anonymous asked:
Why would you encourage someone to e-mail you to vent but then never respond at all? :( I do appreciate your kindness in letting me vent, but I'm super isolated so I'm especially sensitive to this sort of thing. I certainly don't want to add to your stress (sorry), but it would be nice to get some clarification. Thanks.
Wow.
Wow. You know, very rarely do I get messages that genuinely upset me. But this. This pulled my last straw today (of which I had very few).
I am a full time student. I major in psychology, minor in biology, and take pre-physician assistant track. I’m on scholarships, which means I work my ass off to get the grades I need to keep those scholarships.
My free time is spent doing 1 of 5 things: advocacy work, spending time/volunteering with the sorority-structured group I am a part of on campus, studying, or sleeping.
My Hostel Room
I get anywhere from 5-30 messages a day. Sometimes I get them at 3:30 in the morning. Sometimes I get them at 9am. Sometimes 9pm. I get to some faster than others. If you look, you can see that my last 6+ posts have all been answering questions and responding to you guys. I read them all. I keep my inbox open and my email open because I love this community. I love reading your stories and I love being able to do what I can to help others navigating a difficult path.
Sometimes I answer them quickly. Others take more thought, more spoons, and more time. Let me be clear: for the thousands of hours I put into advocacy, I get paid for none of it. I do this because I love it. Because I believe in empowering patients and giving patients a safe space to grow, cope, and find their voice in a system that does a damn good job at trying to drown all of us out. I open my inbox—and my time—to everyone with love.
And then there are weeks where my life falls apart and you know what? I have to put myself first.
This week, my life has been a mess. I think sometimes you guys forget that I am a patient—a person with a life and big obstacles to face outside of what you read about here—too. If you follow me on twitter, you know that I’ve been dealing with absolute chaos this week. I’ll have you know that after not sleeping last night, I spent my afternoon in the pouring rain cleaning out my wrecked car in the middle of a junk yard. And after that fun excursion, I got the call that my insurance will not be reimbursing the full value of my car.
Meaning I just lost about four. thousand. dollars.
I don’t have a super supportive family. I don’t have a well-off family. I am skipping kineret shots because my doctor is dropping the ball with communication and my insurance just changed. I don’t know how I’m going to pay rent in a few days. Right now, things are really unbelievably fucking tough for me. And this message was my last straw. I had nothing else to give—to myself, to you, to anyone today.
So if this is in regards to the email I received in the middle of the night: I read it. And you know what? It might take me a few days, maybe even a week to respond. Maybe longer.
And that’s okay. I will not apologize for that.
I do the best that I can. It's my own choice of life.......!
And I’m sorry if that’s not enough for you or for anyone else.