So, here it goes: I just activated my account for food stamps. Our card, better known as the bridge card to those of you here in Michigan, has left me with some mixed feelings that I would like to explore.
There is a huge stigma in this country about any form of government assistance, In this area specifically, it is looked down upon and if you are on any form of it you might as well be one step up from trash in many people's eyes. So, with this attitude in the back of my mind, I do feel an immense amount of shame for succumbing to my needs of applying for help. Also, I know my shame will be much worse tonight when we use the card for the first time.
So why with all these feelings did I decide to apply in the first place and not just go on struggling through? After all, we were making it before hand. Well I have two separate, and in my mind equally important reasons for putting myself through this.
1. Personal Situation: When Tim lost his job earlier this year it was a devastating loss. He is the income in our family, even when I do bring in money it is extra. We did OK for a short time after, it was right when we were getting our tax returns back. So, instead of buying a car that runs properly, We stocked up our freezer and paid all our bills a month in advance. We thought this would for sure get us through until his unemployment check came in or he found another job.
The following month and zero job offers later, we also got the horrible news that one government agency had let us down. We weren't getting unemployment, we had no prospect of future income. To make things more stressful; my little part time job only had a month left; I found out I was pregnant, which is a great thing since we had been trying for months, but it also meant I needed to eat better, which costs a lot more money especially in winter in Michigan when there is no local produce.
So with no incoming coming in we started to get behind on our bills, somehow we still managed to struggle through and soon after Tim found a job. But now we were behind. We already had a fairly large (at least in my eyes) amount of debt, so we had no credit cards to hold us over. We struggled, missed payments, bought the cheapest food we could so we would have enough money for gas to get to work. I knew it would get better, since we were doing fine before and this job was equal in pay to what we were getting. What I didn't expect was that once you get behind, it is much harder to get caught up. We were, and still are just one paycheck behind. We started paying what was most important. We were a little late on a lot of bills, but they were still getting paid.
The I got sick. The food that we had stocked up in our freezer was running out and we had been eating crap food. Although I was still making sure to take vitamins (and doubling up to account for the lack of them in my diet) I wasn't feeling good. My body was just off balance and with the baby taking most of the nutrients that I did have. I got a UTI, a yeast infection and I could feel an overgrowth of yeast in my whole system, and my PH level was extremely low and I knew continuing with it would just be asking for bacteria to take over more. I knew I wasn't doing myself or the baby a favor my saving money eating pasta and breads and nothing else. I knew I needed to spend the extra money on healthy foods. It was money we didn't have, but I had no choice. So we bought our food for the week, actual fresh fruits and veggies (lots of salad, my major craving), Greek yogurt and an all around healthy diet. It came to 4 times what our "Cheap crap" diet was, but we spent it anyway.
I started feeling better right away, the infections I had cleared up and I even got some energy back (which I attribute half to diet and half to entering into the 2nd trimester). But our bills struggled more. We now were spending more on food so there was less to go around for bills. We were still behind from before and now we were falling further. I hate living this way. I grew up living like that, it wasn't always that bad, but I do remember plenty of red letter envelopes. The stress of the bills was much more than any stress I had felt before. I knew going like this wasn't any better than eating crap to survive.
So, I swallowed my pride and applied for help. Since it is pretty much all done online it wasn't too bad. But I somehow still felt like a failure. Even though I am doing this to help my little growing family, I still can't shake those feelings of letting everything down.
2. Social Reasons: This is no where near as long of a story, but I find it important none the less. Why apply for the infamous Bridge Card? Because there should not be shame, there should not be the stigma attached to such a thing, and in my own way it is my protest against these thoughts and ideas in our society.
Democracy, for all it's wonderful advantages, also creates a need for a certain number of the population to be poor. This is just how our system operates. Because a certain number must remain in the poor class (and reproduce the poor class) there is an advantage for the system to take care of this said poor class. Now I think for all our system does do that it is seriously lacking in this department, especially when compared to other countries, but that is another rant entirely.
So, with my two reasons in mind. I will use my bridge card tonight without shame (at least try to). And will take comfort that it is that much more money that we can get back on track with.
