Unemployment compensation and other backfires

Unemployment insurance is designed to help someone who has lost his/her job by providing some income to partially replace that which was lost when the job was lost.  L&I insurance works on a similar principal, if one can no longer work at one's job because of a job-related injury, L&I insurance provides some income to replace the lost wages.  This seems to be a no-brainer:  it is good, right.  We should continue to provide unemployment payments to the unemployed until the economy recovers and everybody is back to work.

ONLY, in no case will "everybody" be back to work.  There are always unemployed persons.  We measure a recession by the percentage of people looking for work who cannot find it RIGHT NOW, and lower numbers are better.  Ten percent, bad.  Five percent good.  Four percent, great.  But that still means out of 100 workers, four are currently unemployed.  And in some L&I situations, the worker will NEVER be able to return to the job he/she held before the injury.  NEVER. 

Still, it seems that as soon as the unemployment payments run out, the person finds work.  I know in my case, I was unemployed for about four months when my children were little.  In my case, I did not have unemployment insurance, but had money enough to live on for four months before it ran out.  Just as this money (from the sale of a house) ran out, I received not one, but two, job offers.  I had my choice.  Despite looking "full time" for four months, I received NO job offers until the funds dried up, then I received two very nice, very desirable job offers.  Hmm.

I think it is like this.  Losing a job is like losing your house to a fire or flood.  It is like having a spouse die unexpectedly.  It is like losing an arm or leg in a horrible accident.  It is awful.  You mourn.  You try to get it back.  You cry.  You curse the fates.  You stay in bed under the covers and read bad mysteries.  You gossip with likeminded people about how unfair it all is.  But finally, at some point, you should move on.

Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross (check name and reference) outlined the five steps that dying people go through, DABDA: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.  But, because the people she studied were dying, she missed the last step, the one that the dead don't have to take in our world.  The step of moving on.  It becomes DABDAM. 

Many confuse acceptance with moving on.  They are two really different things.  Acceptance is "I am going to die, here's what I want at my funeral, here's who should have my most valuable possessions."  Acceptance is "Our new house isn't so bad really", "I'm giving away his clothes so someone else can use them", "The doctor says I can wear slacks, and no one will ever know I have a prosthesis".  Acceptance is good, it is necessary, it is important. 

There needs to be a further step if one is to live the full and rich life that one deserves.  You must MOVE ON.  Moving on is beyond acceptance.  It comes (well, it came for me) when I realized that I could no longer imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn't lost (in my case) my infant son.  Moving on is "I finally get to have that craft room I always wanted", "I'm going back to school to learn to be a (fill in the blank) because (fill in the blank)", "I'm helping the therapist design a prosthesis which will enable me to (fill in the blank); they don't think it has ever been done before." 

Moving on is embracing the new direction your life has taken, even if it wasn't the direction you had thought you were heading prior to the incident which lead to DABDAM.  It is not denial.  It is not forgetting, or even forgiving (which people might be urging you to do in the case of divorce, for instance.)  Acceptance is standing by waving as the train you thought you were going to take departs for the vacation you won't ever have now.  Moving on is getting onto a bus to another destination entirely.    

Unemployment insurance and L&I insurance basically are designed to provide an income for the DABDA part of DABDAM, and perhaps provide some bus fare for the new destination.  If it lasts too long, it can feed the acceptance, and never provide a push to move on.  As long as I have an income, why should I look for a job in a different field entirely, which I don't know anything about.  As long as I have an income, I can just keep looking for a replacement for the old job, and not even see the opportunities out there for other endeavors that WILL NOT REPLACE the old job, but which will provide an income and a career which is also suitable to my skills and temperament.

In the "olden" days, death lead to a specific length of mourning for the survivors.  Cousin meant black gloves for such and such a period of time, parent meant black garmets for such and so, and the death of a spouse was marked by black clothing and no parties for six months, followed by "half-mourning" dark purples and no dancing for an additional six months.  At the end of the year, you might mark the occasion in some way-visiting the grave, purchasing a new outfit, etc.  At the end of the year, you were expected to "suck it up", put off your blacks, and get on with your life.

In modern times, we have forgotten these old, basically helpful rules.  We allow people to wallow in their misery.  Lawyers promise to provide money to restore us to what we were before the flood/fire/coffee spill.  UI and L&I provide an income so we can have a mourning period for our lost job, and perhaps lost career.

But in the end, we are adults.  The unemployed need to suck it up, put off their misery, and get on with their lives.  If this means working in a convenience store for minimum wage for the rest of their lives, well then they probably didn't have what it actually takes to be employed at their old jobs, and would have been fired sooner or later anyway.

I have no sympathy.  I knew a guy who fell off a building in the course of his employment and ended up completely paralized except for some movement in one hand.  His wife had to take care of his every physical need.  He sold insurance or stocks or something over the telephone (this was before the internet), and they were making it, they were earning a living and taking care of each others needs.  Another story I heard about was a navy doctor who was an intern or something, and got polio and wound up unable to sit or stand.  Since he had not completed his residency, he thought about what kind of a doctor he could be when he couldn't even stand up himself unassisted.  So he became a psychiatrist.   Yet another man lost an arm and leg or so in a horrific automobile crash, made worse by the fact that he was very drunk at the time.  He became a crusader for telling new drivers about the dangers of driving after drinking.   I remember him saying, I can't imagine what my life would have been like if I still had two arms and two legs.  I love my wife, my kids are fantastic, I have a job I love.  Would I have gotten these great things in my life if I hadn't been in that crash?  I wouldn't want it any other way.

So let's not be too quick to extend unemployment benefits, increase L&I payments, and make it "easier" for those "poor" "unfortunate" to wallow in their misery.  See I just saved the government (read taxpayers) a ton of money.

Wow, that's a load off my mind and into this blog.

Update on medication and other joys

The doctor prescribed a different, but similar, antidepressant.  She said to wean myself off the Zoloft in (I think) six days, then start the other.  So I weaned myself off, and never started the other.  I have the meds, but have not taken them.  Hey I'm feeling good, and antidepressants are for "not feeling so good". 

She also prescribed a nasal spray, and guess what, I no longer have a slight cough and nagging headache all the time.  Wow, who knew.

Followup tomorrow.

Going to visit doctor

I hemmed and hawed about a visit to the doctor in December, then put it off too long and we were off the CA. 

Promised I would make an appointment as soon as we got back.  Apparently "as soon as" is defined as a week or so later.  I did make the appointment.  Will go tomorrow.

Will read over blog posts before that to refresh meself on the timeline.

More medication issues

I am keeping track in this blog about the medication, so I have somewhere to consult, and find out what happens when.  So I thought I'd better make a note of this:

When we got home from California (Tuesday March 1, 2011) I did not take any pills for two days (Tues and Wed, or maybe Wed and Thurs, no probably Tues and Wed).  Anyway, I was in such a funk from Tues until Friday.  It was miserable.  I was afraid to even let Nick touch me, lest I burst into tears.  Poor guy, he didn't know what to do.

I wasn't going to leave the house, although I did several times, but not as much as I usually would.  I just wanted to stay home, and not talk to anybody.  But I was irritated that Nick went upstairs to work on the computer, and I didn't hear from him for like five or six hours.  I just didn't know where to start, so I put about six or eight major jobs in a glass jar, and started drawing out things to do.  The first day, I cleaned out the pantry, and got rid of some stuff and reorganized other stuff.  Including going through cookbooks, and getting rid of some (Goodwill). 

The next day, I drew upstairs closets, so I tore into my closet, discarded two entirely full bags of clothes, and also sorted through the kids bedroom closet, except for the pictures, which are a separate project.  We probably have an entire van-load of stuff to take to Goodwill.  The next day was Friday so I didn't do anything but finish up from the day before, and now that I'm feeling better, I'm feeling less like doing this stuff. 

Maybe part of it is that the next thing I drew: Kitchen cabinets, aren't really much of a problem.  We could probably get rid of half our pots and empty some drawers, but we still have room for stuff, so why bother.  I think I'll just throw that one away, and draw another.

I just thought now, that I should add my sewing projects to the jar.  And knitting.  At least the ones that bug me.  Then I would have the chance of spending time one day just working on projects.  That's a good idea.

Another health "Update" although I haven't mentioned this before.  The noise in my ears is getting louder.  I hear it all the time, and it makes it hard to hear other stuff sometimes.  I can hear my blood pumping through when I lay down to sleep and other times too.  It is very annoying.