I feel like such a liar and I'm burning out quickly

[Cantheus]

Finished reading the "We all Speak of Doom" thread over in General Discussion. It's made me think about a few things - personal living situations, jobs...Up until recently, I, too, thought I was in a fairly good position. I could see it coming, truly empathized with those who'd hit the wall, but figured due to prepping and observing early, my family was okay.

My life is a lot more tenuous now, DH and I have parted ways after 18 years, no animosity, just found we no longer can live together. I still love him with all of my heart, I feel like I've failed the one thing I honestly have tried the hardest at, but really truly do not want to live in the same house with him. He's been gone for a month, although we do still see each other often, and maintain a friends with benefits relationship (which oddly works better than our long term domestic arrangement ever did).
So I'm down to my income alone, which is 30 hours a week, at a disgustingly low wage for the work I do (which is the real reason for my post, not to illicit sympathy for my failed marriage -  ) and whatever support he can give me.

(edit to add: don't know why I felt the need to add all of that, but it felt good to get it out, lol)

The reason I feel like a liar is because of my job.

I'm the only person in my area who does my job. I've got some great job security - meaning I see people from 10 or so towns - roughly 100 to 120 people per week - who are in need of heating assistance. Basically, I sign people up to get free oil/fuel for the winter.

Aside from the HUGE disconnect from what I believe about the sustainability of oil - and the fact that it's (for all intents and purposes) going to be out of reach for most of us, very soon, I see peoples personal TSHTF moments ALL DAY - EVERY DAY.

When I was reading MooreTime's post about how doom hasn't wrapped it's icy fingers around his throat yet, I thought, "Yeah, but I'm sure you must know someone who IS truly fucked by now, even if you're not," (and no offense to MooreTime, I totally got the gist of your post).

The thing is, I meet people every single day who are truly fucked - they're traumatized, and shocked and its not getting better, but part of my job is to help people find resources, assistance to pay bills, find housing, find food, clothes, it just goes on and on and never ends. What I can't tell them is the resources they need are being stretched so thin, they're barely there. Assistance for fuel oil this year is going to be about half of what it was last year - IF they show up at all, and that's a situation too awful to contemplate.
I worry about what's going to happen to these people, even though I ought to worry about what's going to happen to ME and my family.
Up until now, I've felt pretty good about things. I've got preps, I've got zero debt, but now because of my marital situation, I DO live paycheck to paycheck and I'm one good case of the flu away from personal financial doom.

But this nagging feeling of lying keeps eating away at me. What I want to tell these people is, "If you think you're screwed now, just wait."
Of course I can't say that...they come to me for assistance, and in a lot of cases comfort - and taking that application (not a guarantee that they'll get any help, btw) makes them feel so much better - it makes me feel good to help, but at the same time makes me feel like shit, because I know it's all a lie, something to placate them and prevent the panic.
They might get help this year, but what about next year? Or the year after?
Still, I smile and comfort and I hope, but the realization that things can change and change quickly stays with me.

[speaksoftly]

Cantheus,

I wrestle with this every day myself. Most of the people in my department think they can do on like they are forever, never having to do a full days' work, thnking getting what they can for themselves whether it belongs to them or not is acceptable.

Like you, I'm lying because I don't tell them what I know or feel, and I'm not telling them because I've tried and they didn't believe me. I see little signs, like positions not being filled, and supplies not being purchased, and I know it's a sign of deeper problems, but again, nobody believes that.

Like Moore Time, I'm still OK on the outside. I worry on the inside. I'm almost prepped to the point of no longer being in a total panic for myself, but I'm in a total panic for almost everyone else I know.

You can go home and look at  yourself in the mirror, and know/accept that you've done your best under the circumstances. That isn't lying.

[Bill Hicks]

I can totally relate to your post.  Part of my job resonsibility is to oversee the budget for my organization.  I get instructions from above to count on increases for 2010 and 2011 and I just nod my head and agree to figure out the best way to plan for spending it.  I know damn well by 2011 we'll be lucky if we aren't experiencing furloughs or layoffs, but it simply does no good to bring my "awareness" with me to the job.

As for those poor people you deal with every day, what would be gained by saying anything to them?  They would probably just get defensive and angry at you.  Fact is, you can't get someone to accept the truth if they are not prepared to do so.

Best of luck.

[mtlouie]

You're a good person, Cantheus.  That's all I've got, but I wanted to say it.

[Cantheus]

Thanks for the encouragement - it really does mean a lot.

[madison]

I know what you mean.  Last year I worked for Head Start, a preschool program for low-income families.  Families of four people making it on $12,000 year plus food stamps.  And I've also done the job you're doing, though I was trying to give away free refrigerators and minor eatherization items for income-qualified people.  The federal poverty level was the qualifying income.  Truly horrible.  And now I'm in that catagory, too. 

Hang in there.  There is nothing you can do, really, unless you find someone who "gets it", who is awake.  Then, I'd tell them - maybe they can find other options for themselves that they normally wouldn't access, unless it was an emergency with the funding that supports them.  It is really hard to live happily, knowing the doomed are all around you (and may incluce you).  That silly phrase, "I see dead people" just is a running loop in my head some days when the doom starts to get to me. 

The strong and/or lucky will survive.  We all die anyway, in the end.  It's only a matter of HOW you live, not how long, necessarily (though of course we want longevity AND prosperity ideally).  Sometimes life just sucks.  Maybe it would help to keep in mind (my belief) that most of us chose to be here at this time in history, and that those who didn't choose, it was chosen for them in order to learn. 

[SoundSquirrel]

Cantheus, you're not lying.  It's not the purpose of your job to give them the larger picture.  Maybe it would help to realize that providing them a short term solution is buying time for them to find out about the larger issues.  Believe me, unless they're complete idiots, being suddenly at the bottom of the heap will leave these folks plenty of time to think about what happened.  As someone who's been on the other side of the counter, until I got someplace safe and warm and ate, I didn't have the luxury of wondering what was going to happen in a month or a year.  Sometimes a temporary solution matters a lot.  Even one night in a warm place, one hot meal, one more day with the power on, can give you the energy to make it another week.  Knowing someone cares even when they can't help gives you that little bit of a push to not give up just yet. 

Even if it all blows up and your own job goes away tomorrow, we'll still need people who care and will get their hands dirty.  You already have that.  Giving a damn and being willing to get involved is a skill set like anything else, and it transfers to a lot of situations I suspect we'll all face in the future. 


Do the small stuff, and like Madison said, tell the ones who care to hear it.  The others will be figuring it out soon enough.  Personally I think we should use every single resource for food and shelter and education we have organized right now, because whenever this evil game of musical chairs stops we want as many of the most vulnerable as possible to be under a roof and to have some education to go on with. 

Hang in there.  The practical idealists are way outnumbered, and God knows we need you.

[LuaHasFreedom]

Cantheus, I admire the comfort you are giving people, at such a high cost to your own comfort levels.

[HungryRaven]

Even the most prepared, stocked up, ammo ready, bunker dug, wild eyed doomer standing like a meerkat on top of their hole waiting to dive down at the first sign of nuclear war or looting at 7-11 has  a good chance of dying during what is coming.  The earthquakes will collapse their bunker on their head.  The government or neighbors will drag them out in the street and pummel them with rocks for having stuff or they just couldn't avoid the plagues.  Or their pride of having things to be prepared with blinding them to how clueless they really were when the snowdrifts and nuclear winter start. 

The people you meet will either pull themselves up by their bootstraps or they won't.  If you can give them a hint they will either be alert enough to start crawling though the rabbit hole or they will barely be able to percieve what you said through the haze of their issues.  At least giving them some help while it is still available gives them a little more chance to get a clue.  Besides once all the dust settles after armagadden and other things happen it is likely a few totally unprepared clueless ones will crawl out of a few basements still alive. 

[leaf51]

Cantheus, I don't think you are lying at all.  The people coming to you are worried about very immediate needs.  They are worried about not being able to heat their houses, or feed their families.  And you are providing help and support for them for now.   Perhaps if some of them are able to get their lives back on track financially, they will be able to look further down the road at what is coming our way.  In the meantime, you are doing your job and helping people in very difficult circumstances.

[BenjaminTheDonkey]

Everyone lies while at work,
But denies it to not go berserk;
If you have awareness
About life’s unfairness
You could think of that as a perk!   

[justanouveaufarmer]

I used to have a cool job helping poor people buy their first home.  I thought I was doing something really positive and helpful.  They were sure grateful.  But now probably the majority of them have been foreclosed on and thrown out.  Did I really help them?  Or in the longer view did I do them a disservice? 

My point is that we really don't know in the long run how our actions affect others.  It's enough that you're trying to give aid to the suffering right now. 

It's going to get worse for all of us, much worse than we expect.  Maybe it's good for you to wrestle with these feelings now, so you can be clearheaded later when it's really needed.  Maybe soon you'll look back on this as an essential training period and feel very grateful for it.  If nothing else be grateful you still have a job.

And maybe in the long run it's good for your clients to go through some suffering and discomfort now.  Maybe it's necessary to toughen them up for what's coming.  Maybe for some it takes a shock to wake them up or get them to see what's ahead.  Maybe even by "helping" them now you're only prolonging their suffering.  On the other hand, maybe for some families the hope and warmth you give them is exactly what they need, exactly when they need it.  Maybe for some families you're an angel.

I'm sorry about your marriage breaking up.  Although, I bet you $100 bucks you'll look back one day and see how that turned out to be a good thing too.  You just never know what the future holds.  Lots of times I look back and see that what I thought was a tragedy at the time evolved into a much better thing.  (Like my perfectly wonderful second husband  ) Sometimes it hurts in the meantime.  Sometimes it hurts really bad.  Then later I look back and smile at how shortsighted and young I was.  Always running around trying to "fix" stuff in my life.  The universe/fate/God always has a better long range plan than what I keep trying to finagle by myself. 

You have a great job.  Better to give a little hope and a bandaid than sit home doing nothing.  Be nicer to yourself.  You're a good person.

Justy

[worriedfloridian]

Cantheus, I am sorry about the end of your marriage and your financial situation. : : : hugs: : : :

I also work in a social services related field.  I have many of the same worries.  One thing that I try to do is put folks in touch with each other -- in an apartment complex or trailer park, help them start a tenant's association, for example.  I don't talk about doom.  I suggest things to them like forming grocery co-ops, babysittingn co-ops, transportation co-ops, ride sharing, crime watch, etc.  They may have only each other to rely on given what's coming and if they get some informal networks going now, maybe it will help down the road.  Companionship is a little thing but it can mean a lot when you're scared, cold, hungry, hopeless.  I believe a lot of people's abilities to survive in the future will be the networks they are able to form with others.  I don't think locking yourself in your bunker with your ammo and all your preps is going to guarantee your survival; in fact, it might guarantee your lynching.  I think small intentional communities of like minded individuals is the way to go.  Many poor people understand this intuitively all ready.  They may end up faring better in the long run than the (formerly) rich.

Keep us posted!  Peace.

[booklvr777]

You are helping these people in the short term, that's all you can do, and they'll be warm this winter.  You know that saying, "one day at a time", you're helping them for today and that's something, believe me.  I think it's a great thing that you're doing.  And, besides, most people won't believe about peak oil because they don't want to believe;  It's just like belief in God--you either do or you don't, and I don't think there's much success trying to convince someone who has their mind made up; "they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead".

[Xenopus]

Cantheus, I think these are all wise replies to your worry. Much sympathy. I think you are doing more good than you know. These people may have horrible stories, but at least they have come looking for help. There are people even worse off who are too proud/stupid/afraid of looking like failures to go to anyone for help. I know. My daughter is one of them and I feel completely helpless.

You're not lying to them. They are learning about doom directly, for themselves and by seeing how many other people are in the same situation. Plenty of education occurs without anyone actually saying anything.