Ever since I was diagnosed with my disorder, I kept being assured of a net should it prove too difficult for me to make it in the professional word there was a department for this. In social security there was a magical division made to assist those born with disorders that wrecked their bodies like me. I was too proud at the time. I might have been taking things my own way, at my own pace.. But I was certain I could make it out there.
Degree after degree I found the agony difficult to focus and my attendance was terrible. I tried a number of things: Culinary Arts, Engineering, Computer Science, and Graphic Design while studying everything and anything that caught my interest. My hunger for knowledge did not change my blood. It just seemed to get worse with age, any each attempt at a new degree just lead to a worse experience. The stress of college made it so my body was swelling at random. Concerned teachers constantly asking what is wrong, and days I couldn’t properly do my work. Days I couldn’t show up at all. That is the good thing about school, you can take your work home without having to bartert or prove you are trustworthy. You fail or you don’t. School has never been easy with ADHD, but adding HAE on it? I am sad to admit I had to give up. Only to try again.. And again.
Similar can be said about the work place, but they are not as accepting of attendance problems. If I didn’t screw things up by being unable to make it to my first day because the stress and excitement of the application and interview process made it so, wouldn’t you know it, first day on the job my gastrointestinal system is swollen and I am left bent over a toilet while my stomach and esophagus work together in teaching me how to best imitate a banshee; I would eventually end up swelling too much. Too many sick days, not able to do the job, and once blaming me because apparently I didn’t stress enough how often it would happen. Like I can schedule when I am going to have a flair up from a disorder that actively likes to defy my theories on it.
Main difference with the work place is how crooked managers are. Be it the place that, while I was 17 or so and in school mind you, was forced to weork 60 hour weeks and was consistently only paid for 30 hours. Then strung along saying the next check would have what was missed, only for that one ALSO to be ripping me off 30 hours PLUSX the previous 30 hours. I was a young teenager though. NO one took me seriously. Even as I was ripped off. This wasn't the first time either. It was yelling at the void. Apparently, world can scam me all it wants. Law doesn't cover that.
Even had a lovely time involving Voc Rehab. If you don't know who they are then let me tell you. In Reno, at least, VOc Rehab is another fairytale given to up and coming disabled youngsters claiming it will help us with our problems! If by that they mean have us talk to a person who acts like he is helping but really just pushing you to usae their job website. Which is like any other job website. I am familiar with them. This does nothing to assist in the disabled. I completely stopped humoring them after my case worker asked 'Well dfo you want to work or do you want to be disabled?' Without giving me any alternatives. He'd suggest jobs rarely, but given I kept repeating I needed something low on stress or help dealing with stress then being recommended something horrifically stressful or taxing (Read flair ups). I assume I was difficult for him. How sad.
A particularly damning case involved a company that had a disability waiver. From the moment I spoke to someone I was very clear about my disorder and what I needed. Namely, that occasionally I would need, not want, NEED a goddamn cane. I am guessing that because I was 25 they thought I wanted to look like a pimp or something and not because I NEEDED IT TO STAND, they took my stipulations with a grain of salt. Fast forward a mind numbing two months that can summarized as ‘You seem to work fast, you must be able to work fast all the time! Can’t be compensating for that blood disease you won’t shut up about, not unload that truck even if there are 5 other jobs we acted like you would be getting and aren’t a danger to your health.’ Everything else swells but my leg or foot. The day finally arrives, and every day I have asked my manager about my cane only to be told he’ll find out and tell me later. Repeat 40 times.
I limp my butt in with a cane, and immediately my manager is disappointed because he wanted me unloading trucks again. The rage begins to bubble, but as with every day I zip it up like a good work slave unconcerned with my own well being. They want us all to do group exercises as they do every morning. Given I am operating on one good leg and one that is living its dream of being one solid bone, I have to improvise. Luckily my knee was swollen in a way it was bent and I can balance on one knee. I could have probably just stood back, but if there is anything I learned it is that you have to act like you can run like every other four legged horse in this rigged race to even compete. Even if you have one.
I work for an hour and a half. I am a hint slowed down, but I can manage. I need the money. The manage comes up and meekly says I am not allowed the cane. Something he could have easily found out in the two months I had worked there since. Given I have to climb a up, get onto a tiny cat walk, and climb down a ladder to get to this station I am not at all pleased. So I shrug it off and go home made as ever but holding it in. As I had the past few months.
The very next day, my knee is not at ALL better. If anything it is worse. I had to call out a lot that month so I forced myself to go into work believing if I just go at my own pace I’ll be fine. I’d worked like the devil otherwise. It is pure agony and feels like my knee cap is going to explode out of my leg with every minute twitch while my other is growing tired from constantly balancing on that alone, but I manage. Until I go to the bathroom to put water on my face and pep talk myself into not screaming bloody murder at the throbbing in my leg.
I waddle myself towards my station only for the manager-who-shall-still-not-be-named-for-legal-purposes to come up to me with this smile on his face. This smile a person like me has begun to associate with bullshit. The smell a person gets when they smell a fine smelling flower. Only more pompous, cause it is from a whiff of the bullshit they have strewn together. Since, for some reason even afterI had told him at LENGTH about this issue.. He starts rolling his hands up in an ‘up up’ motion. Saying I should pick things up a bit. As I am slowly limping back to my station with each step causing more and more pain because I was not allowed. Which he would know as he was the one that kicked me out for the cane.
I like to believe myself a reasonable, patient man. There is a point that the pounding of your own enraged blood through your ears starts to sound like war drums. I have been put through many horrors. Through physical torment and emotional belittling. I still was not prepared for the humiliation of my manager coming up to me on the factory floor and telling my crippled ass to pick it up. To go faster. I exploded.
I am not at all a violent man. Not even at my most enraged. I am a man of many words though, and I have been taught by a lunatic how one’s tone can be used as a weapon. Two months of hatred (admittedly further fueled by some issues I was having outside the workplace and bloodline) exploded out in a rabid rant. If the fucker was going to humilate me, I was going to humilate him by lecturing him like the child he was. Loudly. It might have been immature, but every bit of relief was worth it. I stormed out and was told by a friend who worked at a security guard that my picture had been put in the security room. I was apparently seen as a threat. As the worst thing I did was yell at him and call him a child.. OR something (I mildly blacked out until I stopped talking) but I never threatened and never made it seem like I was going to hurt him.
I was mad. I was in agony and it was only being made worse by the man I was yelling at. Yet they call us millennials sensitive little flowers. This man was in his 40s if not 50s. Least I didn’t end up making this one cry. I will not apologize for it though. If you are going to do that to someone disabled and actively having a flair up, you deserve your ear chewed off. The bit of power that being a manager of a FedEx Express gives you does not make you exempt from that.
So after a few more attempts at getting an ‘honest’ living or trying to get a diploma for a job that isn’t buried under needless stress, I gave in. I made my way down to the Social Security office. So that should be the end of this part of my story right? I stood in line, filled out my paper work, they saw my struggles and my inability to get a job proven right?
Heh.