Hey, You! Get Off the Fence!

If there's one thing I ain't fucking with in 2026 and beyond, it's 2-faced fence riders.  Boldfaced backsliders. Loud, proud ignorant reality deniers.  DGAF what it costs to keep my soul.  Name your price--my integrity is worth that and then some.  My conscience is my only master.  All I have is my word so it has to be my bond...  

Not all of us can pay, suck or fuck our way out of a tight spot, and, try as I might, no drug or other vice has ever allowed me to reach the level of utter delusion so many Americans have achieved that allows them to live so thoroughly immersed in escapist fantasies that they ignore basic survival needs.  My brain fights to the death to maintain its shitty homeostasis--depressive realism.  And that reality is one in which things like  lack of health insurance, abusive deadbeat partners, repeated scammy phone calls/bank account lockouts, that troubling growth on the back of your neck and other ticking time bombs must be attended to NOW, in the present, to avert certain disaster.  No amount of consumerist distraction or celebrity LARPing will allow me to not be eaten alive by the fact that my small circle of friends and family are going to die premature, senseless deaths and leave me truly alone in this world... often due to their own short-sighted bad choices.  The self-induced slaughter has already begun. 

I lost my last living grandparents in 2023 and 2025, then in early 2026 a college friend passed (somewhat) unexpectedly due to major conditions he basically ignored for years (to our horror), leaving behind a wife and kids.  Then a family member of mine died a painful and drawn-out death of vascular dementia in his early 50s a month or so later.  He wasn't a drug user or obese so I'm still not sure WTF happened.  A tad anorexic maybe.  I have one old friend a couple years my junior who's a double amputee (diabetes) and just boppin' along as if everything's hunky dory due to her untreated mental illness which, had she treated it long ago, would've likely allowed her to keep her limbs.  It's THAT bad.  Last but certainly not least, I have a very close friend living with a rare, progressive brain disease that is ripping my heart out every day and another dear friend who will have to be monitored for multiple cancers for the rest of her life (she lost the genetic lottery big time).  She's moving out of state again next year.  My small circle just keeps on shrinking...

Speaking of cancer, my sister is nursing a virus that is currently producing cancer "proteins" again as well as a chronic heart condition that randomly causes her heart to beat over 200 bpm.  This would be worrying enough, but she no longer has health insurance because her piece of shit baby's father has intimidated her into not filing for child support, which happened automatically when she filed for Medicaid for herself and her child, causing said sperm donor to fly into a rage.  So mom & baby are both uninsured.  (She had to quit her job after falling asleep at the wheel from exhaustion and driving off into the ditch & now works from home while raising the child alone, but she doesn't make enough to afford healthcare in the richest nation on Earth).  My brother was dropped from Medicaid when my state decided to cut funding, causing him to quit his blood pressure and cholesterol medications abruptly.  He works as a janitor at the same hellhole we all graduated from and (understandably) weighs over 400 lbs, which makes the lack of healthcare especially dangerous.  

Sorry, was I boring you? 🥱

I could go on but I'll just... not.  My friends are incredibly insightful and receptive to discussing these things, but my family?  Belligerent is an understatement.  When I try to address ANY of it or the 50,000,001 issues currently facing them to find solutions, they flip into Shoot the Messenger mode, acting like I'm the problem.  "Stop overreacting".  "You don't know what you're talking about!"  "The FDIC will reimburse me if I lose my life savings to an internet scammer." (LMA fucking O)."

You'd think I would've learned to keep my big yap SHUT over the years, but no.  Maybe it's the OCD; the intrusive thoughts and incessant worry that drive my compulsion to speak up about things like this even when I know it's beyond futile.  Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment (nope, definitely not that.  I fucking hate drama).  It's not like I don't have my own problems to deal with--surprise landlord inspections with little notice, chronic health shit of my own, being gay AF in a blood-red fundie state with no community or viable dating options whatsoever, not being rich or having it all figured out... 

But does anyone ever ask about my life?  Besides my friends, no.  And when I ask about theirs, they go HAM.  Best to stick to superficial small-talk or shut the fuck up, I guess. 

My biggest struggle in life is not being believed.  If I talk about a subject I'm knowledgeable about with the sole intention of helping loved ones not die or lose everything they have, they're dismissive, condescending to me like a naive child who's out of her depth even when confronted with literal evidence of their wrongness.  On the flip side, if I ask for extra help with something I DON'T understand, they tell me I couldn't possibly be that stupid and am just being lazy.  I'm constantly forced to "prove" myself and I'm fucking sick of it.   Why not just say what you really mean:  "I don't care.  Leave me alone, I'm busy shopping/sleeping/binge eating/gaming/watching Reels.  I'll kill myself if I want to because it beats taking advice from YOU.  And no, I won't help you because it's too much trouble.  But I WILL chastise and demean you when something goes horribly wrong because I refused to do even the bare minimum to help you."   



Persistence is Futile.  And Yet...

Me.

Yet when the day is done--even when everyone I love is dead and gone, my conscience will still be there, checking, double-checking & septendecuple-checking to make sure I did everything possible to avert disaster & prevent the worst-case outcome.  I'm not delusional enough to think I can control what another autonomous adult does, but I DO control what I say and do.  And I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't speak up about things that matter.  Literally.  So despite the lifetime of gaslighting, yelling, insults and ruined family occasions, I'll continue speaking the truth and playing the role of scapegoated Debbie Downer if it means I can look at myself in the mirror and live without suffocating guilt for the rest of my days.  (OCD really is the devil, y'all).   But don't think for a second I don't envy the HELL out of y'all normies who can sit comfortably next to that screaming siren and carry on like everything's normal even as the mushroom cloud spreads in the darkening sky.  It must be so peaceful. 

What's my point?  Oh yeah, life's a bitch and then you mercifully die.  Of course it's only "merciful" if reincarnation isn't real, in which case I'll probably come back as a Siamese twin with Minamata Disease or something.  Maybe I'll be a woman in a Muslim country who dies in a menstrual hut or from a botched FGM ritual, or from giving birth before my body is developed enough to accommodate life... so many horrifying possibilities, many of them inflicted on humans by other humans. 

See?  That's the difference between someone like me and the grandiose normies who assume they'll come back as the next Queen of Sheba or billionaire oil tycoon in the next life.  The depression supplies the dark, ugly reality of existence and the OCD supplies the endless broken record soundtrack of vivid thoughts and images that never, ever shut off... even when you're asleep.  They just morph into nightmares.  It's a big reason I decided not to take the genetic gamble of bringing kids into this world.  You can do everything right and still have a very sick child. Or lose them to a freak accident.  Or gun violence in school.  Or... 

Sorry, I'm doing it again, aren't I?  Enough about me, let's talk about you!  What're your plans for the weekend?  Watch any good movies lately?  Find any good bargains?  TGIF, y'all!   

🌝🌈💰👷🏻🦄🇺🇲🍔🧳🏈💳🛍👰🏼‍♀💍📺