Q: For a time, I tried to create a character based on myself that I sent to appointments instead of me so that show-dogging for the state and using their oppressive language to describe my experiences while getting deadnamed and misgendered wouldn't fuck me up so badly. It worked for a bit, but it was hard to keep up the separation.
Ɣ: Back when I started my third and final application in 2015, I was living in a rural area. I had been living there for some years and figured I would continue to make it my home. After some months though, I found that living there as a weirdo-witchy queer transmasc person with chronic illnesses was too much of a struggle for me. The well-touted “trans-savvy” doctor was pretty darn unsympathetic and trans-incompetent for sure, and there just weren’t enough other resources that were less than a 45 minutes drive each way. After an initial mental breakdown of epic proportions, I made my way up to Portland for a short stay, which indubitably turned into an ongoing place of residence. When I switched my SSI application case to the Portland area office, the person I spoke to congratulated me on my move, for she said that the rural area I was living in and its court house was known to fly in some of the hardest judges from Alaska to deny sick and disabled people! I was appalled and also incredibly grateful I had been pushed to move up north. I am still pissed that all those folks living rurally will be interacting with some of the strictest judges out there.
Q: Once during a longer hypomanic period I landed a higher paying job for a couple months. In my euphoria, I applied for a rewards credit card. I had to spend $3,000 in three months to get 50,000 miles (which was about $500 in gift cards). I put my top surgery on that card while waiting for insurance reimbursement, so that worked out with the timing. Two years later, after failing to hold jobs and stay stable but continuing to hoard miles because of my inability to make decisions (like when and what to spend them on…that comes in handy sometimes), I started applying for disability and had a safety cushion of $700 in gas gift certificates that made it possible to live out of my car in a larger orbit. I recognize that this kind of class privilege technique isn’t available to all folx which is bullshit, but maybe it applies to some of the people reading and will help.