Last year was a big year for me. I turned 30, I had my first hospital admission, and I was diagnosed with bipolar 2. The episode that landed me in hospital also destroyed my career. I'd graduated from uni a couple of years prior, and like all except the most privileged graduates, I'd been fighting to get a foothold in the employment market. Two months before landing in hospital, I'd made an interstate move that was supposed to improve my prospects. Instead, it triggered a massive depression that more or less sealed me out of my intended career - as one hiring manager told me, "there are just so many graduates out there who haven't been sick."
Since then, I've been existing narrowly off Newstart. Despite an assessed work capacity of 0-8 hours per week, I still have to submit a certain number of job applications per fortnight. Inevitably, I've spent the last nine months being regularly rejected for jobs. Gee, I'm sure glad I spent $70k on my education.
As if that's not enough of a middle finger from Centrelink, they've caught me in their robo-debt net. Some bureaucrat or minister on a six-figure salary decided they needed to appeal to an anti-"dole bludger" populace, so they set up a massive automated scheme where "debts" are alleged on the basis of a high-school grade maths error and respondents have to prove themselves not guilty. Consequently, I have to chase down payslips from six years ago from an employer who has since been bought out by an American company who has no record of me. Until I can get said payslips, Centrelink is docking my already-below-the-poverty-line pittance by $85 a fortnight.
The ATO is jumping on board now, too. They've somehow calculated that since I accidentally underdeclared by $800 a couple of years ago, somehow I owe them $2300. I can see the mistake, but they don't listen to me when I try to point it out. I don't blame the call centre folks - they're probably as burnt out as I am from dealing with general bureaucratic stupidity. But the result is that I have to go through a complicated appeals process, with no money and no energy, when the matter could be solved in two minutes if someone just listened.
Meanwhile, all my friends and classmates are moving on in their lives and their careers. Many of them are flourishing on a path I invested six years of study towards. They were supportive when I first got sick, but now they kind of expect me to be over it. They have other things to do.
I'm trying so hard to work this out constructively, but Medicare only funds about a quarter of the psych sessions I need each year, and I sure can't afford the rest. My meds aren't working, and I can't find a psychiatrist who won't either charge me more than I have or make me wait for six more months.
I can't afford more than a few bus rides a fortnight (and I definitely can't afford a car or fun outings), so my existence is limited to whatever's within a half hour walk from home. I'm trying really, really hard to get out and move every day, but with such a limited range of options for social interaction, my motivation is dropping steadily. The more it drops, the more I stay in; the more I stay in, the more it drops. I'm wonder if I'm going to die alone in a shitty room in a shitty share house.
I've never been a Liberal voter, but I *hate* this government. I can't help blaming them for a lot of what I'm dealing with. Labor's no better. I'm useless to all of them - a dole-bludging, unemployed, heavily-indebted waste of space. I don't trust hospitals and I find most of the medical profession incredibly condescending; they assume mental illness entails mental incapacitation. I've been replaced in my professional and personal networks. I don't know where to turn.
Call me a whiny millenial, but I grew up on a social contract that said if I work hard and play nice, I'll do ok, and if I get sick then my country will look after me. Well, I studied for six years while working to support myself and volunteering for various causes. I graduated near the top of my class, with fantastic networks. When I didn't get a job in my field straight away, I kept trying. I volunteered some more. I worked three casual jobs at a time to make ends meet. I uprooted my whole life and accepted a week-by-week temp job right at the bottom of the ladder, praying each day that I'd get a call extending my contract so I could pay 70% of that income to cover the next week's rent. And then I got sick. And now, my country tells me I'm a thieving scumbag, I deserve to live in poverty, I don't have any real health problems, I just need to buck up, oh, and also we're going to up the interest on your student loans that you now have no way of paying.
I've never felt such pervasive anger. I know that this is part of a grieving process - I've lost the life I thought I would have. But that doesn't make it easier. How can I let this go?
