this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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I worked hard, had more savings built up than I'd ever had before, so much I was able to even help cover a friend's cancer treatment!!!!!! Was looking at preparing to do more stuff and then my life fell apart all of a sudden, lost my job, crippling depression, now I'm broke and would be homeless and starving if my parents hadn't been able to step in and support me (for now? idk how long but I'm still incapacitated and not really thinking about long term survival right now).
But it just really drives home how fucking pointless this racket is. My mental health went kind of to shit from working so much, it was hard on my relationship and that was one (not the main, I think but a non-negligible one) contributor to it falling apart and my life getting ruined.
Fuck this racket, fuck capitalism, fuck work culture fuck it all. Yeah I don't want to work anymore, it's pointless and everything I worked for, all those savings, just fucking evaporated from one big life crisis that may not have happened if I hadn't even been working so much.
Thank you, comrade
Similar here. I worked for 16 years. Mainly as a carer for the elderly, also spent 18 months as a personal trainer. Did other jobs on the side for extra money, waitressing, telesales, giftaiding, I was even an au pair abroad twice. Built up a bit in savings. Even kept working on and off after being diagnosed with cancer and having issues with the treatment. But I was able to have some kind of life, did some travelling and had a social life. But then I had a stroke and couldn't work any more. My pitiful savings were soon gone. My friends were soon gone, who wants to spend time with a virtually housebound person who's tired and has no money and needs help but can't give anything back? And so began my life on disability benefits, getting reassessed frequently, so no financial security at all, being denied, having to go through appeals, and so now here I am a literal beggar and thief, begging strangers online for food, sanitary towels and money, and sometimes shoplifting because it's the only way I have to get these things. It doesn't matter how hard you work or how much you save. You can lose it all in an instant through no fault of your own. There is no real safety or security for anyone. I was a decent worker but it all counted for nothing when I could no longer contribute, and instead of the societal "safety net" I keep hearing about, society has turned me into a beggar and thief.
Sorry Comrade, that sounds hellish :(
Some of what you say reminds me of what the Death Panel podcasters have to say about surplus labor and how disabled people are treated as less than human under capitalism.
People in the UK are regularly starved to death for the crime of being disabled. So many news stories of disabled people having their benefits stopped and then starving to death. Two names just off the top of my head, Errol Graham and Mark Wood. And no-one even cares, these news stories generate no outrage but just victim blaming "He should have tried harder to get help, there's so much help out there." No there isn't! I was in the process of starving to death before I found hexbear and mutual aid. I had collapsed in the street from starvation and been diagnosed with multiple nutritional deficiencies, and still this country wouldn't feed me. If it wasn't for the people here I don't think i would still be alive.
I'm sorry, that's awful. It's good that /c/mutualaid was able to help.
Fucking UK, what's the point of stealing the world's wealth if you're just going to let your people starve to death anyway