for those of you who think poverty is not torture.. [View All]

[undergroundpanther]

My first run in with poverty and cold at the same time.

I was having difficulty getting heating oil one year. I found out I cannot get oil on credit because I don't make enough income to qualify for it.Never mind I have no debts and pay my bills, and on time too.By November I had saved up some money maybe a quarter tank's worth but I was told that was not enough for the fuel co. to bother to come out to fill up the tank.
AArgh,the arrogant ASSHOLES!I was pissed.

My roomate was not making enough money to add much to paying for oil,either.Together we maybe had enough for a third of a tank ful.We needed at least enough money for half a tank to get delivery.So we had no heat during a cold snap that came early.And it WAS cold .The teperatures hovered somewhere around 17,20 degrees at night for about a week.

I could see my own breath by the kitchen light.
That night I piled on every blanket I had, it was so heavy,like laying under a blanket of cement,shifting positions was impossible my cats were under there too,I slept with long johns, pants a long sleeved t-shirt a thick fleece lined flannel shirt.I had on 2 pr socks and stocking slippers on top of that.Later I had to add a hat, gloves and eventually a scarf because my nose was freezing off.It was so cold even with all that on me I could not get warm enough to sleep.My fingers and feet hurt,my face hurt,my nose felt like ice except when I exhaled. Every extremity hurt.I would turn on the light look at my pale fingers scared I might be getting frostbite. I was so cold I shivered constantly. It was misery.

The next night we had to figure out something to take the edge off the cold as the wind howled outside. We strategically put candles around the house to keep the cold drafts out.It seemed to help.Was it the placebo effect? I dunno.We were still shivering like hell.But again leaving burning candles going as you sleep is a bad idea. So I piled on and slipped under the two ton blankets again.Freezing my ass off.

The next night rather than shiver I blew some grocery money , knowing the last week I'd be broke. I got a cheap ceramic space heater.It was a war between food for a week or heat,this time heat won.Plugging it in is when I found out the wiring in this house is substandard.It blew out all the fuses on one side of the house if ANYTHING else was running on that circuit.So we used flashlights to see.

So when I was in my room the space heater helped me but my roommate was left cold.So I told him he could sleep in my room if he couldn't take the cold anymore.He stayed in his room.I got up and tapped the door a few times that night to make sure he was ok.

The next day my roommate found a abandoned container of #2 diesel oil at an old job site he was clearing.He asked his boss if he could have it.Boss let him take it.(this was before oil was insane prices)He got a truck from work and poured it into our tank. It was enough to fill it to the top.It was a pain in the ass to restart the furnace pilot light tho. when warm air came out of the ducts we were overjoyed we cheered! The cats migrated to the vents.That donated oil got us through the winter or at least the worst of it that year.Having warmth here that year was due to sheer luck and because the boss was kind enough to let us have that oil.

I had no idea Citgo was giving out heating oil for low income households nor had anyone told me about other programs that help with heat costs
Being THAT cold,that it aches and feels like you might be getting frostbite,that is torture.Some are not so lucky in the very same situation I was in and they end up dead.
Sometimes it's the power companies greed directly or a stigma against poverty the oil company has that prevents poor folks from getting the oil we need because we lack enough income to qualify for it.
That's corporate greed at it's worst.

There is so much people take for granted who are not poor.

Like having enough food, having heat every winter,or reliable transportation. Try living without a fixed address,or doing without a safe sanitary place to relieve yourself,no place to shower or no place or money to wash your clothes.

Poverty is really a socially sanctioned form of financial abuse.Poverty is caused by the collective will of the well off,the greedy and the corporate. And like any other type of abuse it HURTS.Poverty hurts, it pins you down, and robs you of your health,sanity,and human dignity.
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At each step down the employment and social scale from rich to poor, health outcomes worsen. The clearest demonstration of that came in two studies of British government office workers. The first, started in 1967, established the link between job status and mortality from a wide range of diseases. Michael G. Marmot, who heads the Department of Epidemiology at London Medical School, wrote later:

"In this relatively homogeneous population ...each group had a higher mortality rate than the group one step higher in the hierarchy. The difference in mortality was threefold between the highest and lowest positions in the hierarchy. The question is not why people at the bottom have worse health, but why social differences in health are spread across the whole of society."(12)
http://www.cfah.org/factsoflife/vol3no1.cfm

Financial abuse: is everyday life for people living in poverty.