Body image issues, shocks and reality checks page

[Luce]

I was out choosing clothing and accessories for a shooting this morning, feeling truly out of place and and poorly shaped. Stopping for a coffee I got my cup from the hands of the former owner of the fancier place around town, he bankrupted and is now a waiter in this unfashionable place.
Is not that I'm shocked because of socio-economical mobility, I'm just feeling unwell because right now I can't tell how bad it will get and that worries me nuts.
So now as long as stress builds up I feel like flab, and being a size zero doesn't look good enough, I want a double zero. Which means I want to disappear or to have an easier deal into hiding, I'm not sure yet.
This is not the first crisis I go through, I'm quite experienced at it and I know my first reaction to social stress loading is "hey why don't we go loose some weight" but now, now I feel somehow cornered. Even if this crisis does not directly impacts my incomes it really devastates my quality of life: I can't enjoy stuff or feel safe while things around me just fall apart. There's people begging in the streets, people who had a job weeks ago.
There's a wind of intolerance, the hint of a violence which won't stop once it's unleashed and I have no instruments to deal with it.
Any of you noticing thing like this, or is this just local stuff?

Luce

[sbhikes]

That's what it's like all the time to live in the US. At least that's how it is in Santa Barbara. People beg in the streets everywhere. They like to stand on street medians or at the ends of highway off-ramps with their cardboard signs. Lots of them on the main street in town with their signs. Lots at the exits of shopping center parking lots, especially the shopping centers that have health food stores. Some are homeless, some are just passing through, some are clearly addicts, some are clearly severely mentally ill. Most people I know make less money than they used to. I do by about 20%. My boyfriend makes 40% less than he used to and he's got the same job at the same company. There's not much hint of violence or impending revolution or a sense people are going to take to the streets or anything like that. We've all gotten pretty used to it. Although here and there you hear about shootings and stuff like that guy yesterday in Manhattan who killed a former co-worker.

[Luce]

Nobody should be getting poor, we pay always more and more for everything and people keeps on getting less and less money.
Somehow I'm making more money than I did before (well I was almost dead before so that makes sense somehow) and with my partner we are getting more jobs.
Being a photographer sucks a lot less than being a lawyer, last crisis I went through I got buried in insurance companies and banks in need of bankrupt not to talk about foreclosures and the sort.
When I was little my parents always said that getting an eduction was important because that is something nobody can take away from you, in time I found out knowing how to work things out is important because it allows you to better adapt but hey, I don't want to adapt to my ex husband going poor.
I can't believe things are going that bad in Santa Barbara, I was there and around twelve years ago and it was NICE as in NICE with all caps on plus bacon.

Luce

[Primal123]

I think a lot depends on what you do for a living. The last few years my business has been better and more lucrative than ever. It's the type of business with ebbs and flows and I have learned to expect them and enjoy whichever one I am in. Where we are I don't see much of the economic crisis as it is depicted in the media. Your general difficulties followed by upswings. I have had others tell me their businesses are better than ever and they are fortunate to benefit from the housing market as they have been able to buy either nicer houses or investment properties. It seems like it may be regional. Nothing lasts forever, if the economy is bad where you are it will surely get better eventually. The ability to weather the storm for some may be harder than for others.

[Iron Fireling]

It isn't really like that here at all. I mean it's not GREAT, lots of people are out of work and stuff... but I guess we've got a good enough social security system that even the unemployed have homes and some sort of life (I know there are homeless people, but where I live you don't really see them around... there's not really a good reason for it in the area where I live because rent isn't that expensive and unemployment benefits should more than cover it).

It is a wake up call to hear about other people's experiences though! I do get personally stressed by bills etc. which I struggle to pay, but I can always afford food and I'll always have a roof over my head.

[tfarny]

Sounds like a bummer day, man. Chin up! Life is a mix of the hand you are dealt, the decisions you make (based on your circumstances), and the way you feel about it all. The last one is the only one that is truly in your power to control.

[Crabbcakes]

Nobody hangs out on the street corners here - and I mean nobody. Ever. Partly because there aren't that many street corners to hang out on because I live in the sticks, but the greater reason is that here in my little part of the world it is unthinkable to ask for handouts in such a fashion, and it is almost impossible to ascertain who is on public assistance (short of doing a stakeout at the county welfare office to see who walks in there besides the employees) because it violates one local commandment - pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. The best way to see who is doing well and who isn't is by looking at where / how their home is. Trashy trailer or living with your parents at age 30 equals poverty, nice trailer or better equals hanging in there. The people here are used to having not much, so it seems like life as usual. You do get the milder forms of theft here, though (I mean by that the kind that happens when you are away from home, so very little assault and such), and three years ago two of the ticket-sellers at the county fair tried to skim a couple grand off the entrance gate cash box - sheriff caught them easy, tho. All in all the locals turn to news from outside of the county for stories of a harsher tone - not here.

[Luce]

Crabbcakes this is not Ohio and it couldn't work like that, then there're all sorts of new immigration and not all of that is working the way it should; I get your point though the thing is people here had different ideas about how their lives would be. Locals are lining up for charity in church (none of them liking that much the thing) is a sign of how things are turning. Then we are in Italy, living with your parents when you're around thirty is common and not always depending on income (sometimes is just because mamma knows her cooking, ironing and cleaning, which is indeed a lot worse than poverty).

tfarny tomorrow I'll be around Rome and there I should get an idea of how bad things are. Life is looking a lot as a strip poker game, I'm wondering what they will take once all the clothes are gone - that's what worries me most

Primal123 my business goes on well, I could even benefit from the crisis removing posers from the market. I just don't like to watch people getting poor to the point of not being able to get gas on their cars (price is up 2 euro a liter).

Iron Fireling bills here doubled and keep on going up, and winter is coming so I decided to brace myself for a not so merry christmas because I guess this december it won't be all jingles and lights. Housing here is expensive and bills well, they just skyrocket hitting new records each month.

Luce