This is not my normal post, not by far. However it is part of my battle every day so I feel it should be said. This is part of who I am. Something I face every day. Please take the time to listen and hear my words. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I hope everyone has been doing well that is following me. I appreciate the support. Today has been a day where I am pretty unsteady on my feet. I hate days like that. It causes me to withdraw because I don’t feel like I can give much to society anymore. Which of course lowers my mental barriers and the depression and AuSD. So sounds have been a thing for me. I have noise canceling headphones on to help but they are designed for the firing range not for what I need. They help and they are what I have.
Some of the thoughts I have when I am like this are about AISH and their… help. I call it enforced poverty. Why? Well when covid hit it was decided people needed 2k to make ends meet by the federal government of Canada. They had not changed AISH in well over a decade and even with special diet allowance which I will tell you right now sure as hell doesn’t help. Why? Inflation. One simple word. Inflation. How are you supposed to do anything but exist at about 1600 a month when rent is over a grand in most place. They bumped it WITH my dietary allowance which when all told comes to about 150 at most a month, I get exactly 2k. My rent where I am is about to be bumped yet again and I live in a slum pit were I am trapped by memories and have really bad landlords. The rent will be 1800.00 rounded up a slight bit for an even number. So that leaves about $200 to cover electricity (which has inflated greatly obviously), food, cell and pet food because my dog was trained by me under the guidance of a service dog school in the states and even though the school recognizes her as a fully trained dog I don’t get the $50 food and vet allowance that they give for service dogs. Then there is transportation costs. I think you get the point. There is no way $2000 can cover the basics for anyone. There is no way they don’t know this but those on AISH are scared to speak up because when they go to their MLA (government official) it is not the MLA that answers. It’s a full on audit from AISH over and over until they find a way to kick you off AISH. That is not even the worst of it.
I was about to work for over 30 years and I did pretty good. Here we contribute to a pension plan CPP every check. This is for retirement. However it can be accessed early if unable to work any longer. This is FEDERAL program not a provincial. I get 700 something from CPP-D (Candian Pension Plan Disability). Something I paid into for years. You know what AISH does? First they make you apply. That is the only good thing because I do not think many know of CPP-D. Now keep in mind this is a Federal program.
AISH then takes whatever you get for CPP-D dollar for dollar from your check. They call it double dipping. I call it Provincial greed. They programs are not even the same, one you pay into and one you do not. Here is the kicker AISH is non-taxable however CPP-D is (that makes no sense to me but whatever). So now I get less then $2000 a month; yes in one month that is what I get to have. How is it right that something that is Federal can even affect the Provincial disability plan??? I should be getting close to 3k a month but nope, that CPP-D Federal money pays part of my Provincial disability program. If they didn’t know this was wrong why would they do everything they can to keep us silent.
Here is another thing that happens, if you have a partner who lives with you that you are sexual with THEIR income affects what a person gets. They can make 2k with a family of two before it gets taken off of the AISH check, 0.50 per dollar. I can not recall were it becomes dollar for dollar. There is actual DANGER with this program. Why? What if that partner is abusive? Their income makes your “you can exist” smaller. This leads to being trapped in a horrible situation and there is literally nothing you can do. You can’t save up because if you save to much they cut you off of AISH. Yet those in that sort of situation do not even get the chance to be able to save up in the best of circumstances, how do you do so in this kind of situation? A situation I am in. If I had a choice I would not have the person I am with sharing my place. However he gaslights and I am a bit stronger then he thinks. Now that is. I see through it as a way to knock me down, I don’t even respond to it. I also forgive him. Not for him but for me, I will not haul his issues around on top of mine. There is no point to anger. There are worse roommates to have by far. Yet why should I have to have a roommate at all to even squeak by? I ration my food and I find myself thankful that due to a medication I was on I do not feel hunger until it’s been days. I feed my dog first, I pay my bills first so I can have a roof over my head. Then whatever is left over goes to food and I try to eat healthy so it’s often frozen fruit with some kind of nut butter or tofu because I need high protein I am diabetic, yet because I am not on insulin I can only get 364 test strips covered a year. That math is obvious. Oatmeal. Plus whatever baking supply I need to make Bannock, crepes, or a flat bread for the rare times I get to have tuna.
This is no way to live. Not by far. You can tell the damage it does if you look at suicide rates. Those on AISH have more suicides per year then most if not all groups. I am lucky, I have someone who helps me get food. So I don’t have to wonder what I should eat for todays only meal. My family stopped helping my own dad calling me a “black hole” because he never sees anything come of it. How about mental health dad? What about food? what about the basic needs of survival. That is not nothing. However it’s a common thing. You lose friends because your so stressed all the time. You loose possible partners. You loose alot because society thinks you are a burden and just using the system. Guess what? This is my attempt to work and give back. This is so people know they ARE NOT ALONE.
The depression that this causes actually makes it harder for those who could hold a casual or part time postion to be unable to because you are so stressed and adding more you are terrified will be the thing that breaks you. So they become in capable of finding a job because, hope can be dangerous. Why? lets stay with finding a job. You hand out 15 resumes and get 3 interviews, praying you get the job so you can at least survive because you can make money working and the first 2k a month is exempt (I will mention CPP-D here again because I get no exemption of any kind). However each of these interviews end up with out a job because your to eager, you try to sell what little you have to give as a good thing, and if there are not accommodations in place and they hire you those need to be put into place. Yea yea yea things like this shouldn’t factor into getting a job or not just like gender isn’t supposed to be. We all know this to be false, these things are taken into factor. Minority is where those who are disabled land and minority means harder to find work no matter how skilled you are. Not impossible however you go through so many rejections you can’t help but ask yourself what is wrong with you that no one wants you. You can do the jobs you apply for but never get them despite hoping for this. So every rejection becomes more and more personal and leads right to depression that isn’t caught because most people by this point have been abandoned by most people they are or well better word would be did know them well. So the sign’s aren’t caught. Depression is a danger, we learn this fairly early in life. We learn the signs.
However with no one to see those signs unless that person goes and gets help they just keep going deeper into those thoughts. I have em, I just let them go through my brain and don’t focus on them. Kinda like meditation. I can do this because I KNOW I AM WORTHY AS ARE YOU. I am worthy have having a life, I am worthy of doing more then stress over how I am going to meet my basic needs, I am worthy of getting to go out once in awhile to the movies, or to get a new book. I am a warrior and I may loose a battle here and there however I will win this war with my mental health. Yet every day I ask myself why am I not worthy of the basics of life, what is so wrong with me, I am highly skilled in the medical field am I really that broken. Every single day I have to fight that thought right there. Every single fucking day because AISH is enforced poverty and everyone wants to turn a blind eye to it. I ask you this, how many of you got a covid benefit when you weren’t able to work due to whatever rule and could survive. Just take a look at the debt load and you get your answer. Those on AISH were not allowed to claim that benefit. They told this a few months after everything started and there were a number of people who now have a part of what limited funds they have taken away until that benefit received is paid back. Didn’t matter if your income got affected by the rules, you were not allowed this.
WE all turned a blind eye to things right in front of us, and still do in many areas. We can not let ourselves continue to do this. Why? #215. Yes I know most of you are tired of hearing about it. However in a way we are just as guilty because these people were TELLING us it was going on and not enough listened to make any impact. They now just use child services to take those kids. Look up the stats for indigenous children in foster care vs any other even combined. We have blinders to this and do not want to listen. We have blinders on to those on AISH one of the two most VULNERABLE groups are treated like they useless; I guess is the only way to describe it, and that leads to even more mental health issues. The second group is our seniors who get even less then those on AISH something that will happen to me when I turn 65. They contributed most of their lives to help us get to were we are. Yes with a few big errors however they are human to and vulnerable to being wrong.
We all make a choice every day. A choice to listen. A choice to listen and then dismiss it as you walk away. A choice to actually hear the cries of others. A choice to turn a blind eye, this is the most common choice. It is time to change it. Just like that song; one small voice, your choices have a rippling effect and impact. This is one of them. No I will not shut up, No I will not be treated like I am lesser… I get enough of that as a native and I sure don’t take that either. I use logic, I use facts I do not read between the lines. These are actually ASD traits. I harness those traits and go through hell and still smile every day when I tend my plants. They don’t cost much to maintain and even less if you know where to look for supplies, I do semi hydroponics so all I need to do is get plant food because there are far fewer pests that can get at the plants. These make me smile, my service dog makes me smile, the cat raised by my service dog makes me smile. This kind of happiness is needed but how to get it is different for every single person no matter how much money you do or do not have. AISH tries to crush that and all to often they succeed because even finding a place that will allow a tenant on AISH to be a tenant is difficult. I am disabled. I am not dead. I am not useless. Yet my own government makes me feel this way, not because I am first nations, that doesn’t even factor into this equation. Why are we unworthy of living life not just existing and trying to make it through one more day. Why does the government crush those they are supposed to help? I was able to work for many years in the medical field and a high speed car crash by a careless driver took that ability away back in 2019. A moment in time I went from living life to existing. No one chooses to be disabled, even if we could hold full time well paying jobs disabled if we were given a choice to not be disabled many probably would take it. I for one would not however I don’t like to fit into a nice little box, I like to blow those boxes up. My late daughter taught me this isn’t something to be ashamed of but to embrace.
Here is a question for you to also turn over, why do I get more acceptance for who I am, more support, why do I get seen as a person and not just a wheelchair or someone with a brain that’s different. If anything those differences are celebrated. I blew a tire on a road on the rez one day, I had not realized I did not have the hydraulic jack in my car to change to the spare (we had just changed to summer tires on the car and it just didn’t get put back in the trunk). Within 5 minutes a woman with a car full of kids stopped. She came over and we tried to figure out what to do, she did not give up. Instead she helped to start to figure it out with me. A second truck stops and more people jump out, now everyone has water. Everyone is cussing cause we are running into road blocks all over however most of what you heard was love and laughter. One of the little kids came up to me with a wild flower and said this is just for you. No fear at all. By the time we figured it all out and had the tire changed over we had all been fed well and it was a mini gathering and I was some stranger who presents as white and I was accepted as I was. Why can they do this, after all they have been through while we can not?
This isn’t the normal post you see from me, however this is what I face every day, every single day, and it is worse when pain keeps me in my bed where I can do nothing but think because I can’t even buy a new book for those days. I said I would write about the challenges I face, well this is one massive one. And one that needs attention. Today. WE all struggle but at the root of that all we are mammals and we need our pack and they need us. We have the brain power to see this is wrong. So where ever you are, whatever country you are in, write to your government. Share the daylights out of this post. Help me by making the choice to listen and hear and say this is not ok. Your voice will cause the change I can not because I am no longer heard because I am broken. At least that’s what they want me to feel and I do at times. I just refuse to sink, I choose to swim. Anyone on AISH that reads this is probably going to think I am nuts for opening up about this because of the risk to what little funds I get to live by speaking up. So I am begging you to make some noise where ever you are and say this is not ok. Even just sharing is doing something.
There is one simple fact. If you see something that is wrong being done you condone it by doing nothing. Why? It is a signal of acceptance of not carrying. You can do a lot. One small voice. So share this post and make this wrong get corrected. When you see a different wrong speak up do not say it is acceptable by doing nothing.
To those reading this that know this first hand, I stand with you. I will no longer be quiet. I get the fear all to well as well as the terror we face every single day and the hunger. I get it all because I am on AISH as well and in a situation I should not have to be in so I can pay my bills and try and figure out food. You should not either. If your to scared to share this directly share this to your friends and family and ask them to spread the word. Your still speaking up and better you are advocating for yourself.
Let us stop more wrongs that we see everyday and have become blind to. Open your eyes and be your own person. Be that warrior standing next to me. With Honor as your bow, and truth and logic as your arrows. WE ALL MATTER. WE ARE ALL HUMANS. WE ALL BLEED RED. Stop being part of the problem and start refusing to turn a blind eye because it is just how it has always been. Come on it is 2025 we should be past this. When a people who have been beaten to the ground are more helpful to a stranger then our own neighbors. There is something wrong. Let us change it. Let us remember we borrow this planet from our children and their children so let us start making it what we wish we had received this world when we came into it. Please do not condone things like what I go through every day by remaining silent. There is room next to me for another voice there always will be.
We are One Tribe, One Nation, One People. Let us remember this.
Who am I? 
I would love to hear from you!