Today, I received notice again that the Veterans Administration declined my claim for lung damage while deployed but said instead that I have rhinitis. Well, that seems to do me no good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To top that, I get no benefits from it; in fact, I\u2019m likely going to have to pay the VA a bunch of back pay because they still had it that I was married. With the economy spinning out of control, I\u2019ve already had to cut back on a lot, but if the VA comes after me for thousands of dollars in back pay, then I\u2019m going to become poor fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll have to cut off every subscription that brings me an ounce of joy just so I can keep some food on the table. This thought made me so sad, I just sat and cried as waves of feeling like a failure washed over me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As much as I try to just make it day to day, something always comes around the bend to dick-punch me. And I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll survive this one. I haven\u2019t felt this horrible in a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I lost all joy. Turned everything off and took a nap. I still feel like crap, but I\u2019m still here, going through the motions, waiting for the other shoe to fall with the weight of a grand piano right on top of my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every bad memory took this moment to rear and kick me in the face with everything embarrassing in my past. I want this to go away. I want my brain to stop. I want even a sliver basic self-respect. But it\u2019s not happening. It\u2019s not going anywhere. This is my curse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m a failed experiment that just gets by on faking it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If there is a heaven, God\u2019s messenger will just tell me I was too broken to fix, and broken people aren\u2019t allowed. If there is re-incarnation, the enlightened ones will just tell me I failed and that I need to go back to being a worm to see if I can even do that right. If there\u2019s a universal lifestream, I would just be cut off like an infested tumor and sealed away to wallow alone, unable to be repaired and unworthy of acknowledgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not \u201chealthy\u201d to think like this, I know, but it is instinctive. I can\u2019t turn it off. It won\u2019t go away. If I\u2019m being tested, then congratulations, you win; I lose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
yay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today, I received notice again that the Veterans Administration declined my claim for lung damage while deployed but said instead that I have rhinitis. Well, that seems to do me no good. To top that, I get no benefits from it; in fact, I\u2019m likely going to have to pay the VA a bunch of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-random"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/img_2895.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedragoncorps.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}