The first time we visited my mother in the eating disorder unit of the hospital, the thing she thought to warn us about was not her own condition but that some of the other patients shopped at thrift stores and that we shouldn’t judge. Her upwardly mobile sense of middle-class decorum was still intact, despite the fact that her clothing drooped, almost slithered, off her body as if it were seeking elsewhere to perch, looking hardly different on her than it would on a wire hanger.
Yep. That stupid shit. Those folks are the worst. Even if this is someone's mother, that condescending garbage is the fucking worst.
Those thrift shop clothed folks have just as much struggle if they are in the ward; but it is a struggle compounded with fewer resources to help navigate it. It can be humanizing to see someone "well off" in a crisis like this, but that feeling goes away quickly when a few days creates a bankruptcy situation where-as that silly monster will be there for months if she needs to be.
