To have no healthcare is to be truly alone.

The thought of not being able to get a checkup almost brings me to tears. Here I am at work on the verge of a breakdown simply, because every time I do not feel well, it can easily be a life and death situation.

I am suffering from night sweats and incredible pain in my right arm. I also have spinal problems. And for someone whose ongoing goal is to be strong both physically and mentally. The thought of being anything less than strong in any of those areas is not only frightening, but infuriating.

It is simply not fair that I must worry about survival at such a primate level when I live in a country that considers itself to be so advanced.

I was watching the news the other day and Brook Shields (some person who was famous once) was speaking of her brush with Cancer. They asked her if she looks at life in a different light after her cancer was cured and she answered no. Then they asked her if she learned anything from this experience and she said, “I have learned that you must take care of yourself and get checked once a year, because I found out about my cancer with a regular yearly checkup and was able to stop it before it progressed.” I never in my 24 years of existence thought that I would get angry at any statement resembling that one by Brook Shields. But I did.

I got just as angry at that statement as I did two months ago when I found out that not only would I not be getting any income tax money back this year, but that I owed them money. Me, a 24 year old, who is still paying of student loans, who has never received help from her parents and hasn’t had health insurance in almost four years! I owed the government money? Who would have thought that unbreakable me would break down in an H&R Block office? My tax expert began to get teary eyed as she told me how her daughter is 22 and it breaks her heart that even though her daughter has never had to work a day in her life she daily sees people like me who remind her so much of her daughter breaking down as their feelings of betrayal from the very country that has raised them could not be contained.

The feeling of betrayal by something so ambiguous is frightening. Your country, that one which you were forced to sing to, put your right hand to your heart and pledge to since kindergarten has betrayed you. It is a feeling of betrayal unlike any other. It is the feeling that a child feels when they have been abandoned by their parents in the rain, without an umbrella or notice as to when they’ll be back. A person might cheat and lie to you, but when your country simply does not care about you then what do you call that?

I feel as if I am constantly being bullied by something bigger than myself, bigger than you, bigger than my generation. We are being bullied, while the government stands on the sidelines and does nothing. Yes, at times they might propose a law that might benefit those that come after you. They might tell the bully, no, not tell, propose that instead of kicking you 100 times a year, they might try to kick you only 99 times a year. What is the point of that when you’re already bruised and numb?

Since the age of 14, I can say that I have been independent. But it was only when I lost my healthcare that I felt truly alone.