Yes, and I’ve been going through a pretty big one since last October. While I share some parts of my life, there are others I keep private.
Suffice it to say, after a 4-day hospital stay, I’ve been medically unable to work, and since disability (both long-term from my employer and SSI/SSDI) is taking a loooong time for appeals, I have zero income. My wife’s part-time jobs (plural) are not enough, and our landlord just handed us a three-day “Pay or vacate” notice, though we are short enough on rent that we don’t feel bad about taking what little we have and getting our car payment current enough to avoid repossession.
That’s just the finances; I won’t get into the migraines, anxiety, or depression too much. But imagine if light levels that others considered dim were still bright enough to make your eyes burn, the slightest sound like a car driving down the street was loud enough to make you flinch, and you were so nervous that you couldn’t even get halfway through a sentence without ending in an impassible stutter.
It’s not the first time I’ve struggled. It’s not even the worst struggle I’ve had. But it’s enough to make me irritable at times (though that might be the migraines or just plain mood swings). Whether it’s calling in sick because I couldn’t afford the gas to drive to work, living in a panel truck in the middle of New England winter, having jobs fall out from under me as my employer’s fell victim to misfortune.
Sometimes I’ve had enough good fortune to get a little money saved up. Maybe even stash some in a 401k. When I had my car accident, that savings was enough to cover rent for the month it took me to get back to work… but not enough to cover all of the out-of-pocket medical expenses that insurance didn’t cover. For that reason, all the pampered people who say that the reason I am struggling because I didn’t save enough get told to go fuck themselves with a chainsaw and advised to shut the fuck up before I get violent. I refuse to take advice from snooty people who don’t know shit about shit.
That’s far from all of it, but it should be enough to explain why I sometimes have an attitude like, “Bitch, please…”.