4 ms·

> am I just supposed to suffer and accept I matter less than an old person? Absolutely not. The situation is deplorable, and I hope we can get to a better one

> am I just supposed to suffer and accept I matter less than an old person? Absolutely not. The situation is deplorable, and I hope we can get to a better one some day. Fight for all you're worth. All I'm saying is that others who receive care are not your enemies. (Or at least not because they receive care. There's bound to be some overlap.) The enemy is the people within the system who restrict the labor supply, drive up prices for everything else, make arbitrary rules like those you've mentioned, and so on. The politicians and profiteers, not the patients, define that system.

Mezzie 4y ago
I agree with this. The problem for me comes in that elderly patients (again as a class/group, there are obviously exceptions) have no problem with this system. They don't care because they benefit. I've also gotten several snide comments from elderly people and heard numerous tales from other younger disabled people that it's happened to them too. That we're too young to be there/to be sick, snide comments about when/if we can't work, etc. In fact, given that the elderly are living off of social security + investments, they have common cause with the politicians and profiteers as they won't allow any action that either risks their property values or their investment income. If line go down, old people can't retire, so we can't do it. I will never have access to my enemy until there's a critical mass of upset people, and the elderly seem willing to let younger people die of treatable problems as long as they're not effected, so the only way to get them to care and join us seems to be to make them feel as insecure as the rest of us, which sucks. I believe the elderly have agency and for the ones who are still alive (since of course the people who live to 85+ to begin with are those who didn't have to ruin their health due to poverty and blue collar labor), they've used their agency to say 'we don't care about you'. Which is fine, but then they turn around and get all mad when they're not cared about in return. Either they want to be a part of a community, including accepting the responsibilities, or they don't. They need to stop wanting to have their cake and eat it too.

Mezzie 4y ago

I agree with this. The problem for me comes in that elderly patients (again as a class/group, there are obviously exceptions) have no problem with this system. They don't care because they benefit. I've also gotten several snide comments from elderly people and heard numerous tales from other younger disabled people that it's happened to them too. That we're too young to be there/to be sick, snide comments about when/if we can't work, etc. In fact, given that the elderly are living off of social security + investments, they have common cause with the politicians and profiteers as they won't allow any action that either risks their property values or their investment income. If line go down, old people can't retire, so we can't do it. I will never have access to my enemy until there's a critical mass of upset people, and the elderly seem willing to let younger people die of treatable problems as long as they're not effected, so the only way to get them to care and join us seems to be to make them feel as insecure as the rest of us, which sucks. I believe the elderly have agency and for the ones who are still alive (since of course the people who live to 85+ to begin with are those who didn't have to ruin their health due to poverty and blue collar labor), they've used their agency to say 'we don't care about you'. Which is fine, but then they turn around and get all mad when they're not cared about in return. Either they want to be a part of a community, including accepting the responsibilities, or they don't. They need to stop wanting to have their cake and eat it too.