The downward spiral a journal of the journey

[Wildewolfe]

I thought I would right down the experiences of the last 5 years while I still can. This may ramble, I’m sure some of it is self indulgent bitching. But these have been my experiences of going from a 6 figure a year job to the brink of homelessness and suicide. Read on if you want. It matters only to me to write this down. Maybe someone will recognize the warning signs I missed and avoid what we have experienced. I’m not much of a writer, so it’s probably not a great read, but it follows a path that I truly believe can befall almost anyone.

5 years ago I believed fully in the American dream. Couldn’t stand the Bushes, but I truly believed the system was there to help you if you needed it. That there was no reason to be homeless, hungry and hopeless unless that’s what you wanted. The system had a safety net and all you had to do to rise above it was to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. After five years of trying to pull myself up it became 100% clear that they system is designed to keep you down when you fall. The system is more concerned that 1 person gets something they don’t deserve than ensuring 1000 get what they do deserve.

Five years ago at the height of the economic crash I was laid off from a job I had been working at for 20 years. I had been making 6 figures in that job. I was an expert in my field. I had absolute faith in myself to continue in my field indefinitely. The first lesson I learned… companies no longer value loyalty. Seems that loyalty and longevity are viewed as an expense rather than an asset. It’s better to hire a know it all college graduate (and they need jobs too don’t get me wrong) with zero practical experience in delivering a solution for 75k than to continue to fund an aging developer making 50% more. Despite the fact, that the experience and common sense granted by 20 + years of actually doing the job resulted in better solutions in half the time. The first law of US business today is THIS quarters profits. Not long term growth, not customer satisfaction, not in building a competent and dedicated group of employees. Let’s face it, this was before Obama care. I had had 2 spinal fusions that were work related, had high blood pressure, severe insomnia and depression, and a slew of other minor health issues. My insurance was expensive; my salary was at least on paper expensive. I was not considered an asset anymore, merely a liability to be eliminated.

Thank heavens for the extended unemployment benefits! I thought I would be able to get another job in my industry in quick fashion. Again I couldn’t be more wrong. Months went by. Dozens of phone interviews a few in person interviews… nothing. I was overqualified (I would have taken an entry level position by the end of that time… overqualified is such a LAME reason not to hire someone. A better way to look at it would be what a bargain!). I wasn’t qualified on the latest tech… I didn’t have a broad enough experience base (remember I was at the same company for 20 years). The reasons, when I could get them, repeated and repeated. I’m absolutely sure the fact I’m in my 50s had nothing to do with it (yes… sarcasm).

This went on for two and a half years. During this time I started to see how the system worked. The only income we had during this time was unemployment and a small military disability check. When we tried to get health care for my wife, who is in very poor physical shape we were denied. She could have gotten it if she had been disabled. Her application for disability was denied because she couldn’t get the physician appointments she needed to get it documented and she couldn’t get the appointments because she had no health insurance. The first of many catch-22s we would encounter. We applied for food stamps and we were denied. Seems the 120 dollars a month I got for military disability put us 14 dollars over the cap. Let’s put that in perspective (and the amounts are from my memory so not 100% accurate I’m sure). 14 dollars too much in income meant we lost 300 dollars in food benefits. If I had not served… if I had not exited with a disability we would have been able to eat… instead we lived on Ramen and the dollar store. We frequently were hungry. My wife was always in pain and we could not do anything about it. We had fallen through the first safety net.

This continued for what seemed forever. Then in December of that year we got great news. My wife would qualify for Medicaid. In fact, her approval was back dated 8 months! We got the news 5 days before Christmas and we were giddy knowing that she would soon be able to receive health care as soon as her card came in. We waited until the Medicaid card came in. It came in on the 28th. My wife started making calls to get service and found out that her Medicaid had been cancelled on the 1st of the new year. I guess the income guidelines changed… my income certainly didn’t, and we no longer qualified. The Medicaid card was valid exactly 3 days and she couldn’t get an appointment in the last 3 days of the year. Now keep in mind that her approval was backdated 8 months. For 2/3rds of a year she was covered but they didn’t tell us until the week before Christmas. In the next year we had to get divorced, not because we weren’t a couple, not because we didn’t love each other, simply so she could get some kind of medical care. I cannot tell you how it hurts to not be able to call your spouse of 18 years your spouse. Maybe there was another way, but we couldn’t find it and when we reached out for help no one wanted to help us find a way. This was the 2nd safety net failure.

The unemployment eventually ran out with still no job in sight. My depression started to deepen. I would go for days to weeks on 2 hours of sleep a night. The pain in my neck (2 spinal fusions) was growing slowly. Ever since I got out of the service I had been dealing with thoughts of killing myself. Every day, many times a day. This got worse at this time and the thoughts took more concrete form.

I was fortunate at least that I could go to the VA for healthcare. I sought help and found out that 2 more levels in my neck were going bad and that my depression and insomnia were cause by undiagnosed PTSD from when I was on active duty. I started taking anti-depressants, oxycodone and flexiril for my spine pains (say what you will about VA care, but they do prescribe adequate pain killers when you need it), we tried lots of different meds for the insomnia, but nothing worked.

I decided to apply for both my social security disability and an increase in my VA pension. Both of these are processes that take months to years to complete. I was confident given the shape I was in that I would be able to get both. Again I was wrong. I got the social security denial fairly quickly. I appealed it. I’ll go into more details about these later as it is important to have some other information in context as to why I was wrong.

I went through a brief hospitalization for the depression and soon after I was blessed that a friend of mine had created a startup company. I was getting about 12.50 an hour (well… if I worked 40 hours a week it would have been… more like 7 an hour… we worked nearly 80 hours a week). The work was fun… I enjoyed it and my boss would help us out when we were short or the car broke down etc.. For the first time in 3 years we weren’t in immediate danger of losing our home, heat, or going hungry. As a bonus I felt useful as a software engineer again. I was valuable. The program we were working on enabled low literacy/not literate/non English speaking folks to access health care. It is truly a wonderful piece of software.

I was making 2500 gross a month. It would be more down the road if we could get the software done and get it marketed. But at least it was something. I missed a lot of work due to the increasing levels of pain, but I managed to make the time up for the most part. My pain meds increased to 120mg of oxy a day just to function. They still couldn’t manage my insomnia. We tried z drugs, benzos, atypical antipsychotics. Some days I was just a zombie. About that time I desperately searched for anything that would let me sleep and found that medical marijuana let me sleep. One pull a night off a pipe and I slept every night. Unfortunately, the VA is not kind about medical MJ use. Soon I was given a choice give up the sleep I was getting, or give up the painkillers that let me even get out of bed. Back to the endless nights. They tried putting me back on the benzos (which had been the most successful of the sleep meds), but it reacted poorly to the high levels of painkillers I was taking and I ended up in the hospital via an ambulance ride from the VA clinic I had gone to for mental confusion. So they removed the benzos.

During this time I found out that since my PTSD had come about in peacetime (stupid training accident when I was a young private) and I had not actually served in a combat zone that despite the VA treating it gladly, It could not be considered for compensation. I understand that. I could get a statement from others that witnessed it, but that was 30 years ago. I honestly don’t remember who all was there, I didn’t stay in contact with any of them, and while the event was traumatic to me it was hilarious for the rest of the squad. It wasn’t reported. So there was no real way to get a statement. I looked on the net trying to find some of my squad mates but that didn’t bear fruit. I have to admit I felt a bit sorry for myself. I had an exemplary tour of military service. I went from Private E1 to Sergeant in 24 months and if I had reup’d I would have been E6 at 4 years and 1 day. I had 5 army achievement medals, 2 Army Commendation medals, The Meritorious Service Medal. I had maxed reviews the entire time. But 30 years later, my word wasn’t enough. If you served *1* day in a combat zone, no matter what you did, or if you were the biggest flake the service had ever seen, you weren’t subject to that requirement.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think it is a good thing that they made it easier for our combat vets to get compensation, hell I think it is a GREAT thing, I just think they needed to a step further. This is just one of those cases were it sucked to be me. In short my application for increased benefits was denied.

About this time my spinal issues were really ramping up. My work was suffering for it. Fortunately my Social Security disability hearing was finally coming up after *18* months. Again, my thoughts turned out to be wrong. Remember the job at the startup my friend gave me? Well it seems that because of that and the fact I had been there just over a year meant I couldn’t get it (and keep in mind we would have been homeless, foodless, etc. if I hadn’t taken it. If the hearing had been a couple of months earlier the judge said she could have done something. The fact it took the SS Administration 18 months to get to my case didn’t matter. You can always apply again… (yes that’s what they told me)

So… now we are to May of last year. No disability or hope of getting it. The pain finally lands me back in surgery. My 3rd cervical spinal fusion. Everything from c4 to c7 is now fused. The pain drops off (I’m able to get off the oxy!) however my hands are now numb. That might not seem like much, but when you program for a living typing with numb hands meant I had to relearn how to type. Even now many months later it’s difficult and my hands cramp up badly after typing for any length of time (this missive took a long time to produce). The docs told me I could either live with it or they could do c3/4 as well to try to relieve more pressure on my spinal cord. I haven’t elected yet to have another surgery, but the pain is again increasing. On the bright side, I returned to work 8 days after the surgery.

Work continued till the end of November 2014. Then the company ran out of money. There wouldn’t be any more paychecks unless the company managed to get some revenue. I started looking for a new job and continued working uncompensated trying to help us get that revenue. Fortune smiled on us. I got a job working for a banks IT department as a senior programmer. It was contract to hire, but that was ok. We started the background check… it came back spotless. Then they did the credit check. Remember that ambulance ride from the VA clinic? It was authorized by the VA, called for by the VA, they picked me up AT the VA. They put the bill for it in my collections. The job offer was rescinded. Yes, I should have, in retrospect, been monitoring my credit. But we haven’t used credit in years so I didn’t even think about it. So now 3 days before Christmas when I was supposed to start work (yeah they wanted me to start on the 22nd), I was again unemployed.

Let me tell you… applying for any type of job or aid during the holidays is a non starter. I tried to apply for food stamps. Voice mail boxes at human services were full. None were forwarded. You couldn’t get through to anyone. We tried a GoFundMe campaign to try to fund my old position. It raised exactly zero dollars.

Eventually the year turned over… we got our food stamps this time. We’ve applied for other aid through the VA homelessness programs and that aid is still up in the air. I redid the GoFundMe campaign and so far it has had the same results as before. The landlord, who is really a nice guy, is starting the eviction proceedings and our utilities are soon to be cut off. The suicidal thoughts are back full force. Thankfully we got rid of all the guns we had some years ago. If we hadn’t I wouldn’t be writing this. Every day is an increasing struggle just to stay alive.

I’m not really sure why I typed all this up. Lots of people have been through as bad or worse. Nothing I can fight for politically at this point will help us in any form. We’re at the end of our runway and the crash is imminent. The only reason I can think of, is any of this could happen to you down the road.

So the next time you want to compromise on safety net issues that don’t currently directly affect you, don’t. The system is rigged. The system is broken now. Folks can and do fall through the cracks. Particularly with the new congress, this is only going to get worse. Don’t be us… fight to make it so that the system works.

I have no idea what will happen to us at this point. I’ve got dozens of resumes out. The GoFundMe is still up. Maybe something will save us. Most likely will be signing off when the utilities go and it will go downhill the final bit from there. Heh… maybe someone here will have a suggestion… you never know.

I haven’t been a prolific poster over the years, but I think I’ve learned more here in the past 10 years by reading all of y’alls posts than I did in all the years of school I did. Keep the faith and for the sake of whatever/whoever you believe in find common ground to win back this country.