aguitada

lovey & brown. sick but living. holding on to that ray of sun light.

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

“I will not be another flower picked for my beauty and left to die. I will be wild, difficult to find, and impossible to forget.”

— Erin Van Vuren

[manufactoriel]

Portrait of Black Madonna 1987, by Benny Andrews

[painkillersandicecream]

I just want to not feel sick

[circe-poetica]

Plunging in, making decisions, fear

[aaajmachine]

Sooo, yeah. I need help selling my car.

First, let me give you the backstory.

The little Honda Accord I had for the past 3yrs broke down on me last year and instead of fixing her, I sold her and got a newer, bigger car through Carmax. I needed it for my business and growing family. My Honda couldn't keep up anymore.

Since getting this car, it has had several major issues with it. First there was an oil leak, engine leak (which required special parts and trip to Volkswagenville), the front head light went out, and I had to have the whole engine replaced. Did I mention that it was 2011 Volkswagen Tiguan with only 67k miles on it and I got the car in September and all of that happened over course of the 4 months of me having it? And I only put 10k in miles on it.

I put almost 80k on my Honda in 3yrs which was 10yrs older and already had 108k on it. Like, come on now. This car wouldn't have as many problems with it if they had actually done maintenance on it before giving it to me. When I first test drove it, I noticed an oil smell and mentioned it to the sells person but they didn't nothing about it.

If I had been using this car to commute to work from where I live to San Francisco, it would've broken down even sooner. There were no warnings for when the engine broke down. I had one day with the engine light on and the next day, homegirl was rocking so hard that when I turned off the music I was still bumpin' like the sickest beat was being played. That's not supposed to happen. An engine on a 2011 car with only 77k miles on it shouldn't have needed a whole new engine replacement.

In January, it took me over 20 days to get the engine replaced. It almost cost me 2gs but after talking with a supervisor, I was able to get everything handled. I was still out $450 and bunch other money I lost due to losing my car but she was finally fixed.

Months later I had to deal with AC going out which, thankfully, that was misplaced hose. I got the oil done and filters changed in May and no other signs that the car need maintenance or repairs. My Honda was very vocal and would tell me the second something was off.

This car is like, "Ayye, you got 5 seconds to get somewhere before I explode."

And now she's doing it again. The check engine light is on, EPC light is on, and the back rear headlight is out and I've barely been anywhere! This car has a turbo engine and I legit was late dropping her off for repairs because she wouldn't go above 40mph without shaking hella bad.

I can't keep doing this every few months because of their negligence. Paying repair fees plus a $450 deductible on top of insurance and the car note. This car is costing me more than it's worth. She needs a complete overhaul. A total inspection to deal with her issues. I'm tired of dealing with the aftermath of their subpar care of this car. She deserves better.

I still owe 15gs on it due to interest (my credit was low when I got it). And that's all I'm asking for or close to that. It's a lot and I'm working on save up for it but I need help. I tried contacting corporate about it but they just keep redirecting me to a local office that can't do anything other than offer an appraisal on it. I wanted to exchange cars since this one is a hazard but they won't budge. They take no responsibility for the fact that their workers didn't do their jobs. And I know for fact that they didn't do anything because I know someone who worked there when I got my car. They didn't even clean it like they said they would.

I'm willing to work with them but they don't care that this car is about to put me out of my house. Or worse, it breaks down unexpectedly again and I crash.

I appreciate anything you can give. I seriously hate doing this but I don't have any other options. Please reblog if you can't donate anything.

My PayPal is email is [email protected] and my Venmo is url AaajCharles

Please and thank yous all around.

P.s I also plan on repaying folks when I have the means.

[aguitada]

When Sun leaves at dusk, it makes a doorway. We have access to ancestors, to eternity. Breathe out. Ask for forgiveness. Let all hurts and failures go. Let them go.

Joy Harjo, Crazy Brave

[neoyorzapoteca]

Saidiya Hartman

[quoms]

The Inflation Gap

A new analysis indicates that rising prices have been quietly taxing low-income families more heavily than rich ones.

Using government data and scanner data from retail stores—the bar codes that get swiped at Target, the produce codes that get punched in at grocery stores—Xavier Jaravel of the London School of Economics found that from 2004 to 2015, the prices of the products purchased by the bottom income quintile increased faster than the prices of the products purchased by the top income quintile. As a result, low-income families experienced an annual rate of inflation conservatively estimated at 0.44 percentage points higher than that of high-income families.

The trend is small enough to go unnoticed year by year. For a given family, it might mean shelling out just pennies more on a grocery run or back-to-school shopping trip. But such changes compound over time, wedging apart the welfare of struggling households and flourishing ones. Rich families get competitive prices on organic groceries and athleisure and better-and-better electronics; poor families end up paying more for worse-quality alternatives.

Jaravel suggested a mechanism behind the finding: Rising wealth and income inequality mean that richer people have ever more disposable income, creating a market incentive for retailers to cater to the needs of lawyers in Chicago and tech analysts in Boston over child-care workers in the Mississippi Delta and part-time retail workers in California’s Central Valley. More firms catering to well-off consumers means more competition for those consumers means more product innovation and product choice for those consumers, as well as suppressed prices. Fewer firms catering to low-income consumers means less competition for those consumers means less product innovation and product choice for those consumers, and increasing prices. [...]

Inflation inequality has not filtered into government calculations, at least not yet. “These patterns are all very, very strong,” Jaravel told me. “But you can’t measure them with the standard data that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t keep track of spending patterns within these very detailed product categories.”

But new research from Jaravel, along with Christopher Wimer and Sophie Collyer of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, suggests that it should. Accounting for differential changes in prices would bump up the 2018 poverty rate by 8 percent—adding 3.2 million people to the ranks of the officially poor, and 836,000 people to the ranks of those in deep poverty. According to standard government measures, the real household income of the bottom quintile fell 1 percent from 2004 to 2018; using the new, inflation-sensitive accounting, it fell more than 7 percent.

[yosoyladance-deactivated2020013]

Y ahora que estamos juntxs, 

ahora que sí nos ven ♥

[aguitada]

I have spent years trying to avoid talking about the details of my life - especially illness and struggles - to friends. 

I always worry about being “too much”.

Being the friend you don’t want to talk to because her life isn’t sunshine and positive vibes.

Requiring more space than I should and somehow becoming an out of control vortex that sucks out what good our friendship had.

The reality is, I am so worried and afraid of this that I walk on eggshells, I leave a lot out and oftentimes go silent for days or weeks just to avoid having to give details.

“I’m hanging in here!” has become my favorite easy to say line that isn’t a claim I’m doing wonderful but also doesn’t initiate a conversation of why I’m doing terribly either. 

It’s my internal version of a cute cat poster saying hang in there baby!

Reality is, I’m not a positive thinking poster. 

I have been sick for over 10 years.

My family barely understands or supports me. I see them sometimes on holidays when I’m well enough. I keep a relationship with two family members as best as I can but it’s still very diluted.

And when I am around my family - I am often left feeling ashamed of not being healthy and accomplished.

My husband and my friends are really what keeps me going.

I’ve developed coping mechanisms to keep friends and not really bleed my reality into every conversation.

Lately, I’ve been dealing with new issues and old realities that are haunting me once more.

I’ve been trying to reach out for help and to actually discuss truths. 

I fundraised for a new wheelchair and was absolutely floored by the support and response. 

It sort of broke me open. 

People can be kind. 

Good things can happen.

I’m trying to hold on to those feelings and discoveries because lately things have been hitting me one after another.

The urinary problems I’ve been having - have not gone away.

They want to diagnose me with a new incurable illness with little understanding.

It’s sent me down a spiral and to be honest, I don’t know how much I believe this is the real issue since the care I’ve received has been so abysmal. 

Yet, I feel I am once again facing another life sentence of new suffering where doctors simply shrug and give you the advice of pretty much, good luck that sucks - try not to kill yourself.

My dysautonomia is currently out of control and I have no access to specialists. 

Of course, the underlying overbearing beast of an illness that is M.E. is always there.

Again, no access to the specialists I had once.

Insurance is ridiculous. 

Kaiser has been unhelpful and nearly useless except for one visit. My pap smear where I happened to see a urogyno who was a WOC. She noticed that I have spasms happening in my pelvic floor and I have abnormal tightness which she thinks is pelvic floor dysfunction - which can make urinary issues much worse. 

Can I afford pelvic floor therapy? Hell no.

I can barely afford the shoe string Kaiser insurance I have.

Come to find out, it will be going up in price for the coming year, making it so I wouldn’t even be able to pay for a regular GP appointment after the monthly fee & forget about the nearly 7k deductable. 

I haven’t had a therapist for a bit now to deal with what having disabling illnesses, lack of support, lack of financial means and more does to your emotional health.

The ghosting of my therapist of 12 years has pretty much been processed but therapy is the very last thing on my list of absolutely important needs. 

There have been multiple days though where I just cry a lot, pray that I get through the day and wrack my brain trying to come up with options and fixes for the things I need.

There are no real fixes without money.

If I get a divorce I may still get rejected for medicaid because I live with my ex-spouse.

And that still leaves me with the nightmare of trying to see specialists on state-funded healthcare.

This is a very long way to say I feel overwhelmed, afraid and back again to my own devices with no prescriptions, therapies or support for complex severe illnesses.

But I am ending this by listing the good things I do have (some of which I didn’t used to):

A beautiful electric wheelchair which helps give me a lot more independence 

Close friends that make my life feel so golden so often

My husband who works ridiculously hard & is goofy & a Good Human

Housing that is mostly stable and not a terrible health hazard

Having some better health days 

Knowing that people love me 

[mayan-buddhist-confusion]

damn, i like the thought of the festivities of Nejapa, El Salvador but I cringe every year cuz I think someone is gonna die of severe burns. 

Really good short film, tho. Props. 

[love-personal]

[angel-cine]

Pakeezah (1972)

[aguitada]

I didn’t forget but I didn’t want to remember how demoralizing and hurtful it is / can be to go to a regular doctors visit outside of specialized and expensive care (like Stanford).

Since being stuck with the insurance I have now - I have avoided going to the doctors for anything that isn’t urgent because I have had so many negative experiences in the past with healthcare professionals who mistreated me, were condescending, awful and more due to them not understanding my health issues or simply not wanting to learn and trying to label me as “psychosomatic” or simply “anxious”.

After years of this and finally getting a correct diagnosis and help at Stanford - I lost my financial aid there and had to go through the least expensive (all I could afford) insurance and I avoided going to the doctors until now. Due to what I thought was a routine UTI - and it has been absolute hell.

I had to push for an appointment, get a mediator involved and it was nearly obvious to me the doctor I was given was either just fantastically the hugest asshole ever or he’d already been given the heads up that I received the appointment by getting a mediator involved.

He ordered no labs, no blood tests, didn’t do any sort of physical examination. Looked at his computer screen while typing very fast for a large portion of the tiny 15-minute appointment. 

I wasn’t alone at my appointment - which I find really vital to how a doctor treats me but this time it didn’t seem to make a difference but at least I had a witness.

The doctor came in with a standoffish attitude, didn’t know what Hyper POTS or dysautonomia was and asked how to spell it so he could write it down and it is still not in my record because they refuse to accept a diagnosis made outside their offices (even though it was at Stanford’s autonomic dysfunction lab which is one of the best in the country).

And in the middle of asking me about my urinary symptoms, he cut me off and said “so why are you in that wheelchair then?”

When I was shocked in to sort of a numb silence I think I looked at him with my mouth slightly open after that - he breathed out loudly and rolled his eyes and said “i’m just trying to figure this out” while making a waving motion over my chair.

J then interjected and spoke up because it was clear I was feeling overwhelmed but the doctor cut him off too. 

Besides rolling his eyes twice - he also made scoffing sounds that were so audible that I almost thought maybe I was not hearing it right but after the appointment and discussing it with J (who was there) it was confirmed he did all that and more.

He cut me off multiple times and said “so what you’re saying is basically no/yes..” which was totally incorrect he was just turning my words to what he wanted. 

I make very conscious choices of what I will say in an appointment - I try and be concise and to the point but this doctor gave me no room for even that. 

It seemed clear he had come in there with a terrible attitude, preconceived views and wanted me out as fast as he could get me.

He stated my urinary issues could simply be “stress and anxiety which happens in women” and would “often resolve on their own when the stress passes” or it could be small kidney stones “but that’s rare in your age” so no testing was ordered for that.

He was also judgemental of the fact that I drink a gallon of water a day. When I tried to explain that is what I’ve been advised to do as someone with Hyper POTS (and it does indeed help a lot) along with electrolytes - he made an awful face and argued that was too much water even though he knew nothing about Hyper POTS / dysautonomia and water intake.

After stating my urinary issues could be “stress/anxiety” he said it could also be because of how much water I drink - as if the urethra pain and inflammation, bladder fullness and repeated feeling of needing to pee was somehow my fault even though I’ve been drinking this much water for years and haven’t had an issue.

The symptoms I’ve been having are very UTI like in their nature and the only thing that has helped the symptoms subside is d-mannose supplement at acute UTI dosage. 

I had an appointment at Planned Parenthood as a back up in case this went as badly as I figured it would and the doctor there said I can definitely have a UTI even if my test is negative especially because I drink a lot of water and it seems my urine is extremely clear and diluted. She also said false negatives are a real issue with the test. All the opposite of what I’ve received from my insurance doctors - I have been told it is absolutely impossible to have a UTI and a false UTI pee test though they only do a dipstick test. So, they would not give me any antibiotics - Planned Parenthood did. 

Now, after this failed appointment with my insurance, I at least have the antibiotics PP gave me. 

The huge contrast in how I was treated is amazing. 

I don’t miss dealing with a doctor so arrogant and downright condescending.

I left the appointment and cried on the way back home. 

Not because I was sad but because I was so angry that I couldn’t get it “together” while it was happening enough to say no, I’m stopping this appointment you’re treating me terribly and not listening.

It didn’t matter how nice I was or how well put together I tried to appear (make up, nice clean clothes so as not to be judged on lack of presentation which has happened in the past) - all he saw was a wheelchair, a brown woman in it and he had already made up his mind because my UTI test was negative.

I had to pay $105 for this 15 minute abuse.

I feel really deflated and messed up emotionally over it but I’m trying my best not to let it make me feel like it is all on me and all my fault.

I am thankful for having had rigorous diagnostic testing at Stanford by actual specialists because it was affirming and validating that there is something off and I’m doing what I need (such as using a wheelchair because I can’t walk long).

That has been enough to carry it with me after dealing with awful basic doctors at Kaiser. 

I hope to leave this insurance once open enrollment comes around - the issue is I’m unsure if I can afford anything else.

[aguitada]

En este dia international de la mujer, quiero que no se nos olvide mujeres como Teodora Del Carmen Vasquez. Sirvio 11 años (de 30 en total) antes de recibir libertad.Fue encarcelada por tener una emergencia obstretica que resulto en un bebe nacido muerto. La policia la acusaron de aborto y de tratar de matar a su bebe. Ella trabajo de adentro de la carcel para liberar a otras mujeres como ella y ahora continua este trabajo muy importante. Aborcion es ilegal en El Salvador y muchas mujeres pasan del hospital a la carcel. ¡Demandamos justicia para las mujeres de el salvador! Que ninguna mas sufra y que la criminalizacíon de el aborto pare. La comunidad internacional estamos con ellas y las soportamos. ---- English translation: On this International Women's Day, I want us not to forget women like Teodora Del Carmen Vaquez. She served 11 of 30 years in prison before being liberated. She was imprisoned for having a gynecological emergency which resulted in a stillborn baby and she was then accused by police of murder and abortion. She worked to free women like herself from inside prison and she continues such important work to this day. Abortion is illegal in el Salvador and many women have gone from hospital to prison. We demand justice for the women of El Salvador! May there not be another woman left to suffer and may the criminalization of abortion stop. The international community is with them and we support them. #elsalvador #internationalwomensday #centralamerican #salvadoranart #womensrights #salvadoranartist #latinxart #artistsofcolor #diainternacionaldelamujer #woc https://www.instagram.com/p/BuwhuePBW9_/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=18gb48l6veus0

[aguitada]

Fuck.

[aguitada]

I truly wish that after over a decade (12 or so years?) my now ex therapist would have talked to me no matter how hard and said she was closing her practicing and leaving the state. For half a year I didn't hear back from her and thought something maybe happened. I had a lot of fear and theories in my head and kept it at bay by ignoring it. I reached out again finally and she apologized and said there was no excuse for dropping off how she did. She asked when we could talk and that she was out of the area now. I gave her days that work and times and I never heard back again. Today, trying to go to sleep her name was crawling around my brain and heart. I am now grieving. I don't know what to make of it or what else to call it but grieving. She kept me as a client even though I couldn't pay more than $10 at one point. She had been through it all with me before I was sick, during almost dying, and the illness and disability that followed. She was a rock and support. I don't think I ever expected this. I know she is doing well and is happy with her life currently. I'm just feeling so deeply sad and hurt. No one owes you their time or support but wow, does this shit hurt. Crying at midnight wondering how someone who was so vital to you for 12 years could can be gone and out suddenly