Thanks Utopia for your comments. I am a boilermaker, a pressure welder, workplace trainer and assessor, TAFE lecturer and scuba diving instructor, both day and night. A motor vehicle accident finished my involvement with all of these vocations. Because I was unable to do this work again, or any manual activity all the friends I had built up over the years through work and socializing left me as I spent many months recovering from many surgeries. I tried to keep the friendships going but was always left behind as I could not contribute. I was working as a titanium welder building submarines for some very high wages. This stopped and so did he life style for my wife. When it became evident i would never return to the workforce, she found greener pastures but not before physically abusing me for a few years before she left with my then best friend. So many years later, I still sit alone. The mental anguish over all of this compounded the depression I have endured sine I was very young.
Volunteering, I moved to a warmer state upon advice from many surgeon. New life, I threw myself into the deep end and volunteered at an aged care facility, somewhere I have never been before. I loved ever minute of the three days a week i was there. the residents, especially the male ones appreciated the one on one visits i had with them, Scrabble was popular. I sold my home and moved to a new town. I went to the local aged care facility with four years experience as a volunteer in this area under my belt looking for work. They were delighted for me to work there but it would cost me five dollars a day for which I get a meal provided. I asked not to get the meal but to "keep their books straight" the will still charge me five dollars a day. Being a pensioner, i cannot afford that and fuel for the half hour drive there. I still sit alone.
I am now the body corporate president which gives me a bit of work to do, mainly organizing. i see many happy families and couples and I interact with them as president and then go home to an empty cold unit and sit alone.
I went to the local men's shed but as always I was pushed to the outer extremities as my arms do not work and I can not contribute. To look at me you will be hard pressed to find a disability and as such I am judged harshly by many people. Because of this you tend not to search for others for fear of more ridicule and heart ache.
I know where I am at, I know how to move forward, I just simply do not have the wanting to do this. I am tired of fighting, I am tired of surgeries and quite frankly, I have moved on the the next level of dispare and am now tired of being tired. I have years to go as I don't give in easily but I know that this depression and disablement will be my ultimate demise.
Thanks for you time to read this waffle.
