Hi, I just discovered this site. I'm hoping to make some friends. I'm stuck at home and lonely. So I'll tell you a bit about myself. I'm cis female, ace. I've been having cancer treatment for quite a while and recently had a stroke. I'm going through a disability benefit appeal. All my friends drifted away when I got sick as I was no longer fun. The last time i saw my friends was at my 25th birthday party. I'm turning 41 this year. I've had no social life or offline companionship since then. I worked several jobs including fitness instructor and carer for the elderly, then went to university in my 20s to study philosophy. I had to drop out due to the side effects of my cancer meds.
My life now revolves around endless benefit assessments, last one I was awarded zero points and had my money stopped. I'm currently fighting it but now have no money at all and a maxxed out overdraft. Food bank access is awful so I'm starving constantly. I've been learning to walk again since the stroke. Previously I was sporty but now it's painful to even walk. So I wanted to take up art as a hobby, start learning to draw from scratch but I can't even afford paper and pencils.
So, life is awful. I need a distraction and someone to talk to. I used to talk to the people on a suicide pact forum (I've already made on attempt and often feel desperate enough to try again) but I just got banned from there for trying to sell my meds on there. Don't judge me please - I was only trying to do that out of financial desperation! So now I have literally no-one to talk to online or in real life.
Obviously I'm a leftist. I'm sick of this world where some people are billionaires while millions starve.
They've said so many stupid things over the years to deny my claims. About my vision loss, the assessor once suggested that as I walk around I should just constantly rotate my head 360 degrees, that way I'll have a full range of vision and won't be partially sighted any more. They denied me at a previous assessment because i wasn't having physiotherapy for my stroke. Why wasn't I having physio? because the stroke happened during covid, and the physio department was closed. I've provided letters of support from multiple GPs, a physiotherapist, an ophthalmologist, a mental health team (because I have developed depression and anxiety due to this constant stress), the neurologist and the endocrinologist. And a social worker and a carer. Not enough apparently! So now I can starve for months while i fight this.