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Even once I get on ODSP (knock on wood) I& #39;m still only going to be able to earn $200 a month on top of the $1169 they& #39;ll hopefully give me (plus the $100 bonus for having worked, which for some reason doesn& #39;t apply for OW?).
What& #39;s great about this is that my rent is $1260.38!
What& #39;s great about this is that my rent is $1260.38!
That leaves me with 208 entire dollars every month to spend on aaaaaanything I want!!!
Except whoops, ahaha, my meds are $95 a month 
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boy, I love to be an independent adult human person capable of supporting herself!!! man, do I enjoy how well social assistance has kept pace with the cost of living!!!
Just throwing this out there so we all grasp how this works. I have family and I& #39;ll be *okay* no matter what, but that is the ONLY THING PROTECTING ME, because the "safety net" we& #39;re all supposed to have sure as hell doesn& #39;t.
ODSP is woefully inadequate on a systemic level. It doesn& #39;t actually furnish disabled people with the resources they need to live, which is pretty gross when you consider that WE ALL PAY INTO THIS SYSTEM under the assumption it& #39;s doing something necessary for vulnerable people.
I put work above everything else right up until I hit my breaking point. When I left university because the stress was too much, I kept both of my two jobs. I worked at the newspaper until my term was up (because there was a couch I could sleep on between pages).
As my health got worse and worse and worse, I backed out of volunteering and activism commitments, I stopped seeking out performance opportunities, I saw my friends less--I started saying no to everything except work. My stupid receptionist/data admin job was all I had left.
They gingerly, reluctantly "accomodated" me by tolerating my many absences and not making a fuss about me sleeping in the first aid room during my lunches, letting me wear sunglasses at my desk. I had four huge bottles of Advil and Tylenol, a big thing of menthol gel, a heat pad.
I did everything I could to hang onto that stupid job because it was all I had--and then when the FND symptoms started, and suddenly I couldn& #39;t even hold my eyes still enough to do incredibly mindless data entry, it got a billion times harder.
It was so embarrassing to me to be only working two days a week in the first place and STILL have that be too much. It was the easiest, blandest, most I-could-train-a-lemur-to-do-this job I& #39;ve ever had, and I still couldn& #39;t reliably handle it. To this day that really fucks me up.
In the end I didn& #39;t even have to quit--my suspicions about how pointless my job was turned out to be correct, and they laid off my entire department.
I couldn& #39;t land another normal job after that, even though I tried. How could I? How do you sit in a job interview and act like you& #39;re hot shit that any organization would be lucky to have, when a bad night& #39;s sleep or a slightly stressful situation renders you completely useless?
I subsisted on freelancing for awhile, but man, does it have a steep learning curve. As an independent contractor you& #39;re only as good as what you can deliver--and, well, when you have unpredictable energy levels, episodic chronic pain and a mysterious nerve problem, it& #39;s tough.
This is all to say that MAN, WE DO NOT ALL HAVE THE SAME TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, and that no amount of "hustle" (https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="đ" title="Auf den Kopf gestelltes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Auf den Kopf gestelltes Gesicht">) is gonna change the fact that chronically ill people HAVE DIFFERENT NEEDS THAN HEALTHY PEOPLE.
I& #39;m lucky because I have access to the tools I need to freelance (like a laptop that works, and reliable internet), and because I happen to kick ass at copy editing.
I& #39;m also surrounded by people who have gone out of their way to support me when I really needed it.
I& #39;m also surrounded by people who have gone out of their way to support me when I really needed it.
I& #39;m an incredibly fortunate person in the grand scheme of things, and I try to never, ever lose sight of that. I know that in the long run, I personally will figure out a way to live. But what about every other goddamn person before me, and every one that comes after?
