Hard Knocks

Posted on January 22, 2006 in Disappointment Stigma

There’s one of those articles about the guy is paralyzed in the spine by cancer and yet, after years of struggle, makes it back into the workplace over at Shrinkette’s. Of course it is hard, but the story doesn’t give me hope. I commented:

I [have] lived inside this disease of mine since, I believe, the second grade. I cry when I hear about success stories such as this because in the worst part of the disease I had to negotiate school and work. I missed my opportunity for my dream career and spent my work life working for people who were brutal, philistine, and not especially bright beyond the manipulation of numbers. Flushed by yelling, threats, and bewilderment that adults didn’t behave more like adults, I ended up as a folded over dry cleaning bag.

The people who might have provided me with opportunities to offset my mistakes never wanted me. A few went out of their way to hurt me. I have lived by never taking revenge, always watching these others rise and prosper.

I ask myself “How can he say that you can fix a life as disastrous as mine in three years?” I’m 47 years old, nearly 48. Stuck with no job and likely never to have a job. To stay in the world, I volunteer a few hours every week. No, I am not missing a leg or an arm. Just my sense of accomplishment and my sense of stability. I’m only bipolar.

Those choices he talks about at the end kill me.

Many answer statements like mine like so: “Life isn’t fair.” I don’t believe that it is, much of the time. The people who tell me this whip out their handkerchiefs, snuff up a bit, and then pirouette on their toes so as to walk away from me. I can almost hear them say “Thank God Life isn’t fair. Lord help us if a smart loser like you gets ahead of me.”

Maybe that isn’t what goes on in their heads. I am capable of vivid acts of imagination. What bipolar isn’t? Still, what a pathetic answer to my regrets. Everyone fucking knows that life isn’t fair, but why can’t we try to make it fair?

That phrase is for quitters.