Ignorance

 The Handmaid’s Tale had a famous quote. “I would like to be ignorant; Then I wouldn’t know how ignorant I was.”  

When I was a young person, I used to pray to God to make me knowledgeable about issues affecting children and other vulnerable populations so that I could be a wise advocate. After my very short stint as an RBT trainee in an ABA center for children with autism, I kind of wish I could take that prayer back. Dear God, that’s enough knowledge. Thanks God, but no more awareness, please. I have become too aware. I have gone down several anti ABA rabbit holes, and I just wish I had never been made aware of this issue. I have been reading things from autistic adults who went through ABA as children, parents of children who both regret it and are for it (both sides with parents), speech language pathologists, teachers, occupational therapists, and a professor named Alicia Broderick who has written and speaks about “The Autism Industrial Complex”, Autism speaks and their advocacy and how all of it led to ABA being one of the only options available for many families. 

I am just so sad. I am sad all the time. I have anhedonia, but it’s not the only thing. 

A week ago, I applied in person at the office of a caregiving company who said they needed someone in Montgomery. I live an hour away in Hempstead, and she was very reluctant to hire me, but I was able to convince her to. So now I’m caring for an elderly woman in Montgomery, Texas. It’s what I’m used to. It’s not anything I need to learn. I know how to do this. The lady and her family are all very pleasant. But I was trying to avoid this work in order to avoid getting attached to someone and then them dying on me. For now, though, it will do. I like doing this, and I like this family, but I’m dreading her dying. I really am. The last lady I took care of in this capacity passed away 23 months ago. The lady I started caring for this week reminds me a lot of her, and there are so many similarities. Her first name is the middle name of the last lady, she has the same number of kids (opposite number of boys and girls though). 

My husband still works at the inventory service, but once he was able to take his new birth certificate to get a new drivers license, he also got in Indeed and started job hunting. The manager and his wife have really turned on both of us. Kevin started to vent to me a little bit about their antics, but I believe he has stopped due to how upset it was making me. So I try not to get upset about it so that he tells me more. Kevin hasn’t job hunted since 2009, and I helped him with resume words and such. Then he got really discouraged when a company’s aptitude test crashed on his laptop. His discouragement made me discouraged, but I tried not to let it show. I just wish I knew why the manager and his wife, my old coworkers who I thought were our friends, have turned on us so badly. He has continued to apply on indeed and plans to go tomorrow to a company that only wants people applying in person. 

Maybe someday, things will be back to being as good as they were. I don’t know, though. I’m just so sad all the time, and I have nightmares every night.