The system is designed to break people like me. I see it now, clear as day, but I’m already in too deep. Life is a battle I never had a chance of winning, not with how things are.
Food costs too much, the heating’s off most nights because I can’t pay the bills, and fines? They come through the post like clockwork. Council tax, housing associations, all of it automated to squeeze every last penny from people who have none.
I’ve tried, I swear I have. I’ve held jobs, I’ve stood in line at food banks, I’ve begged for help, but it’s never enough. Even when I was working full-time, I couldn’t make ends meet. The debt piled up, the pressure mounted, and the drugs well, they’re the only thing that made it all quiet for a while. But the quiet never lasts, does it? It comes back louder, sharper, and colder every time.
They say addiction is a choice, but what about when you’re addicted to just surviving? What about when you’re stuck in a system that wants you to fail, that punishes you for being poor, that criminalises you for being homeless? The government doesn’t help; they just automate the pain. Fines you can’t afford, letters you can’t escape, sanctions that cut what little you have left.
I didn’t choose this life. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to let it all fall apart. I just couldn’t cope anymore. And when you can’t cope, when the struggle crushes you, when no one listens, you reach for anything that makes it go away, even if it’s killing you. Because the truth is, this country doesn’t care if you live or die. It just wants you out of the way.
The automation of pain in finance and hardship is the systematic removal of humanity from the struggles of everyday life. Through automated fines, penalties, and rigid systems, the process of financial failure becomes cold and relentless, offering no room for compassion or understanding.
Instead of alleviating suffering, these systems amplify it, trapping people in cycles of debt, poverty, and despair. What should be a safety net becomes a noose, tightening around those who need help the most, leaving them with no recourse but to endure or collapse under the weight of a tyrannical system.