I promised myself I wasn't going to post today. I have a little boy and I am struggling through a HUGE depression and I need to get Christmas ready for him. He is counting on me and no matter what -
I will not be crying this Christmas over health care reform.
I came to Dkos last year during the campaign. I found people like me here. Who care about social issues. Who can't stand bullies. Who love animals.
Who work to protect the environment and each other, and those less fortunate.
I have seen this community pull people out of suicidal episodes, off the street and into somewhere warm. I have seen so much compassion, and a validation that this is indeed a way of life for more people than me.
I am devastated - literally devastated - by the turns taken in this health care debate. I struggle - daily - with whether I can afford any insurance, and have gone most of the past 10 years without it. I am a single parent raising a child and working two part-time jobs. I am not on welfare, I don't get food stamps. I pull my own weight, and my son is thriving. He was just recommended for the gifted program at school. He organizes food drives.
He asked the kids to bring items for animals at the local shelter instead of birthday presents last summer. I have a hell of a kid, so giving up my career and instead investing in my child was worth it.
But let me tell you, as I've struggled, hearing Candidate Barack Obama make the promises he did to me about healthcare and then abandon those promises has me distraught. Absolutely distraught. I am destroyed. I had put my faith in his hands. I believed him.
Call me an idiot. Go ahead. I dare you. What's that you say? I would have known he was playing a game with my life if only I was a smarter listener? Bullshit. I know what he said.
So what does this wonderful community do when I am lying here on the floor with the stuffing beaten out of me as the senate plays this game with my life? It tells me to STFU.
STFU the girl. You are ruining it for us. Your pain is bothering us.
The people who are telling me to STFU are the same people I have seen here talking about the pain they feel when they are slighted, or abused. When their feelings are disrgarded or degraded.
STFU the girl.
I never, ever, in a million years would say that to someone who was so low. Ever.
I don't know about the politics of this. But I do know that with or without any opinions from any of you, I would feel this way tonight. I am disgusted. And I'm in a lot of pain.
For many of you, this is about politics. For me, as one who struggles with whether to buy food or health insurance ON A DAILY BASIS - this is about my life.
Ever hear of Job's Comforters? I once read Rabbi Kushner's 'When Bad Things Happen to Good People, and believe he uses the phrase to describe good-meaning people, but who are more concerned with themselves than they are with those they are supposed to be helping. They end up piling onto the person in pain.
That's what I have seen too much of here folks. Please, for compassion's sake, remember that there are real people hanging in the balance of these political arguments.
Making nothing of what happened this week makes nothing of me.
Something really bad has happened to me this week. I lost my hope. I lost my security. I lost my ability to believe in anyone. I have been hanging by my fingernails over a financial cliff thinking the extra $300 a month I spend on insurance could go towards another trip to the grocery store. I could buy my son the shoes the other kids have. I could pay for his Little League registration.
I have seen lots of arguments over this. But very, very little compassion for those of us who don't have health insurance and who really, really needed a public option, or single-payer. Something. Certainly not a mandate.
What NOT to Say
The three friends who came to console Job got terrible scores, and here's why, according to Kushner:
"Because the friends had never been in Job's position, they could not realize how unhelpful, how offensive it was for them to be judging Job, to be telling him he should not cry and complain so much. Even if they themselves had experienced similar losses, they would still have no right to sit in judgment of Job's grief. It is hard to know what to say to a person who has been struck by tragedy, but it is easier to know what not to say.
"Anything critical of the mourner ('don't take it so hard,' 'try to hold back your tears, you're upsetting people') is wrong. Anything which tries to minimize the mourner's pain ('it's probably for the best,' 'it could be a lot worse,' 'she's better off now') is likely to be misguided and unappreciated. Anything which asks the mourner to disguise or reject his feelings ('we have no right to question God' 'God must love you to have selected you for this burden') is wrong as well.
I would NEVER EVER slam anyone for being upset about cruel hatred and racism. I would instead support their outrage.
I see very, very little support for my disappointment and anger here. What was done to this health care promise is a travesty.
Let me be upset about that okay? Stop telling me how I am ruining your Political Party.
Let me tell you one other little story and then I'll STFU.
Say Dad doesn't want to do the dishes every Wednesday when it's his turn. So every Wednesday he causes a scene at the dinner table. As he slams the table and prepares to leave, little Johnny speaks up and reminds him it's his turn to do the dishes.
Dad picks up a dish and slams it against the wall, shattering it. He leaves anyway.
Do you think little Johnny will dare to bring up Dad's dish night again?
Nope.
No one will. If little Johnny does, the family will gang up on him when dad overturns the table this time. It will be little Johnny who upset Dad, not Dad who is a controlling freak who manipulates his family like this to get out of washing the dishes.
So then the family will be left in the kitchen every Wednesday, washing the dishes and attacking each other because they dare not attack the person who they are really angry with.
Dad sits happily in the living room and watches football.
This is how abuse and control works folks. The GOP is in watching football and we're all at the sink. It's not little Johnny's fault for trying to hold Dad accountable.
The fault lies 100 percent with Dad. Don't tell little Johnny to STFU.
Now, back to Christmas with my little boy.