The once decent person I was, has certainly been corrupted into something so cynical and bitter I feel like somedays I grieve for who I once was. Compassion and rage have mutated into something entirely ugly.
As a person with mental health issues, I got involved with a non-partisan charity that focuses on advocating for the mentally ill. I wanted to help people avoid the pitfalls that had befallen me within an infantilising and sometimes abusive system, and make sure people were at least informed and given a voice. I loved the work, even though it was hard. It felt like putting out fires continually and running headlong into a brick wall of Kafkaesque bureaucracy that left my clients damaged. The hardship and horror just provoked my rage but I channelled it into a weapon against the scum that were harming the quality of life of my clients. I think that work took its toll on me and chipped away at any sense of justice or decency over time. I encountered awful nurses and doctors, bigots and cruel bureaucrats on power trips. I had to take constant breaks because my own mental health was getting damaged, stress was worsening the Bipolar.
It started to not feel good enough to put out fires when the napalm factory behind those fires still existed in the first place. I made a stupid decision that has corrupted me and left me this hateful suicidal thing that has come on these boards in the first place.
I got involved in the political sphere attempting to influence local policy and secure better for those in need. What a fucking nieve moron I was. Nothing has proven more soul destroying than entering that world. These same politicians were happy to pose with my clients while simultaneously voting to damage the very thing those clients needed most. Facts were meaningless in the face of pure bigotry, idiocy and the constant quest for 'efficiency savings'. The depths of sheer stupidity of conversations I was party to were honestly mind-boggling and mentally painful. I could write a book about these experiences but I don't see a point. It is absolutely terrifying to know these tribalists devoid of rationalism are steering a country. They are not all bad, but it is like realising you are in a speeding car, but instead of anyone being at the wheel you just have squabbling children arguing about the ideological merits of power steering and the placement of pedals. All the while that same vehicle is drifting off the road towards an oncoming bus full of special needs kids.
This work broke me. It made me sick to have to debate human decency and use economic reasoning to do it. Suffering seemed to be irrelevant. Trying to get them to grasp false economy more often than not failed. You would think it would be simple enough to grasp why you should not put minors in mixed adult psychiatric units… But I guess rape of a minor as a consequence is acceptable, certainly cheaper I guess, than funding more bed availability in suitable wards. I am so full of revulsion and disgust. I never understood the phrase ivory towers until getting an inside view.
I started going to work wishing I could maim these people and make them suffer into a state of humility. I wanted to show up with a flamethrower and burn these people alive. All the while loudly denying the damaging effects of fire. Because my own paid for personal think tank, with shares in various bakeries has statistics on how fire produces bread and thus staves off world hunger. Being against fire is like being against bread and all for starvation. Besides human experience is simply anecdotal, so those screams of burning politicians and their cronies are just scaremongering and have no statistical value on my decision to show up with a flamethrower or not. Even if you should trot out scientists and experts in the field of the damaging effects of fire I shall ignore them and proceed anyway because I believe I am right! So I am right, and being seen to be right is all that matters. Also if fire is so damaging, people need to take greater personal responsibility for themselves and not end up on fire in the first place. People are just so entitled these days expecting the fire service to come out at considerable expense to the hard done by taxpayer. No, I think it is only cost-effective to let them become cremated ash, which has nothing to do with fire. I think instead I will blame it on the lack of people purchasing shares in my bakeries…
I wanted to abduct the bureaucrats that denied my clients access to food because they did not meet certain criteria. Stick them in a room and let them starve a while then provide them with a convoluted form to fill out so they could request food. But provide them with no pen and the wrong form. Then eventually give them the right form and a crayon. Watch them fill it out with the crayon, then deny the request because they did not use a pen as stipulated on the form. When they get angry at me for providing the crayon in the first place, I will ignore that and tell them I shall deny their claim because they are being abusive. When they then ask for a pen I will give them a form to request a pen. Once they have completed that form. I will give them a pen, let them fill out the form for food. Then tell them they don't meet the criteria, as pens have recently been redefined as actually meaning crayons and since you filled out the form with a pen, which is not a crayon any more you will have to fill out another form with the correct writing implement.
I would ask them if those hunger pains are making this process more difficult and would they like any help navigating the system? Should they say yes, I will apologies and tell them due to funding cuts there is a six-month wait to receive the appropriate help as we are pretty backed up here. Which is a bit of a problem as it takes around forty days to die of starvation, but if you are dead you are at least not on our books. I will then provide them with the form and cheerfully inform them that the new form has been updated to better reflect the needs of our clients. I will point out several of the questions are now trick questions. If you fill it out in a certain way that seems logical to you. I will instead ridiculously infer from that you don't actually need food and use your own words as evidence against your claim. Good luck and have a nice day.
Unsurprisingly I quit after a breakdown as feeling enraged and nursing homicidal fantasies all the time was severely damaging. I am corrupted into a sense of having no hope for the future. With such bitter brooding cynicism. I feel like we are on course to all be eating sawdust while being told how nutritionally complete it is. Sorry for the lengthy diatribe.
