I know I'm generally far too optimistic, but I think we have such a ****** mental health system in America that we have no one to turn to really, when we can't figure out how to help loved ones on our own.
A Suicide Hotline is all well and good, but come one! Why can't we have a Far-Before-Suicide Hotline?
It's so funny - sad funny - but I remember in 2007/08 when I could not find a job and I knew losing my condo was imminent. I would have done anything normal and legal for work as long as I didn't have to stand 9 hours a day or lift heavy objects. Like, I could not be a mover. I was so COMPLETELY ignorant of how evil, crooked and corrupt politics were in my city that I called my local Rep's office, guy on the County Board, and started asking his staff if they have any resources at all to find a JOB.
They had NOTHING - no help for job seekers at all. In the MIDDLE of a MINI-DEPRESSION. And this guy, this well-ensconced cretin who surely expects a park to be named after him one day, was so cemented in county politics that he could not care less if hundreds of thousands were losing their homes. He didn't care, Feds didn't care.
No one cared.
I think this 4th of July, I might hang my flag upside-down. I have been waiting, waiting, for major changes in public policy since that 2008 Mini-Depression, but NO. NO one will fix it. They have the money, they have the know-how, but they lack the CARE.
Anyway, my local rep's staff referred me to a local Job Center and I went. All they had was computers so people who don't have one can apply online. I had a computer. I didn't need anyone to show me how to work one. Then a friend told me she'd gone there too and one worker there said the only industry hiring was trucking. I did think about becoming a trucker for a fast five minutes. I was much too afraid of crazy drivers and accidents.
I looked at those state workers sitting there in their fat, union, air-conditioned jobs and I thought, "How do I get a nice, safe state job like that?" I did look into that for a while and, as I have said before, even considered studying Public Policy. It's a degree you will never use in an easy state job, but they want you to get one anyway. But I figured the politics of race and age were likely to block my hiring, so no point in throwing good money after bad to get yet another degree.
Oh, and I don't know about your states, but in my area one is never supposed to say, "I'm looking for a safe union job." No! Instead, as I learned from a stranger many years after 2008, you're supposed to say,
"I'm passionate about ________ (whatever the work is)."
Like, if you want to get hired as a Ford assembly line worker today, you can't say, "It's a good union job" to get hired. You have to say, "I'm passionate about assembly line design."
A bartender I met once said, "I'm passionate about spirits." He was so fake as he said it that I wanted to burst out laughing, but then I realized that's why he had a job. He was a good liar.
Want to be a rubbish collector because it's safe and unionized? Say, "I'm passionate about rubbish collection."
As a nation we refuse to build mental health convalescent care facilities. And we refuse to build low-income or even $0 income housing. I mean a simple room with a sink and toilet down the hall.
We refuse to accommodate the worst off. Our leaders pretend they do not exist.
They will die this week, in the hundreds, living outside, and the news will not report on that. God Bless America?
I don't think the fault is ours. I think the Generals leading this nation have forgotten all about the people for a whole 40 years. You and I cannot undo all those years of systemic neglect and malfeasance. As a result, we have no where to turn for aid.
Sheesh, even AA and NA are total volunteer programs. Good job Federal and state governments.
