A Broken Window and a Major Victory

This has been a stressful week. For two weeks I was out of Cymbalta due to problems with insurance, red tape and hassles involving my name change and an incorrect birth date in my file. Normally I fight through the pain and fatigue, and make sure that I'm using my CPAP mask for sleep apnea, staying hydrated, and just fight though it. By last Wednesday, I just couldn't do it anymore. I called off for the half day of work I had scheduled, and slept until noon. It took me until about 2 pm to be conscious enough to want to go work out, and when I go to my car, I see this.

 

 

I go on with my day, stopping by a Wal Mart to get Gorilla Tape and a roll of plastic similar to what is used when people are painting to keep paint off of carpets and furniture (I figured it would be strong enough not to rip). I knew damn well who did it, but I didn't feel like dealing with it further that day.

 

There's two people who would definitely do something like this, the kind of people who have such poor character that they think there is nothing wrong with beating children , molesting children and teens, holding someone hostage in their home, or attempting to force their way into a house and make violent threats towards the owner if said owner doesn't want them in their life anymore. To top it off, they are working on a rental house for a relative nearly two blocks away, so I know they have been in the area, and on the same street.

 

I made a police report Thursday evening, and thankfully the officer that responded did far better than the last two times officers had to respond to my address. I gave the dispatcher a little background the last two incidents, and made reference to the order that M. Dolon Hickmon helped to draft, and what the police chief had said the last time. I overheard another dispatcher say "oh God" in frustration as though they were saying "not this house again...".

 

The officer that responded did respond quite well to the situation and though he said what I expected that no charges can come from this without a witness or video recording, etc. If the object used to break it was left in the car, that would even help, since fingerprints could be run, but no such luck.

2 Weeks of Struggles and Victories

It's been a long two weeks since I last posted here, and much has happened.

The week before Easter, I was informed by my doctor that my constant fatigue could be the result of sleep apnea, I will have a sleep study Monday night, and he said that if this is sleep apnea, I need to lose close to 100 pounds in order to get the symptoms to possibly die down enough to no longer need a machine like a C-PAP machine.

Easter Sunday, I went to leave my house to go to the Unitarian church I am a part of, and heard a constant thumping sound, and quickly turned around after about a block to go back home, realized I had a flat tire, both front tires were too far gone to be driving on anyway, so I replaced them both.

Then this past Tuesday, the Psychos returned. Yes, the two from The Confrontation that I can't even bring myself to call my parents, because they don't deserve it. I was setting up a new lawnmower I bought in my garage when I heard "Happy Horse", my Black Lab/hound mix barking for a few minutes as though there was something he saw at the front of the house.

I heard a woman later at the back fence talking to Happy Horse and petting him, I looked out, and it's Mrs. Sociopath. I close the door to the garage and lock it. I called Granite City's police dispatch, and told the officers about The Confrontation, and that because of their attempted assault back in December, I would not come out of the garage until the officer arrived.

Despite telling the officers that showed up about how disappointed I was that the officer from The Confrontation didn't even ask me if I wanted them arrested, one of the two officers simply told them to leave and not show up or contact me again, took down my information, and had asked what had been going on before, then left filing no police report, and no arrests.

I was frustrated with the lack of response from the police department, and I knew how much good an internal complaint would do (none), so I went to Madison County's courthouse to try to file a restraining order. I was referred to a case worker for a local legal aid group that helps file the order.

She told me to fill out everything that had happened, all abuse and harassment, on the record or not. Despite listing this incident and The Confrontation (which both had law enforcement as witnesses to them), being forced off medication for depression, and being barricaded in the house and threatened with violence if I tried to leave, the judge sent a deputy to tell me (they don't even let people filing for restraining orders sit in the court room), that they felt there "wasn't enough grounds" for a restraining order.

I felt so defeated and frustrated that for a while, I considered going public with my story, under my name, trying to contact local media if any outlet would pick it up and embarrass either Granite City or Madison County into doing the right thing. I was talking to some online friends about it, and I was shocked at the response I got from the author and activist M. Dolon Hickmon, the writer of 13:24.

He went first to Granite City's mayor, then their police chief, demanding answers from them as to why nothing had been done, telling them that he would start making complaints to Madison County's state attorney's office (a state attorney is Illinois' equivalent of a county prosecutor/District Attorney), and Illinois State Police about their failure to do their job.

A St. Louis Area Animal Shelter Desperately Needs Your Help!

Up until now, I hadn't mentioned the name of the animal shelter I volunteer at, mostly for security reasons, ever since The Confrontation, I've been more mindful of not being very specific about where I'm at, or where I go.
  Something has come up this week, however that has lead me to violate this rule just once. I have been volunteering to Granite City's APA chapter, and today, I was talking to their volunteers and their treasurer, who stopped in to pick up the adoption paperwork and related fees.

Right now, they have had a lot of success with adopting out animals, thankfully. They have been spreading the word online more about the shelter (check out their listings of dogs and cats for adoption on Petfinder), and locally, so animals have been going out the doors rather quickly, but they are also getting a good deal of animals in as well.

They have started running so low on funds that they are considering ending their open house hours, where visitors can come in and view the animals for adoption, for the rest of this week, and they are having a hard time keeping the doors open altogether.

I hope that by putting this out there, that I can help them. I hope some of you can donate, check out their website, there is a PayPal donate button on the homepage, or consider sending them an item on their wishlist.

Nothing Left Here for Me In This Town

I have so much history in this town, but there's nothing left for me here. As many regular readers know, my family is no longer in my life, besides my sister in northern Indiana.

 I lost just about everyone who was already in my social circles when I left the creepy/borderline cult church I was in. I have no reason to stay here other than the fact that when I bought the house as a foreclosure for cash off of the federal agency HUD, I signed a contract that I wouldn't sell the house until June 2015. I'm stuck here until then.

I don't like that, I'm ready to ditch my old roots, I'm tired of reminders of my parents everywhere I go in the town, and having to go out of my way to avoid places I know they will be.

Some communication I've had with Granite City's police department since The Confrontation, and their actions during The Confrontation has shown me that they aren't very willing to do much to help stand behind me, I'm not sure why they're not taking it seriously, so the risk of a public meeting by accident is too great. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Sociopath has horrible night vision, so any time I go into stores after dark, I'm fine.

I'm tired of this place, and it's probably not good for my health. I'm close enough to a steel plant owned by US steel (pictured at left), that I can hear "man down" sirens go off when there's been an injury. It's a highly industrial town, and I'm tired of the pollution and the noise.

I'm Fed Up With the State Government in Illinois

Despite everything I have paid to the state of Illinois in taxes this year every paycheck, this greedy state still wanted more when I filed taxes Monday.

The amount wasn't all that much in the grand scheme of things (a little over $100), but every little bit taken away is money that could be saved or better spent elsewhere, especially for a working lower middle class guy like me.


I probably wouldn't care so much about taxes, if the taxes were actually being spent on what they should be, but they aren't.

Despite the state raising the cigarette tax by a dollar a pack in 2012, and raising the state income tax 66% in 2011 on people earning 60,000 dollars a year or more, the state still isn't paying it's bills. In recent years, the state has delayed paying vendors providing services to the state for months at a time, and has refused not only to pay school what they already owe them, but has cut school funding.

Salute to Steel

I've noticed a new trend of poetry blogs popping up on Google + lately, and plans are in the works to bring content from two of those bloggers onto this blog, but in the meantime, I thought I would try it myself. I need something to help get me my mind off of the constant ramblings about religion that I have doing lately.

In my hometown, Granite City, Illinois, there's a large steel plant that was once an independent operation known simply as Granite City Steel, now it is a part of the US Steel conglomerate. It's a major part of the city, and the town is literally wrapped around the plant. It is such a major employer in the area that when it shut down for several months about 3 years ago due to lack of demand, no one in the town did not have a neighbor, friend or relative that was out of work because of it.

Salute to Steel:

 

In a town outside St. Louis called Granite City, there is a sight that catches the eye

Large columns of towers pump steam into the sky

As workers in grayish blue uniforms every day walk inside

The sign outside says "US Steel"

While the threat of life changing accidents inside is very real

Drivers wait as steel goes out on rail

Not realizing that it could end up rebuilding a bridge later on down their trail

Here hard hats and lunchboxes reign supreme 

As workers continuously build the American dream.

My rant about a bigoted Postsecret submission

This is from one of my favorite sites, Postsecret, it truly is one of the greatest sites on the web. People send in postcards, anonymously, with their mostly deeply held  secrets, to the site's founder in upstate New York.

Submissions range from the mundane to the shocking and hilarious. Postsecret's founder, Frank Warren seems to have a policy of not censoring secrets due to their subject matter or offensiveness. Comments are not allowed on the blog itself, but on a separate site known as "Postsecret Community".

This week there was a submission that well, to put it mildly, royally pissed me off.

For those of you that don't know, Aspberger's is the most highly functioning form of autism. For more information, click here. Why this postcard pisses me off is the assumption this person is making that someone with autism is lying about having their condition to get away with being an "asshole", in the words of the secret sender.

I'm sure that there may be one or two people out there who may be doing this in the world, to get away with offensive behavior, or to gain sympathy, but I highly doubt this is the case. Why this makes me angry is that there are many ignorant and bigoted people out there who would assume such a thing about a person, probably for no good reason. I have depression and OCD, and I will that in person, I don't tell many people I have it, because there are so many people out there, riding on a high horse, just like the person who sent this postcard, who do not understand mental illness, and have a burning hatred for those of us out there who are not "normal" by their standards. I have been mocked, misunderstood, told that my depression isn't real, that it was the result of "guilt" (about what, they never told me, and I don't know to this day). I have heard people say that depression is "unconfessed sin", I have had my own family deny my mental illness.

I'm telling you this to say that if you have the notion that mentally ill people have it easier in this world, shake that idea out of your brain now, it's a flat out lie. Ask anyone you know with depression, bipolar disorder, autism, how they have been treated by people in their lives, and the misconceptions people have told them.

Why anyone would lie and voluntarily put themselves through this kind of hate, misunderstanding and discrimination is beyond me, and strikes me as highly unlikely. 

I have to wonder, the person who sent in this postcard, if it would change their mind if they ended up having a son or daughter with autism? What if they themselves came down with depression or schizophrenia?

Would they treat their son or daughter the same way they have treated this person? Would they have the same skepticism and bigotry, or would they finally come to their senses and finally learn more and become a more accepting person? How would they feel if they were the person with mental illness, and had to face the same kind of stupidity they are spouting day after day? 

I think they would start seeing things from a whole different light than their current, bigoted point of view.