Diagnosis: Fibromyalgia
Prognosis: In the US, terrible; if I go abroad, juuuuust fine.
I've been toying of late with the idea of living elsewhere for a couple years--to clear my head, to find myself, to really get at whatever the fuck is up with me. Last time, though, things didn't pan out so well--I did what I basically do at home all day, except with my social, emotional and financial support over three thousand miles away.
I've also toyed with the possibility of taking a semester off. It would be the most important semester, my graduating semester, that things would fuck up so bad, but maybe I'm being responsible for once in my life in admitting that I am not well enough to lose the safety net of college. When I lose this net, I lose my status as full-time student, which is to say that I lose my health benefits.
Benefits.
As in, not rights.
As in, a payment or gift for services rendered.
Because if you're not rendering services in the US, if you're not contributing to unfettered and unregulated free-market capitalism, you're goddamn useless.
The reality of my situation is that I cannot perform simple tasks. I cannot lift things, I cannot sit or stand for long periods of time, I cannot even bend my knees without feeling like my goddamn kneecaps are going to explode.
There goes the food industry, the service industry, and an office job as potential areas of underemployment for me.
Grad school would be an obvious and viable alternative, but if this past semester has taught me anything, it's that when I am severely depressed, or manic, or fibromyalgic, or whatever the fuck it is that I am, I cannot do anything. This, of course, is seen as laziness, as an unwillingness to work, as a blatant disregard of our capitalistic system.
It is seen as everything else but an illness.
Let's move to England.
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