My life - 2014

I went to see my psychiatric nurse today for refills of my prescriptions, which cost $1.15 each as part of my CVS Caremark Medicare drug plan. I don't drive, so I took the Dial-a-Ride transportation service, which took me to Duxbury, Massachusetts for $1.25 each way. When I lived in New Jersey, I was on Medicaid and my prescription drugs were absolutely free and the town I lived in, New Milford, provided free transportation to Bergen Regional Medical Center, for doctor's appointments. In that sense, NJ was better for me. But in truth, in Massachusetts I have a much better quality of life. In NJ, I was on a waiting list for a Section 8 housing voucher that took from 2006 to 2011 until I was granted an interview. By that time they were willing to set up this interview, I had already moved to Massachusetts; I applied for and was offered housing in a very nice complex. My rent is $302 per month in this subsidized apartment complex, with free gas and electric, free heat and free television. The only downside is that in Massachusetts, because I take psychiatric medication, I have to be in psychotherapy. I used to go twice a month and now I only go once a month. The judge at my Social Security hearing ruled that my schizophrenia is not a disability as long as I am compliant -- meaning as long as I take my medicine. Neither is my head injury a disabling condition because, the judge continued, there is not enough evidence to rate me a zero on a global scale, as one psychiatrist in Palisades Park NJ did. My only true disabling condition, he concluded, is the abduction of right gaze and the resultant change in vision (obliquely displaced double vision). Even if I did not have the double vision, however, I would have eventually won my Social Security case because in 2009 I returned to Bergen Regional Medical Center in Washington Township NJ because I developed a seizure disorder. Within a week I underwent an EEG which found temporal slowing in part of my brain. I spent much of the past few days ruminating over how I could have been a success in the financial world, even though I had all of these obstacles and challenges. I could have had more success, if I had just stuck to insurance, but I made the conscious decision to go after 401(k) plans, with little success. If I did not have double vision, schizophrenia and some form of damage to my brain I feel confident that I would be a millionaire now, or at least on my way to being one. (I even got my Property & Casualty license in 2005, but I just didn't know where to go in order to use it; I attribute this to my general fear and paranoia associated with schizophrenia and my inability to see well.) I don't go to church, but God and Jesus Christ have become very important to be; I pray several times each night as I lay in bed and prepare for sleep, and "Honor Thy Father and Mother" has always been the commandment I have striven to keep uppermost in my actions. In fact, this Sunday, prior to the start of the football game, I will be taking my parents out to an early dinner at the East Bay Grill here at the Plymouth Waterfront, which is almost within walking distance of where my parents and I live. (I live at 26 Castle Court and my parents live at 11 Russell Avenue, if you want to use Google Earth to see where the Lord, in his infinite wisdom, has situated us.) I absolutely love it here, and I wouldn't go back to NY/NJ if you gave me a free house, that's how satisfied I am ! So, Marcel, what do you think of my life ?