Disclosing the fallout over my wife: Re - Her Green Card
I know this is personal, and I shouldn't disclose this, but I will here because I am no longer running for office and I will return to China on May 27th.
November I broke. Since her second rejection and Mark Kelly's office pretty much ignoring me since doing the bare minimum to help me and the fact I look at the same white walls all day alone and isolated, I put myself in a mental health clinic where I stayed for eight days.
On a tangent, mental health clinics are anything but. There is no real therapy. It's run and operated with prison ideas and prison mentality, even using prison language and tactics. People are there to deal with illness and are treated with doing nothing, mindless busy-work, and "lights out" mentalities. But that's beside the point.
I was diagnosed with bi-polar two, BPD, and PTSD. They also ran bloodworking and found I was diabetic with blood sugar high enough to cause a stroke. They doped me up on so much medication I was a walking zombie there. I met the doctor 15 minutes a day at most.
This process broke me completely. Between my wife's tears, an unsympathetic community where I work, and an indifferent attitude from people I reached out to help an American citizen reunite with his wife, my world fell apart. I lasted 16 months before I had my breakdown. And it was a complete nervous breakdown.
I cannot stress enough that we all need to work to end this legal immigration nightmare. No American citizen should ever allow their government from separating Americans from their families.
Mental health is not a "get help" solution. You always take two steps forward and one step back. I may be cleared to work, but it's always there. The eye is always watching and waiting to manifest. The medication is only there to treat symptoms.
If I had a true support network, maybe the eye wouldn't have taken me over. But no one cared, and few did anything to help or understand. It has left a very, very sour taste in my mouth.
My wife, bless her, told me she wants to continue, but wants to go through the process when I am there with her. So it isn't dead, it's on hold. But after all of this, my view, albeit very cynical, of my country and its principles have been shattered. And once glass is shattered, you can fix it, but it's always broken.
Sad thing is, the US government doesn't care about any of us, unless you are famous, wealthy, powerful, or influential. Being a struggling writer with an ex-manager/producer in Hollywood running your name through the mud because I got tired of his lies, abuses, and threats. . .as well as a low level teacher that no one listens to, especially people in power (don't get me started on teacher accountability when there is little administrator accountability and no student accountability) who dictate to me what to do and what to teach, including proposing rules to gag me if I teach history or government that may offend people (yes, I am a social studies teacher), I know the US government (and the state government as well) doesn't care what I say.
We have an legal immigration system that makes bringing families here as costly, cumbersome, and soul destroying as possible. I know. It broke me completely.
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I wish you all the best, in whatever form that takes for you.
I agree completely that our immigration system is broken and as a result breaking people and families.
Our "mental health" "system" is also a tragedy. (I was going to say "joke" but it's not funny).
The game is so rigged against us, it's hard for me to have any hope.
I hope that things will be better for you when you are able to reunite with your wife.
Memory Clouds: Good Grief Bad Grief by Conrad Reeder c. 2017
A year after the untimely death of 8-time GRAMMY winner Engineer/Producer Roger S. Nichols (Steely Dan, John Denver), his grieving widow, singer/songwriter Conrad Reeder, experienced a vision dream about sitting on a ledge, contemplating a jump into the abyss. The lucid dream triggered memories, good and bad, and reignited a passionate desire in Reeder to write her way back to life.
I purchased Conrad Reeder's book 2.5 years ago when I researched her husband, Roger S. Nichols, and wanted to know more about him. I didn't start reading it until this past week after I had a particularly difficult night not sleeping/emotionally distraught over things that happened to me that never should have happened except for the incompetence and carelessness of individuals and an organization that definitely should know better and couldn't care less.
At any rate, I was scrolling through my family's history FB page to calm myself down and stopped at Steely Dan's Making of Aja documentary I had shared with my cousins because Roger S. Nichols was our 4th cousin (our most recent common ancestor was a Revolutionary War veteran) and was the album's Executive Engineer:
(Roger appears the first time at ~16:00 minute mark)
Watching the documentary and listening to Steely Dan's music was so calming and soothing. I decided to pickup Conrad Reeder's book and really read it this time. The love she had and still has for Roger is beautiful and he was an exceptional, down-to-earth man who died too young. Conrad Reeder is very insightful, descriptive and has led a well-read (16-page bibliography included) and very interesting life. I'm only on Chapter 2.
All that to say, you love your wife as much and home is where she is. Maybe Steely Dan's music and Conrad Reeder's book will keep your mind on the moment the two of you are happily reunited. Leave all that other crap behind.
The broken immigration system is sadly emblematic of so much that is going wrong with the US and the erosion of democracy in recent decades and Biden can only chip away at it-- leading to demoralization for sooo many desperately needing IMMEDIATE reforms and solutions.
You are left to make a very difficult choice, but one that will reunite you with someone who loves you. That might well make all the difference. I hope so. Best of luck to you. I hope you will (and are able to) keep us updated.
that it'd be extremely desirable to have whatever American healthcare, mental and physical, you do have active during and after your move. Both until you establish with Chinese healthcare and in case for any reason you need to return to America. Unexpected things do happen.
You'll want all your prescriptions active, filled, and with you, health documentation, and the numbers of professionals you can call for help or just advice in dealing with something. Also your wife should have all information and preferably duplicate medications.
Moving is of course stressful in itself. This is a way of keeping control in your hands.
