March 10th, 20 years later…

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March 10th will mark 20 extra years I’ve gotten to live, since my 2nd open heart. And I’m still haunted by the audacity of someone recently telling me that I don’t belong (later tried to claim a caveat, alas that caveat stunk like carrion).

It just hit me tonight, these two diametrically opposed occurrences.

I have 20 years as proof.

I was blessed with these years all because of a fluke  with my warfarin and having major dental surgery, having damaged teeth removed.

My warfarin dosage for my mechanical heart valve had been increased prior to the dental work, at least a couple times. I didn’t question it, just took the dosage schedule given. Didn’t know that uh, maybe discussing dental surgery with my cardiologist would be a good idea. It was all still new to manage and consider.

Ended up quite ill, sutures redone twice over maybe 3 days, and in hospital for blood transfusions finally because I couldn’t clot and was seeing stars by that point.

Not anyone’s fault. I was still new to being a mechanical valve warfarin patient. And I recall they’d been increasing my dose at the time at least twice leading up to it. Pretty certain I wasn’t eating that much vitamin K in foods for such an increase. It was odd, looking back.

Anyway, my team of doctors from my previous 6 week hospital stay and then-only open heart surgery were informed that I was back! Scan time. Heart echocardiogram. Let’s see how the shiny valve looks now!

“What is that strange texture? says one cardiologist looking at an area of my heart wall next to my shiny, literally ticking new heart valve. “That shouldn’t be there…” answers the other cardiologist. More cardiologists appear. They are all suddenly concerned. One is right in front of the scan staring at it and he’s puzzled.

All I hear is “that shouldn’t be there.”

Later, my Mom goes to the vending machine floor to grab snacks. As the elevator doors open, who should appear? My life-saving heart surgeon! He looks up and recognizes my Mom, “what are you doing here?”

That was in April 2003. My valve was replaced September 2002. It took months of multiple various types of scans to monitor and determine the threat level of this thing that shouldn’t be there. I was otherwise asymptomatic.

Leading up to Christmas 2003, I finally had the big boss of heart tests to see what the monster looked like, a heart catheterization. They likened it to a pseudo-aneurysm.

Basically, a section of my heart wall next to my new valve had thinned out. So much of that area had been infected and damaged that it had to be scraped off, removed. Over time, the beating of my heart started having an effect on this area of wall. It started to balloon out, filling with blood with every pump. So as blood was pulled through my new valve, some pushed out into this weakened section, just like a balloon filling.

I will never forget watching it on the heart cath monitor.  After ballooning outwards, then followed by the next pump, that blood was pulled out from it and went through my shiny new valve. Next pump, repeat with the ballooning.

Another open heart surgery was likely needed. My cardiologist looked at me and compassionately apologized because that was our worst fear. And right before Christmas. They recommended either the Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic to handle this monster, and all of its risks, that didn’t belong there in my chest.

Over the next couple months, my Mom found the best cardio-thoracic surgeon at Cleveland Clinic to look at my case and massive stack of records. Finally, my 2nd open heart surgery was scheduled for March 10th, 2004.

Had this strange texture that didn’t belong, and eventually developed into a continuously reinflating balloon of blood, never been discovered…

I could have simply dropped lifeless to the floor, one day, out of nowhere.

I was asymptomatic the entire time.

It was a complete fluke, a cascade of synchronicities, that allow me to still be here alive 20 years later.

A strange synchronization of so many little things all working out together to reveal that something had gone unexpectedly wrong in my ticking heart, while healing from the first go round in saving my life.

And it all worked out.

My 2nd heart surgeon was able to close this burgeoning hole in my heart. Life saved again. To experience such luck twice in the same life is uncanny.

I’m quite certain that this is proof from the Universe that I fucking belong.

Flowering Among the Weeds – Repost

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I originally wrote this blog entry as a guest blogger in August 2016 for the Arthritis National Research Foundation and shared it via this blog.

As the guest blog posts are no longer available, I thought I’d repost it fully here, especially due to the pandemic’s continuing impact and a need for this personal reminder:

Flowering Among the Weeds
By Kristin Seaman

Sharing your life with a chronic disease can be extraordinarily discouraging. It robs us of who we thought we were and what we hoped to be; healthy, normal, and full of youthful vigor.

The health once known now riddled with weeds of disease emerging from beneath our shell. The aching inflammation takes over and serves as a constant reminder that life will never be the same as it was before dis-ease.

There will be the impossible days, along with those awful hard days, even some seemingly better days, hopefully followed by some wondrous days that leave us feeling less guilt about coping with it all.

But even during those most impossible days, there is a strength rooted within you, just waiting to bloom. It took a while for me to dig around in the dirt and find it buried under all the weeds. There were times I even doubted that it had survived the bone chilling nature of my disease.

But there that little bulb was, nestled deep, stubborn enough to still sprout fire.

It all started at the point in one’s youth where you really start to look forward to adulthood and make plans for the future.

Instead, I found myself and everything I knew crumble from the inside out into rubble.

Void of all hope that I could ever hold myself upright again as a bright shining jewel of health, I felt reduced to aching stone and aged before my time.

At the age of sixteen, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Rh positive, nodules sprouting along my knuckles, with joint deformity staking its claim to weaken me.

In an attempt to make sense of my diagnosis, I felt that I must have done something to deserve this punishment.

Was it from misbehavior? Had I spoken back too much? Surely it had to be from the chocolate I had sworn to give up on Lent, but ate anyway. Was it me? Something I did or perhaps even didn’t do? What could anyone have done to deserve this?

If I did something differently, anything differently, would it stop and let me have my life back?

I felt like Cripple Van Winkle.

To wake up one day and find everything you knew and trusted about your body has been rewritten in a language that no one can exactly decipher, a new code with origin unknown.

I first noticed that something didn’t seem right during gym class. It was halfway through the Fall term, the point where range of motion should be increasing and yet I noticed a new resistance and fatigue.

Throughout the school year, this disease nestled deep into my joints to make its nest, spreading around to wrap up my body in its wings of constant pain and inflammation.

It hurt to move. It hurt to remain still in this cocoon of disease. It simply hurt too much to even want to live, let alone live with it.

Most nights, I sobbed myself to sleep. I wanted so much for the sharp and dull aching to stop, even if it meant not waking up.

I thought I was weak. I felt like a teenaged feeble freak with nothing to live for anymore

Then in my early twenties I developed an infection that nearly killed me. Only then did I start to unearth the courage that Rheumatoid Arthritis gifted to me. A hardy bulb thought dormant with roots reaching deep into my heart and soul.

The doctor informed me that I was not expected to survive that night in the ICU. I found myself fighting to dig in and hang on despite the odds stacked against me.

After multiple tests, doctor visits, hospitalizations, and my heart opened up twice for repair, I was still alive and kicking.

Not only could I hear it thanks to my new ticking heart valve, but I could also feel it due to the Rheumatoid Arthritis. I still ached, taking a newfound comfort in my dis-ease. I made it. It finally felt good again to be alive.

The body is a garden to tend dearly, no matter the changing conditions nature rains upon our health.

We often wish so much for a restoration of our previous physical health that we forget the strength planted long ago in our very human nature.

More than physicality, it takes an inner persistence to survive in this world.

At the start of this journey, I viewed Rheumatoid Arthritis as an incurable curse, poisoning me with destruction from the inside out.

But over time, I found my original judgement was not only unfair to myself, but even unfair to my disease.

The Rheumatoid Arthritis planted the seeds of strength I needed in order to bloom in spite of it, a fiery flower among the weeds.

Busy Bones

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I am still alive…

to the chagrin of my neighbors on NextDoor.

Now, an update to a macabre little free-write from a November 2018 post.

Enjoy…

Busy Bones

She was running out of room.

Where could they go?

The skeletons were all over the house!

Pushed to the back of closets.

Stuffed behind the couch.

Hiding under beds and behind doors.

Was there anywhere else they could go?

The cellar long ago had ceased being an option.

That’s where she buried the bodies of her ghosts.

It was packed down there, stuffed to the gills.

A festering tomb to behold.

No, the skeletons simply would not fit!

The attic was out too.

That’s where the ghosts liked to roam.

Up in the cobwebs, whispering from corners.

They would resent the intrusion.

So many skeletons…yet no place for them to go!

Halloween was too far away to use as decorations.

If she put them out now, there would be questions.

Perhaps it was time to start somewhere fresh…and empty?

And SELL!

Insufficient Storage

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Maybe I should write a story about sleeping one’s life away because of demands on it from my disease (need for napping was one of the first noticeable symptoms at 15), depression/antidepressant. and existing in a pandemic. Social interactions drain me more than before since my tolerance from 5 days a week is gone.

It could be nonfiction. Or fictional. A fairytale.

I tell myself “oh, it’s just the 4th vaccine this weekend” but honestly, I don’t feel it. My Humira wipes me out way more than these vaccinations.

And Jeff will often let me sleep, unless I have specific can’t miss plans. He knows I need the rest. I know I need the rest. But i just resent myself for needing so much rest.

This demand for sleep is a hidden cost of being immunocompromised, living with an incurable and disabling autoimmune disease.

Selfish people in this pandemic tell me and others like me to “just stay home” if we don’t want to catch Covid-19 and so that they can be selfish entitled assholes in a world designed for them and their entitlement.

But the thing is, I’ve always stayed home on my “time off” from work. And now I even stay home all the more, because work allows for it.

But it’s nice to leave the house once and again to pretend that I’m a normal person, who gets to do normal things.

They can’t stick us in asylums to forget about anymore.

I just keep sleeping the days away, hoping to wake up in a better world.

It hasn’t happened yet.

But maybe tomorrow….

Normal.

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I hate my disease. I hate having to be forced to give up so much time living with it, dealing with it,, treating it, pretending to be well when I’m not, especially in this ableist society.

I have my disease because an asymptomatic virus triggered something in my immune system to go haywire and turn upon itself as the enemy.

So now for almost 27 years from the promising age of 15, when you have your whole entire fucking life out ahead of you, I’ve had to fight and struggle against my own body, against the disease that too over as it has tried to destroy itself, Me, from the inside out. Then and now until the day I die.

But go on about how vaccines and masks are too much or too difficult or how they rob you of your “freedumbs”…

You want to know what robs you and your children of your so-called freedom?

A fucking virus that cares only to destroy from the inside out followed by a fucking disease that cares only to destroy from the inside out. And you fight an often losing battle trying to find the right treatment, trying to keep up with enough treatments to keep the autoimmune disease at bay. But just like a virus, autoimmune diseases are clever and find little ways to sneak through, forcing one to increase treatments or change treatments.

You want to complain about vaccine side effects? Look up the side effects for my fucking Humira and then get back to me. We aren’t doing flips and cartwheels afterwards like the commercials indicate. I’ve utilized this treatment since 2006 and one day, I know it will fail me. I’ve had to increase treatments to control my disease activity.

But go on and complain about how “you can still get Covid-19 if vaccinated.” Your immune system would have a fucking chance to fight it and protect your immune system’s health and future instead of being compromised to the point of triggering a destructive autoimmune disease, so get vaccinated.

It isn’t just imminent death and illness from the virus that you should fear but also the long term effects of surviving the virus.

Where’s your freedom when you’re seeing a specialist to find out why your body hurts and you can’t move easily, freely?


Where’s your freedom when you have to start treatments to control your immune system and hinder disease activity?


Where’s your freedom when you have to deal with prior authorization bullshit and insurance companies?

Where’s your freedom when you have to find copay assistance programs to afford your thousands of dollars treatment?


Where’s your freedom when you have to dedicate time to your treatment and its recovery?


Where’s your freedom when you’re too ill from side effects of treatment to do anything you want or anything that you had planned, forced to watch the world pass you by as you fight a battle against a disease trying so hard to destroy you from inside?


You want to complain about hating this “new normal” of the pandemic and quarantines?


Try the new normal of an incurable autoimmune disease and the new normal of a chronic disabling health condition.

Where’s your motherfucking freedom then?

Feel free to share. Maybe it will spare one child from losing their healthy immune system like I did at age 15..

You Are Not a Martyr #1

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Welcome to a new series called “You Are Not a Martyr!”

In this series, I go off on the ridiculous proclamations of so-called martyrdom that too many healthcare workers feel compelled to make due to their employer requiring vaccination against Covid-19. Truly, these people likely shouldn’t be working in healthcare in the first place.

Join me as I roast their bullshit pronouncements of self-sacrifice, where the only thing they’re really willing to sacrifice in this pandemic is the safety and health of the patients whom they profess to care about healing. Alas, their failure to even be vaccinated by this point in the pandemic along with their tantrums of medical oppression show them only to be liars and hypocrites. The audacity for them to think that they’re perfectly justified in putting the lives of patients at risk by refusing to be vaccinated within a line of work which exists specifically to protect, care for, and help patients. Is that really the kind of medical care you truly think we deserve? To be helped by healthcare workers who unapologetically refuse to protect not only patients, but the community at large?

We deserve better healthcare than what y’all are interested in providing us. We deserve vaccinated healthcare workers.

Today’s poor excuse of a healthcare so-called martyr is Chelcey Lundquist, found here:

My comments are in italic, unlike Chelcey’s bullshit…

*I will begin a 28 day unpaid suspension and ultimately will be terminated the 28th of October**

Why bother waiting? If you were really all that mad about the mandate, you’d walk away right now.

In 30 days, I’m being forced to walk away from the profession I have given my life and my heart to for the last 10 years.

Nah, you haven’t. If your heart and life were really into helping patients and being there for patients and caring about patients, you’d already be vaccinated. All I’m hearing is an ego trip trying to disguise itself as martyrdom. 

 I’m walking away from the only “big girl” job I’ve ever known.

Well, that explains things.

 I’m walking away from a position as a pharmacy tech, to which I have sacrificed years of my life to.

Oh, that’s nothing. I’ve sacrificed years of my life to healthcare workers that it turns out, I should never have trusted! Because while they claim that they’re doing this work to help us patients because they care about us patients, it turns out that was a lie. We were just the acid of their ego trip. 

 Sleeping at the hospital, continuing education, extra hours worked. 

All of that education in pharmacy tech and you still won’t vaccinate? Pathetic.

I’ll never get any of that back.

Pity. Come talk when you’re afraid to go to your specialist doctor appointments in a pandemic, especially when a healthcare worker’s ego trip prevents them from caring about protecting you.

I’m walking away because I refuse to allow someone to put something into my body that i don’t want. Not through bribery, force or coercion.

No one is forcing you to be a selfish asshole. You chose a job that serves patients and yet you won’t protect us in a pandemic. 

I’m walking away because it’s what’s best for myself and my family.

Nah, that’s all ego. If you cared about what was best for anyone right now in this unending pandemic (because of selfish egotistical brats like you), you would have been vaccinated as soon as you became eligible. Like the rest of us did, because we actually care to protect those around us. 

I’m walking away because “healthcare” has become a discriminatory, ugly beast. 

And there’s the oppressed white woman square on the bingo card! Healthcare has always been a discriminatory, ugly beast…Black Lives don’t matter in healthcare, especially the lives of Black women and Black mothers. So many gay men died of HIV/AIDS because y’all refused to care for them throughout the 80s onward. Anyone who wants a uterus removed is often refused; even told that their husband must grant permission. Also, trans people are often discriminated against, refused care, because healthcare workers see them as some ugly abomination instead of as a human being deserving of healthcare. And this is just the tip of the ugly beast’s tongue…

This is not what I signed up for. 

Yeah, well I didn’t sign up for a crippling incurable disease full of chronic inflammation and pain at the age of 15, which has required me to depend on healthcare workers to meet the needs of fighting my disease and obtaining treatment to try to control it for nearly 27 fucking years. Cry me a river. 

The healthcare I began my career in, was night and day different than this. We were blind to choices made by our patients that brought them to us. 

It’s not up to you, the pharmacy tech, to decide why a patient needs a particular medicine. It’s not up to you to do anything more than count, disperse, and hand over prescriptions. Sadly, that puts you in exposure range for many of us patients and you are not worth getting sick and dying for in this pandemic. 

We are not God, judge or jury. 

Thank the gods…

We are healing hands.

No, there’s nothing healing about you. You are a fucking hypocrite. You are pond scum. You are the E. Coli under Goatse’s fingernails (NSFW). There is nothing remotely healing about you, your intentions, nor your motivations. You only do this job to feel better about yourself, which is funnily enough the same reasons why y’all refuse to get vaccinated. You say you’re healing, yet your actions show that you care nothing for protecting the most vulnerable patients. 

I will walk away because it’s a lesson my child needs to see. 

If you really want to teach your son a valuable lesson, show him all of the bodies of Covid-19 victims being transported out of the hospital into the mobile morgue trucks and then tell him how Mommy is so smart because she refuses to get the vaccine that could help protect her, and by extension hopefully, him as well as allllllll of the patients that his Mommy professes to care about helping and healing. 

That his momma gave it her all and still lost. 

Tell it to all of the people who lost their lives to Covid-19 last year, before the vaccines were available. Your so-called loss is bullshit. 

AND THAT ITS OK TO LOSE.

This isn’t a little league baseball game. This is life and death in a pandemic. 

 He will see what mountains one voice can shake.

Your voice won’t say  much when they place the laryngoscope down your throat…nor will you be shaking since you’ll be sedated.

 He will see those mountains move with lots of voices.

The only things moving are body bag after body bag full of silenced victims of Covid-19 as they are transported into the refrigerated trucks. 

 He will see those mountains crumble with an army of voices. 

The only things crumbling are the lungs of Covid-19 victims, as they collapse and their family members, as they say goodbye over FaceTime. The only “army” worth mentioning is the National Guard and they’re actually doing something to fight this pandemic…unlike you: 

“National Guard troops have helped distribute food and PPE, supported contact tracing and testing, and their medical teams have supported direct patient care and now will assist with vaccine administration.”  

https://www.fema.gov/fact-sheet/national-guard-deployment-extended-support-covid-19-response

He will learn, his singular voice, is capable of amazing things.

Probably not, since I’m guessing that you’ll likely refuse to vaccinate him against Covid-19 too once his age range becomes eligible. By the way, you can’t really speak when you’re intubated. 

I will walk away with my head held high.

See, it was never about helping us patients. Just admit it, you never cared about us. You cared about how we made you feel about “helping” us. 

 I will own this with resolve to move forward. 

It’s always nice when people are willing to own their own stupidity. Good job!

Although my life and heart have been given back in pieces, I will gather those pieces and walk away.

Oh, well at least you get to walk away…again, tell it to all of the Covid-19 victims who didn’t get to walk away last year.

 I’ll put those pieces together and create something new. 

Just make sure it doesn’t have any mRNA! Wouldn’t want to risk becoming magnetic or 5G…

I’ll rely on the friends I have made in this fight.

Ah, yes, fellow hypocrites! Perhaps the next time you plague rats all get together, you can research ‘herd immunity’…

 I’ll rely on my family for the days when the fight seems to be too great. 

It’s a vaccination, not a crucifixion. Come talk when the enemy is your own immune system, instead of some pretentious contrarian bullshit.

How about when you have to rely on your family because your DMARD treatment for your incurable chronic autoimmune disease makes you too ill and too fatigued to do anything other than lay there because there is no other choice but to treat it through biologic medication unless you want the disease to take over completely and destroy you from the inside out. Kinda like Covid-19, destroying from the inside out. 

But I will walk away knowing I have an army of people behind me.

The only “army” standing behind you consists of the many chronic health condition patients gladly watching you leave the healthcare industry giving a nice sendoff of middle fingers, or from the more generous, hands waving goodbye as we all breathe a sigh of relief from behind our masks…knowing that one less idiot is risking our lives when we seek out medical care

I will walk away, but…I will do it on my own terms. 

That’s strange. I thought the whole reason for this was because you refuse to follow the terms of your employment by getting vaccinated against Covid-19. You’re nothing more than a sniveling brat having a tantrum for no good reason other than to serve your own ego. 

Head held high. Full of pride for giving my all to this fight. 

What fight? Refusing to get vaccinated as required by your employer is not a fight. It’s a tantrum. You are throwing a tantrum, when you should have gotten vaccinated a long fucking time ago like the rest of us. 

Full of pride because I will always be able to tell my son, I STOOD UP FOR WHAT WAS RIGHT FOR ME. 

No, you stood up for what best served your ego. It was never about us patients. It was always about you. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the same regarding your child. 

I will miss it…but I will walk away.

Bye bye bye! We won’t miss you. Especially since we know without a doubt that it was never really about helping or healing us, but about serving you and your ego. 

The ableism of refusing a vaccine because your employer, a healthcare facility, requires it for employment in a pandemic! You are a danger to patients and should never work in healthcare again. Good riddance!

#savefreedom #stopthemandate

#GetVaccinated #PlagueRat

If you enjoyed this post or wish to recommend any particular healthcare worker’s ridiculous proclamation of so-called martyrdom for me to bitch apart, please leave a comment!

Stay safe in this pandemic and get vaccinated!

Present Good Health is Not a Guarantee of Future Good Health

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If I ever find out that a healthcare worker assisting in my care isnt vaccinated because they don’t want to get vaccinated, they better hope they can outrun my fury.

I know what it’s like to nearly die in ICU. I had Last Rights performed on me.

I had a series of mini strokes all over my brain, with some damage occurring on right side.

Before medical records were electronic, my medical record after my 6 week hospital stay and first open heart and then all of the tests and stays leading up to 2nd open heart 18 months later, plus that open heart and over a week long stay added up to a massive pile of paper.

I still remember the cardiology nurse fetching me in the waiting room for my yearly heart visit and being surprised at my youth because my records were huge.

I still remember the terror of it all.

The ICU, CICU, the ventilator, the team of doctors, the tests and scans, the weakness, the congestive heart failure and pulmonary edema. I wore out fast and couldn’t breathe fully. My chest carved open twice. The tubes. Being trapped in the bed. The PICC line. The bad news. So many nurses. My family’s faces. My own fucking fear.

But I got to go home. Eventually. It all still changed me. I didn’t heal right the first time. So another open heart to repair. And PTSD.

This was all on top of my rheumatoid arthritis.

All of what I’ve been through is similar to what Covid-19 patients have gone through and are going through…if they survived.

I’m blessed to be on an antidepressant that numbs my panic and anxiety enough to where I’m not experiencing my terror and PTSD in those ways.

Instead, I’m pissed off. These people infuriate me.

THEY HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THEY ARE FORCING UPON THEMSELVES AND THE REST OF US.

NO FUCKING IDEA.

BUT I DO.

I FUCKING DO AND I NEVER WANT TO HAVE TO FIGHT TO SURVIVE LIKE THAT AGAIN.

August 9th marks the night that I was supposed to die. And August 10th marks the day I survived to live.

And I don’t want to lose that for myself or anyone else because of some FUCKING MORONS who believe in a conspiracy theory.

Let me tell you right now that it’s not a fucking conspiracy when you’re trapped in an ICU bed trying to breathe as the doctor tells you that they don’t think you’ll survive the night.

It’s not fake news then.

It’s the moment that EVERYTHING becomes crystal clear and there’s no guarantee that you’ll even escape alive.

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO RISK THAT? WHY?

I have been there and I can never forget. I see it every time I look in the mirror.

The stroke damage to my face.

The massive scar to reach my heart.

I hear it in my head. My valve is mechanical.

The scars on my body from all of the tubes stuck into me to save my life.

Even if you escape death, you aren’t unscathed.

You won’t be the person who you are now.

You think the vaccine is damaging and too risky to your life?

Try surviving a major unplanned health crisis.

Try begging your body to hang on and pull through.

You won’t recognize yourself in the mirror, if you survive.

Your body will have changed.

And your heart, your mind. Your memories will be haunted from this fresh terror of fighting against Death.

But if Death comes, it’s your end. A final breath. Alarms silenced. Ventilator and tubes removed. A body hauled off the bed into a bag and identified by a toe tag.

All because your immune system wasn’t trained to recognize and fight the virus ahead of time.

I want you to sit or stand up straight. Take a deep breath, inhaling through your mouth deep into your lungs. Exhale.

Again. And exhale. Slowly.

And again. Think of something you love about this feeling. Hold it. Exhale slowly.

Once more.

How does it feel? Do you like that feeling? Do you feel alive? Why would you ever want to risk losing this wondrous feeling of your lungs filled with air?

Tell me, do you still want to take the chance of losing this amazing feeling of breathing life into your body?

NextDoor: A Series… Suburbanites Crowing About Welfare Abuse

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Apologies for the lack of blog posts especially in this past year. I’ve been focused on quite a few other things other than NextDoor, especially since one main problematic poster on there was removed for his repeated promotion of Trump rhetoric with pandemic anti-masking and making health recommendations when he’s a handyman and not a doctor. So things have been generally peaceful. Generally…

But today I look at the posts to find one that has been around for a week or so regarding thanking taxpayers for their public contributions towards a valued program for a disabled child’s needs. Which ultimately I really hold no problem with because I am all for public service. I believe and support public funding of programs. However what I will not stand for is the bullshit that I found in the comments today which I plan to address here. I also posted the same words on next door to these people however it will likely be removed because our leads are quite biased, sheltered, and racist. They don’t know what myself and my friends and coworkers have learned in the course of our work. They Have never had to look into the eyes of the clients that we have had to and be limited by policies.

So this goes out to Brian, who’s stated that “More money should go to those in need to struggle with physical or mental issues, like your son and less tax dollars should be going towards those who are able to work but don’t want to, and those who purposely have numerous children out of wedlock in order to get free money from taxpayers” and Stephanie, who stated “Yes and now that I have a son who legitimately will never be able to work in an living for himself, it hurts even more to see the people who abuse it.”

I have worked in this field for over 15 years. It has changed me not only as a woman, especially a white woman but also as a human. I went from being a conservative Republican, raised Catholic in a military family, who always voted Republican. And then this work changed me. I’m not going to stand for this bullshit being said about real people whom I have connected with in an effort to help them while limited by public policies. I’m not going to stand for people saying shit about them as they try and survive in a society that only wants to punish the poor, those in poverty, especially in generational poverty after slavery supposedly ended.

An interesting thing that I have noticed about living in the suburbs (especially since I’m no longer on military bases as an adult, which could often include a mix of different cultures of people especially in Okinawa) is that they don’t like it when you stand up for something that is outside the white bread Pinterest board of their community. They just don’t like it. You’re supposed to agree with them and never challenge their assumptions about life outside of their bubble. Well, that’s not how I am. And honestly that’s not how I was really raised either. I’ve had people in front of me tell me their deepest secrets, what’s going on, crying in front of me to try and explain why their situation is what it is. They deserve better from us. Especially those who judge them. And now someone on that post is asking me why I had to ruin the feel-good emotions of Stephanie’s original post, even though Stephanie was making judgments about people on welfare utilizing these programs. I’m not going to stand for that shit. I’m not going to stand for it at all. Especially after everything I have learned in service to them.

I’m not standing for this shit today.

Who wants to bet that Brian there and Stephanie are all  clueless suburbanites who know nothing about generational depression, trauma, racism, and poverty.? Y’all know what I do and how I’ve been educated by it.

People who struggle to do work activities or keep a job aren’t abusing it. Especially if they have untreated physical or mental health conditions, are a single parent, depend on public transportation, have a criminal record (even moresso if it’s from weed!), have a history of working multiple jobs at once, and are so fucking stressed out by dealing with the public welfare agencies. And let’s not forget that the entire system of government is designed to work against the poor and minorities in the first place (if you want to talk about abuse…)

Meanwhile, Becky with the perfect Pinterest hair and the perfect Pinterest Live Laugh Love porch display in the form of a painted wooden board with their surname written in overly done cursive announcing their family’s superior togetherness apples for benefits and conveniently fails to report that her husband and father of children lives in the home! And he works a full time job that pays beyond FPL. Like beyond beyond! And she’s doing it because another Becky at the salon told her how to lie to the agency to get free benefits (it’s not free, see sanctions and overpayments policy…oh and work activities and the Medicaid policy regarding your estate when you die…it’s never free!)

“Just pretend you’re a single mom””
Do realize how insulting that game is to actual single mothers out there.  (By the way, legal status of marriage doesn’t matter if he’s the father, so…)

THAT is abuse.

And those who pull that stunt? It’s nothing new. It’s not clever. Workers have developed an eyeroll and a head shake from figuring it out so much.

Abuse is not poor people and those in poverty trying to utilize a system that appears to exist to help them BUT ACTUALLY is designed to continue to punish them in their poverty for generations.

That’s gaslighting.
That’s abuse of their survival, not abuse from them. Survival on $234 a month isn’t abuse.

Now the mention of women bearing multiple children by any man? In a society where the burden of birth control is on the woman who ovulated once a month for only so many years versus men who can inseminate multiple times on multiple days for multiple years until the day they die?

Sit down.
It’s  a complex women’s issue (with personal,  generational, etc aspects) that cannot be resolved by welfare assistance eligibility nor by limiting their fertility.

That’s eugenics. And we know exactly who it would be designed to target. Beckies always get a pass with their Pinterest pin board family.

Never forget that whyte supremacy purposely destroyed the Black family by stealing these women’s men and children from them to be sold on the auction block for free labor (which also wasn’t free. Blood, sweat, and tears are not free.)

And these whyte suburbanites want to crow about all these women (oh, we know exactly what you mean) who (purposely have numerous children out of wedlock…” They probably also think that generational trauma doesn’t shape behavior and patterns within families.

Slavery wasn’t that long ago. Civil Rights era wasn’t that long ago. They care more about these women “abusing welfare” than they do about their lives. Yall just want to keep punishing them. Generation after generation. As though they deserve nothing after we created the monster that eats them up and spits them out. And y’all expect them to just wake up with your same privilege one day and be the perfect robot who does what they’re supposed to, as if y’all are perfect robots. As if y’all know better than they do because y’all had it easier.

Meanwhile when y’all are denied welfare benefits, you pull the “I bet if I was Black, you’d help me!”

Sit down.

This has been mr TED Talk.

NextDoor, A Series…

Standard

Or why it’s a bad idea to remind Trump supporters, especially here in Ohio, that they’re Trump supporters during the festive holiday season. They get so upset…it’s fascinating how they don’t realize that they’re just telling on themselves.

My commentary is in bold below. I must say that “copy text from image” is the most amazing thing ever! Made this all a bit easier. I do have the screenshots to back it up.

So it began…Amber and Ricky have a Christmas display on their corner lot. Someone wrote a card saying that it’s awesome and wonderful because pandemic depression and she shared it on NextDoor. After a bit, someone asked which house and she described it. I realized that’s that Trump supporter house that I’ve been flipping off all year (if it’s got a Trump sign and same for the ones with police support signs that became a thing here after all of the Black Lives Matter protests, it’s the least y’all deserve. Though the ones with Jesus 2020 signs and police support signs are the ones that I laugh at because Pontius Pilate).

Anyways…

Amber says:
Hi our house sits at the corner or Blah Blah and Blargh- we have a replica leg lamp in our front window – stop by and enjoy the light show
I recognized this location, as I pass it by to get to a major road…and have flipped it off for months accordingly. So I asked…

Kris:
Amber, The house that had the Trump and Pence mannequins?

Amber:
Kris, not really sure why that’s relevant or related to this post

Oh, please. Yes, you do know. You just don’t like it. It means that you’re a hypocrite, supporting Trump and decorating for Christian Christmas. Anyways, I went ahead and explained why in my trademark deadpan. I did get a like from one neighbor before my comment was deleted.


Kris:
Amber, I have a long memory regarding neighbors and their values. Trump supporters are unforgivable in my mind and heart.
It’s true. Don’t trust a Trump supporter. Expect a cup of sugar and all you’ll get is salt. And even that’s not seasoned right. Just all around bad.

Amber:
Kris, you might wanna check your heart and values. Someone’s political views have zero
to do their heart and intentions Kettering offers plenty of great church’s hopefully you find one
that forgives your cold heart (edited)

Is she for real? Like really real? How does she not comprehend that one’s political views have EVERYTHING to do with their heart and intentions? Is she not human? Well, you know…that would actually explain things. It’s interesting how these Trump supporting Christians recommend church attendance and expect one to require forgiveness from an organization that one is expected to tithe to weekly. So I was raised Catholic and obtained 5 of the 7 Sacraments (I’m not a priest and I married an Athiest) and decided to leave the Church because I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy, the abuse, and discrimination against so many. It didn’t feel Holy. Throw shame at a gay person, but protect the priestly pedophiles is not Holy. If I want to experience the Holy, I go outside and plant flowers in my yard and watch the earthworms squirm around. But then I shouldn’t be surprised that they fail to see themselves… because these types also refuse to admit what having a police support sign in the yard of their white flight suburb actually means to Black neighbors. Basically, the golden ticket in their yard for when the Black Lives Matter protests riot in their streets. That’s what they fear, anyway. They’ve said as much on NextDoor since the protests increased this year.

Benita:
Kris: your political comment has no place on this thread. Please stay on topic and be civil in your conversation (edited)
I am being civil. My lack of cussing on NextDoor really should count for something. It’s funny how they all think they know me, isn’t it, friends? Just wait til my next comment…


Kris:
Benita, Jesus was a brown (with potentially Black) refugee protester who was targeted, arrested, and executed for so-called “political crimes” (read: being a threat) against those in power, so I respectfully disagree.

If you ever want to piss off a white Christian hypocrite, just remind them that Jesus wasn’t white. They get all “how dare you…” It’s wild.

Benita:
Kris, again your comment had no place in this post. Glad you have a place to voice your comments!

This is just bizarre as a response. So here, I think she’s referring to the private group on NextDoor that I created this year called “Progressives in Suburbia.” I created this group as a shelter in the storm of NextDoor/Trump’s presidency/this pandemic that exists due to Trump supporters and anti-maskers in our area being given permission to be abusive entitled assholes towards anyone who points out logic, science, and common sense. Oh, and Black Lives Matter. Especially when they’re discussing police support. That really triggers these snowflakes. There are two additional admins in the group due to the local Leads love for trying to suspend me repeatedly. One time, just moments before a suspension kicked me out, I received notification that Benita requesting to join the group. Yes, really. Her request was dismissed. I don’t need bullshit mucking about in a space for us all to breathe and de-stress.

Ricky: Kris, we are really friendly neighbors no matter who you support with that being said if ever need a ride to the mental hospital please message us.

So here, he’s just showing us exactly why he’s perfectly comfortable being a Trump supporter. Recall when Trump mocked the disabled reporter Serge Kovaleski. So friendly. So nice. Paragon of virtue.

Benita: I am sorry that every post turns into a discriminatory or derogatory or political comment on a certain neighbors part. her report of my comment to be removed and being a hypocrite all at the same time, speaks volumes of this person. No need to be hateful and call names. I wish you Kris, the best of the holiday seasons (since between now and mid January there are about 20+ people can celebrate).

But she’s not sorry to protect and uphold white supremacy, Trump supporters, and anti-maskers on NextDoor. She calls it all a difference of opinion. Human rights? Difference of opinion. Wearing masks in a pandemic? Difference of opinion. Oh, and her classic: racism is just difference of opinion. She has demanded that we be nice to people making racist comments on NextDoor. Oh, and don’t dare call them that word. That’s mean. She likes to pull the community guidelines out for that. Be nice…fuck no, racists actively saying shit don’t deserve shit. Oh, and my report of her comment wasn’t to be removed. It was to again point out that she shouldn’t be a Lead. Reminding her over and over that she shouldn’t be a Lead.

Benita: Ricky, try not to get caught up in her diatribe of insults and reporting on what was a nice neighborly and thankful post during a trying time for everyone. It takes all kinds to make the world go round!

Calling people “Trump supporters” is an insult now? Good to know! I’m sorry but I’m not thankful for having Trump supporters in the neighborhoods, who supported a sociopath who actively ignored a pandemic and has cost hundreds of thousands of U.S. American lives. It’s a trying time directly because of it. Their support of Trump and his presidency led us into this damn pandemic, so don’t try and act like a Christmas yard display and fucking leg lamp in your window is going to forgive it or somehow make it all better. It’s just lipstick on a pigg. It takes all kinds to make the world go round? Really. Unfortunately, it also takes all kinds to fuck up the world and y’all are on that list. Remember, Leave It to Beaver and all of those tv shows that fill you with nostalgia were based on bullshit social expectations, misogyny, lies. Hello, Pleasantville.

I responded…
Benita, It’s interesting how blind y’all are. I reported on how you shouldn’t be a Lead due to
your need to suppress people speaking up and out and Ricky was reported for mocking disabled people in his attempt to insult me (just like Trump). But go on, keep telling on yourselves. I want the neighborhood to see who y’all really are, even though Jesus already knows.

Oh, Ricky…Ricky, Ricky…tsk tsk. Poor thing, not so bright.

Ricky:
Kris, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.


I’m quite certain that I was appropriately coherent in my response above to them. They’re just exceedingly dumb. He doesn’t see anything wrong in making a reference to mental health hospitals as if I’m crazy. This is nothing new. White men have been calling us women hysterical for ages. It’s just that now they can’t put us away in an asylum as they could “back in the good ol’ days.” He brings up God as if he knows her intimately. I bet he thinks God resembles some old, white man. Likely with a bad orange spray tan. Now God, to my mind, is a Black woman. I think she’s a bit busy right now welcoming the pandemic Dead and the Black murder victims of police. She’s busy listening to the anger of the Ancestors and families of the murdered as they demand justice. She doesn’t have time for white tears and supremacy.


Benita:
Kris,yes, you are right Kris. When the topic warrants comments, you will find you are reported way before I even check on those reports. When you go off topic to drive a conversation or dig to name call, label and categorize, different story. Life is too short, and I am sure depending on which Jesus any person talks to, at the end of the day, our hearts know. Have a wonderful weekend and a great Holiday Season!

There’s more than one Jesus? What, the white one and the real one? So what Benita here is referring to has occurred over the past year; she thinks that referring to racist people as racists is name-calling. That should tell you everything you need to know. She thinks that calling other white people out on their racist commentary is mean and unneighborly. I guess she wants us to get their white hoods washed and pressed for them too, hm? Then she points out that life is too short. Elsewhere on this blog, I have a post from this year that has a list of Black victims of police murder. Those lives were cut short. Did you know that growing old as a Black person is considered such a gift and a blessing because it is not guaranteed nor expected for them in our society? Yeah, so they don’t get to spend the holidays or even lunch from Subways with their family because y’all prefer to support police over Black Lives Mattering. We can see where your hearts truly lie. Read that again.

Kris:
Benita, Amber asked why I cared about the identity of her house. I told her. Not my problem if y’all don’t like being exposed. (edited) (My edit was to correct an auto-correct error.) Read on to see how Benita still doesn’t get it. I suppose my expectations are far too high. I mean, she is a white Boomer after all.

Benita:
Exposed? Because others viewpoints differ from yours? Can we say in a neighborly way the house …blah, blah blah without getting on a tirate to expose what? Political sign or house for sale sign? What the difference. That if her neighbors needed her she would be there no matter what? That when it snows she may shovel her neighbors side walk or pick up trash blown in her yard? Nextdoor is about neighbors and neighborly actions and comments to help us have a better community. Love and peace out!

So just to review, being a white person who calls out any racist shit or rhetoric on NextDoor in a white flight suburban city is unneighborly. Also, there’s no difference between a political sign or a yard sign, or really even a human rights sign to Benita. Let’s just be real on what that reveals about a person.

Can I say in a neighborly way the house blah blah blah? No, I actually was quite civil in the direct description I provided. Because what I really wanted to say was: Oh, are you the dumbass Trump supporter house that had the stupid Trump and Pence mannequins in your side yard, with the multiple Trump and police support signs (upholding that white supremacy, yeehaw!) plus an idiotic Trump flag? Was that y’all? OH yeah, and the Hillary Clinton mannequin in a jail cell back in 2016? (I don’t forget…) because if anyone actually should be in jail, it’s your Trump god. Rape, assault, financial fraud…pick one.

Meanwhile, our communities punish Black people for even less. Where is their love? Their peace?

But as you can see, she just kept on telling on herself. She reminds me of the sort who would give away the location of slaves or Jews hiding from their oppressors while actively being hunted. She actively suppressed Black Lives Matter discussion until NextDoor changed the guidelines within this year. The days of Leave It to Beaver and the Andy Griffith show are over. Nostalgia is a feeling based on illusion and emotion. The USA wasn’t great back then either. I wonder though… If a cross was burnt in the yard of a house in her neighborhood, would she demand them to refer to the hate crime in a more neighborly way so as not to offend the white supremacist neighbor who lit the match?

There is no peace until Black Lives Matter.

Ricky decided that he hadn’t dug his hole deep enough and contributed this:

Ricky:
Kris You can expose us all you want I’m pretty sure every neighbor knows we voted Trump and for your info that wasn’t Pence next to Trump That was actually Biden Sniffing Trump cause I am that person that doesn’t give a shit who gets offended and no matter who wins the presidency I will support that president that wins I won’t cry and complain the next 4 years I’ll continue to get up and put on my boots and go to work to support my family. Merry Christmas enjoy the lights from us Trump Supporters !

He’s that person who doesn’t give a shit who gets offended. Right-o. Unless it’s him, as evidenced by his responses. I offended poor Ricky, by pointing out that his support of Trump makes for a shitty human. You’d think they wouldn’t be so bothered by being called out for being trash, I mean, Trump supporters. After all, they’re so proud of their trash…Trump. Why though, I don’t understand. Trump can’t even find a decent tan spray. Nor can he drink or stand properly. Such an embarrassment.

Jack:
Kris, you are becoming everything you claim to hate

So Jack here lives up a street from me. From what I’ve been able to gather, he’s still a kid. I don’t like to pick on kids. They’re a product of their parents, after all. Which is evidenced by his response.

It’s interesting how white people in general get mad at being called out for their hate. The only weapon they have to lob back is an accusation of hate against them. This isn’t hate. I’m wary of your worth as a decent human being. I question it. I think y’all are untrustworthy, stupid, and the sort to hide a zombie bite during a zombie apocalypse. There were, probably still are, Vets for Trump. I’m the daughter of a USMC officer and as a result, grew up moving around, living on military bases and outside the U.S. so just seeing those Vet for Trump signs… Trump bought his way out of serving while how many others had to be drafted and died or were injured in his place? What number was called up because he got out of it? He’s a traitor to this country, to military service, and the fact that y’all refuse to see it is concerning. I grew up as the daughter of a Marine. I know what honor looks like and it’s not Trump.

Kris:
Jack, I just want to thank all of you on this thread for doing all of the work for me, in revealing yourselves. Tres magnifique!

I mean, they really did all the work for me. Jack is only tagged there due to being the last in the thread.

Benita:
Kris Seaman and you are what? Revealing yourself as well…laissez le bon temps rouler

Yes, I’ve revealed myself on NextDoor repeatedly as someone bringing up Anti-Racism and questioning y’all for your fear of Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA. I’m sorry…would you like me better if I upheld your problematic bullshit and allowed the matter of human rights to merely be a difference of opinion?

Then Benita went back and edited her comment to this:

Benita:
Kris Seaman and you are free to say anything you like on any post…great to have those freedoms.
(edited)

That was after I reported Benita the Lead with my usual “Yeah, so this is why you shouldn’t be a Lead.” Apparently, Leads see the reports from comments and posts and then vote on their validity. NextDoor does not see these. So I often address her directly in my reports about her. Honestly, I have no problem with what these Trump supporters think of me. As if they actually have standards...

Kris:
Benita, Interesting considering my comments are now deleted. But that’s okay because l have all the screenshots, including of your conveniently edited comments, viewable to the public.

Always screenshot their bullshit. Otherwise, they will attempt to gaslight you.

Benita:
Kris, as do I. Sorry, I am sure this is all about you. I am not sure which comments but I am not the only lead who votes. Let’s not put blame on what one does not know. Appreciate you kind
consideration.

She wants my kind consideration. This is the same person who, after I divulged the vandalism to the Black Lives Matter sign in my yard, she commented alleging that I created and placed (in perfect Karen level of craft effort…) the folded cardboard with ALL written on both sides taped to my sign myself. So I ordered this yard sign and placed it in my yard after incidents at work where a bunch of white Trump supporters went to HR to complain about Black coworkers wearing Black Lives Matter face masks, after watching my Black friends and coworkers bow their heads and get quiet after another Black life was deliberately extinguished, after their murderers got out on bond to go home, after listening to their stories of racism…to them, their children, their partners, their friends, their families. Every single one with multiple stories full of dread and fear. I believe Black people when they tell me so. Do you?

Further, I learned everything I needed to know about her when she backed up the Trump supporters, anti-maskers, and the racist commenters on NextDoor all year long. She attempts to only publicly castigate me in these posts. Ricky was not publicly castigated, instead she offered him sympathy and encouragement to not get so worked up over me. Meanwhile, he makes the mental health hospital insult. Right, so that’s not something to joke about. Ever. The fact that he thinks this is an appropriate response again is revealing.

Funny how Trump supporters demand to be respected, isn’t it? As if they have any standards…

What do you think? Stay safe out there!