[Adventures] in Honesty

 

[Adventure 323] 

I used to get embarrassed about just about everything I thought was even slightly "off" or "not normal." 

At some point, I realized that being honest about things like needing help, being poor, being disabled, being a survivor of abuse, having a bad day or week or year are nothing to be embarrassed about. 

I volunteer with a refugee resettlement ministry and one of the people I volunteer with thanked me for my honesty when it comes to talking openly about he fact that my family is on state insurance and SNAP as well. I know how to navigate the system because I'm in the system. 

We didn't plan for me not to work. We didn't plan for me to become disabled. We planned for me to go to work at least part time. Instead, I spend hours a week at medical appointments for me and/or any number of my children. I spend hours a week researching treatments and medications and specialists and ways to save money considering I don't have an income. When something breaks, I watch videos on how to repair it and my husband or I give it a try if it seems doable. 

What would it help for me to hide the fact that we - a family of seven - live on one income, below the poverty line? There are so many families just like us who have had to make choices based on more factors than how much a paycheck is going to be. My husband works ten minutes from our house so that he can be here quickly in case of emergency - like recently when I fell down our basement stairs and needed to go to the emergency room. He works a job that pays well, but not well enough for us to lose our health insurance through the state. Paying for health insurance would eat up much of his paycheck and paying out of pocket for medical care is impossible with all of our health issues. We could buy a house every year with the amount it costs for my medical care. And even with state insurance, we pay out of pocket for the many things either not covered by insurance or that would be too much of a hassle to get a doctor to put through insurance.

I'm poor. I'm a survivor of abuse. I'm disabled. I have obsessive compulsive disorder, an anxiety disorder, and depression. I'm pansexual. I have a strange relationship with gender. I struggle to leave the house, but once I do I'm glad I did. I'm an extreme introvert who would be perfectly content curling up in my bed and reading a book or binge watching things other people would think ridiculous and painting or creating something, but I force myself to do things out of my comfort zone on a regular basis. None of these are bad things or things to be embarrassed about. They are just things. 

What I've learned from being honest about my life is that, more often than not, people around me are thankful. They feel less alone; less ... less than.