late as confusion bloomed on their faces. The confusion shattered into fear as as incarnation of terror tore through them, horn drenched in flowing blood, mane dripping with it as one after the other fell watering the roots of the forest with their life’s blood.

Scant seconds later peaceful silence returned to the forest as the men’s bodies came to a final rest among the leaves and roots.  In shock, her back plastered against rough bark, the remnants of her clothes nothing but shreds, she absently smeared blood across her face with the back of her hand in a failed attempt to clean herself as she tried to make sense of it all.  Emerging from the darkness, his dark warm presence was once again enveloping her in safety and comfort, the soft velvet nose that nuzzled her now damp although the night didn’t allow her to see the blood against his midnight hide. She leaned her forehead to his, resting cuddled beneath his horn, allowing herself a moment to bask in the magic of her protector and hide from the horror of the world.

Coming to terms with being disabled, but not legally so

Disability is defined as a physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that impairs, interferes with, or limits, a person's ability to engage in certain tasks or actions or participate in typical daily activities and interactions and as an impairment (such as a chronic medical condition or injury) that prevents someone from engaging in gainful employment. (from www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disability)

By both parts of that definition, I am disabled.  My conditions, all put together, significantly limit me on a daily basis and I have not been physically able to work a full-time job, or even a regularly scheduled part-time job, for years.  It's been a struggle as it is to educate my children, be my son's aide twice a week at school up until this year, and squeeze in as much side work as my body will allow.

This has been something that has been very hard for me to come to terms with.  I kept hoping things would get better and I would miraculously go back to the functionality I had for most of my life.  It is amazingly hard to accept that this body that I inhabit, that for years was very responsive and obedient to my wishes, that allowed me to work construction, do marathon arts and crafts sessions, and that birthed, fed and lugged around two children, now can't pick up a gallon of milk some days.

It was even harder to come to terms with when so many people kept saying things like, "Oh, it's just the aging process.  Everyone has aches and pains when they get older."  I'm turning forty-two this year.  The vast majority of forty-two-year-old women with my history and habits are not in constant pain every day, but the message of "Suck it up and deal," is a very powerful one in our culture if you are young (enough) and appear to be healthy.  

That's the other thing, I look healthy.  I'm not wheelchair bound.  I don't need a cane (most days) or slings/braces (also most days).  Generally, none of my issues show on the outside.  In fact, to try and improve symptoms, I lost a lot of weight.  Now I am more slender and still have all the health problems I did before.  People notice the weight loss, not the limp (in part because the physical therapists pounded it into my head to avoid limping if at all possible) or the careful way I have to get up and down from a seated position or the fact I often avoid carrying anything remotely heavy or how I freeze when faced with sudden change.  

The long road to finding actual diagnoses did not help the process.  It was one problem stacking on top of another, stacking on top of another over years.  It turns out in the end that many of them are intertwined symptoms rather than diagnoses on their own.  The whole process, from beginning to end, from the time I first started trying to solve some of the related health issues was at least five years.

When I finally admitted to myself that maybe, just maybe, I'm not going to get back to a point where I can work reliably, I looked into going on disability.  What I learned is that the system is rigged against people like me.  It sounds cynical, but unless you have worked enough in the past five years to have earned enough credits then you do not qualify for SSDI.  I obviously haven't because I have been disabled and trying to recover to a point where I wasn't and, on top of that, I was raising my kids, homeschooling, and acting as my son's aide on a volunteer basis, none of which counts for disability credits.  

I also don't qualify for SSI which is where I was pointed when the credits problem was explained.  To qualify for that, I would have to get divorced and get my name off one of the cars, close my business bank account, etc and so on because we make too much as a couple for me to qualify for that either.  The cut-off, by the way, appears to be $1500 a month for a couple at least in California and you can't really have any property of any value.  While that is just above the federal poverty level for a couple, we have two dependents which doesn't seem to be factored into the SSI information at all.  

Not to mention that finding ANY clear, concise information concerning requirements and income levels and all of that is a full-time job in and of itself and caused me massive anxiety attacks.  The Social Security Office wasn't helpful.  The local support agencies weren't helpful.  Even my health insurance company which has a kind of advocate for such things wasn't helpful.  It feels like the whole process is set up to make people give up.

(This was written the summer of 2018 and I forgot to publish it then.  Some things have changed and I hope to post about them soon, but I figured I should put this up in the meantime.)