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5:32pm May 26, 2014

lichgem:

For the last damn time, the internet bills are not my main problem. I would STILL be getting less than $100 a month to live off of if I didn’t have internet, but then I would ALSO be unable to ask for help, I would ALSO be trapped in my house, alone, with no connection to the outside world.

If someone was poor, but they had a job, and they had a car, and their car was giving them a lot of trouble and racking up repair bills that person couldn’t afford, would you tell them to sell their car? How about if they lived in a city with no public transportation? How would they get to work? If they got rid of their car, they wouldn’t have to spend any money on repairing it, but then they would lose their job, and not have money at all. This is essentially what people are telling me to do, in a very frustrated, condescending, “You stupid person asking for help when the solution is right under your nose!” way. You are asking me to give up my only means of getting help.

Could people fucking leave lichgem alone please?

She’s dealing with enough as it is, she doesn’t need this shit.  The amount that Internet costs will not give a person what they need, and not having Internet means no way to reach out for help, no social life, no ability to tell anyone if something is going drastically wrong in person, and basically being cut off from the world.

Being cut off from the rest of the world is exactly how abusive programs and abusive people keep people from getting help.  I was once in a recreational program that did not allow me access to Internet (even though they had Internet access), and did not allow phone calls without permission (and I can’t use a phone).  I got really sick (I literally got three kinds of infections at once) and could have died because they thought it was their job to make these decisions for me.

Telling someone that if they’re poor and they pay for Internet then they should just drop the Internet, is asking them to be isolated the way I was isolated in that program.  Isolation can kill people in so many ways.

So fuck off.  Get away from her.  Stop messing with her head about Internet access.  She needs Internet access, period, end of story, and it’s none of your fucking business anyway.  And all you’re doing is making things harder.  If anything happens to her because any of you convince her to go without Internet (or simply make her feel horribly guilty for having Internet), that’ll be your fault, and your problem to live with forever – and if that happens I hope it burns in your conscience every day of your life.  So grow up and leave her the fuck alone.

Signed,

lichgem’s increasingly pissed-off friend