At #80aDay, I would be able to get off JobSeeker in six months. At $43.50 a day, I have no prospects of doing anything except sitting in my room and staring at the wall until I die, no matter how many jobs I apply for.

After rent, loan repayments, medical expenses and other locked-in bills with no further allowance, I am already in the red and have to start begging. When I have to start begging depends on how many of them coincide. This time, it took four days after being paid.

I am trans. I cannot afford to change my name because it costs $190 in Queensland and in a good week I have $200 after bills. I cannot afford to remove the hair from my face. I cannot afford a single new pair of jeans from Kmart. I cannot afford underwear.

I am psychologically unable to work due to anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and recurrent extreme suicidal ideation. I am physically unable to work due to spinal issues which mean that longer than about 1 hour out of 2 on my feet causes me to start blacking out from pain.

I do not "pass" and am not professionally presentable not only because I can't afford new clothes, but because I can't afford either electrolysis or laser hair removal to remove my beard, or makeup to hide it. I can only inconsistently afford razors to shave it.

I see a psychologist for my PTSD. I should be seeing her once a week. I can afford to see her maybe once every six weeks if I beg for the money to do so. My ADHD medication also needs to be regularly reviewed. I can just barely afford to do that once every six months.

In late July, the cost of my HRT will increase by $30 a fortnight. Incidentally, if I were a cis woman, the cost of the same medications would be trivial, but I'm trans so they're not.

I can't go back into the closet because my body is the wrong shape; even my men's wardrobe no longer reliably fits me because my body shape has changed around my thighs and waist due to fat redistribution.

Give me $80 a day and I could fix all of these and get back into the workforce; sitting in your room doing the same thing day in day out with society telling you to fucking beg for it is actually an incredibly boring, draining and unpleasant experience.

Under the current conditions, however, I will be on JobSeeker until (assuming my mental health somehow improves) I die of natural causes, or (assuming it doesn't) I die of suicide. I am stuck in a Catch-22 from which there is no escape.

A few obvious questions that this thread intuitively raises. "Why do you need to change your name?" Firstly because if a potential employer knows my deadname they might use it, which would both make me sad and potentially subject me to discrimination from coworkers & customers.

Secondly because any paper trail in my deadname leaves me vulnerable to being tracked down by one of my stalkers, one of whom has been active for over a decade, is definitely still actively searching for me, and found my deadname's paper trail through an employer in 2020.

"Why do you need to remove the hair from your face?" Because it fucking sucks. Also because I managed to partially laser it off mid-pandemic so now, even if I were able to go back in the closet, it still looks like half a beard that's been lasered off.

"Why do you need jeans?" Because after the reaction that jeans got me, I really don't want to risk skirts.

"Why do you need underwear?" I'm skipping this one.

"How does anxiety prevent you from working?" It severely impairs my working memory capacity (i.e., my ability to think on my feet) and physical dexterity. A particularly bad attack will cause me to lose track of directions and my own movements and be unable to react to events.

"How does PTSD prevent you from working?" Because I'm hypervigilant, forcing me to focus on everything around me at the expense of my task, and because when I experience a trigger, I experience severe, lasting anxiety and dissociation (thousand-yard stare).

"How does suicidal ideation prevent you from working?" Because on good days it makes me seem unenthusiastic or like a bitch because I'm preoccupied. On bad days I'll start crying at work, or might not get to work because my keys have been taken off me for my own safety.

"Why does it matter if you pass?" Because it verifiably massively affects both whether I can get a job, and how badly that job is going to grind me down. At my last job I wasn't allowed to pee for 8 months. (Yes, that's illegal! If you can't afford a lawyer, they don't care!)

"Can't you see a bulk-billing therapist?" No. Psychological labour is not interchangeable. I had a very good bulk-billing therapist who was not a PTSD therapist. I had to change her out for my current, non-bulk-billing PTSD therapist, because we weren't getting anywhere with it.

"Can't you see a psychiatrist through the public hospital system?" If at all, not with the degree of regularity necessary to adequately handle managing the (common) medications I'm on, and not with the specific experience required to effectively treat me.

"Why does it matter how frequently you see your therapist?" I don't know. Why does it matter how long I'm on JobSeeker?

"Can't you go without your ADHD medication?" Not permanently if you want me to be employable (most of my brain is in those pills), not intermittently if you want me to be alive (forced cyclic stimulant detox is a great way to die).

"Can't you go without your HRT? I get that you want to look like a girl, but—" I can't fully go without it if you want me to be alive. I can't partly go without it if you want me to be employable... or also realistically alive. (This will get its own QRT.)

"You said your men's clothes don't fit you, but can't you try?" I did. It's not just a matter of "they're uncomfortable" (they always have been), they literally won't go on.

"What about the DSP?" Like most other Australians who should qualify, I don't.

"What about the NDIS?" I was advised to apply for it. I got as far as completing filling out an application, and then the NDIS worker who is my friend who was advising me changed her mind because under the new independent assessments I will probably be worse off.