Every factor of my life is monitored, and dependent on someone else. Every single thing. I’m in a state program for mentally disabled people because of an Asperger’s diagnosis I received when I was younger. Okay, that’s something that’s relatively minor and it’s not even its own diagnosis anymore. It does not impede me in any great way despite being related to my anxiety, which relates to other neurotic issues such as depression and in my case a certain degree of paranoia. Okay. Nothing that some light medication and counseling can’t fix (or at least get under control).

The thing is, under this state program. Okay. I get housing, I get food, I get medical insurance and I’m able to go to school. I also can’t really get a job because Medicaid will take all the money I get from it, due to Social Security already meeting the allotted income allowed. Which, actually, ONLY pays for rent and utilities and the like. Which, while I’m grateful for that much, still leaves me with only $60 a month in money I can actually spend for myself.

I also have my internet time restricted due to certain rules. I’ll admit freely, I have social issues. I have emotional barriers and difficulties expressing myself and processing things properly in speech. I have never formed deep emotional connections in person. I DO form incredibly deep ones online. I have people who I have never touched, whose voices I have never heard, that I would give my life for.

This program I am under also somewhat impedes my ability to meet said people in person. So I’m lonely. It’s painful.

Ultimately though, what I find most consistently destructive, is a lack of feeling control in my life. I can’t really choose where I go. I need to be watched at all times. The pages I go on the internet are tracked, the logs of what I SAID to people used to be tracked. I’m monitored and watched and need to be supervised at all times, even though I’m not a danger to myself or others. It wears.

And I also know nothing of how to really do anything. I have no skills, I don’t know how to research, I don’t know how to navigate the government and find how things work. I don’t really fully understand my life situation, and no one can just tell me everything even if they want.

And, ultimately, I’m completely under other people’s power. They could destroy my life if they wanted. Due to odd circumstances best not mentioned publicly, they risk their own safety by not doing so. I’m grateful for this, but the sensation of having no power, of being in the palm of someone else’s hand… I’m tired of it. I’ve never been free in all the twenty years of my life and I’m tired of it.

And, I cannot escape. I cannot leave the state program without going to court, which requires an attorney. I do not have funds to hire an attorney. Even if I did, I wouldn’t know where to go, because I lack the life skills to take care of myself.

So I feel helpless, and trapped, and my mind seeks a way to lash out. And every time I do, I cause problems for myself and others. This is what hurts. While it’s not always crippling, I always feel the weight on some level, and it keeps exploding over and over again. What I’m suffering from now is the effects of one such explosion.

Oh, and I’m also told that the state can pretty much at any moment put me under a guardianship and come in, shoot me with a booty dart, and keep me sedated into non-sentience for the rest of my life.