A strange charity phone call

Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid. I have been known to be overly sensitive at times, but this call from a charity wasn't what you'd expect. It happened the other day and I'm wondering if it's had anything to do with my depressed mood yesterday. 

Had a pretty bad day yesterday. Thankfully things are feeling a bit brighter this morning. As someone who suffers depression and anxiety I can say that it was one of the more intense episodes. 

I'm on the "do not call" register with the home phone; that number that you can ring to stop sales people calling you trying to sell you something in the middle of a meal or whatever. It doesn't stop charity's ringing though asking for donations. These calls seem to be getting much more frequent lately.

As I'm just about a charity case myself, I usually just say politely "I'm on the pension mate" and the call ends there with the charity caller wishing me well. This time was different.

Can't remember who it was and I'm not going to guess in case I say the wrong charity. So this guy rings and I answer, hear the usual introduction from whichever charity it was, and I say "I'm on the pension mate".

Surprisingly this bloke had something else to say, proceeding to tell me that a large percentage of donations come from people on the pension. It caught me off guard for a second. I blurted out "I'm paying Sydney rents....." Then went "Hang on..... you're actually going to argue about this?" and hung up.

Thought about it afterwards. Is this the result of all the demonisation of us DSP pensioners in the media and by the Abbott gov? It's enough of an invasion of privacy having people ringing you wanting money, charity or not, let alone to have that person insinuate that I'm a cheapskate claiming lots of pensioners have the money for charity. In my own fuckin home.

Do people now think that us pensioners are rolling in it? 

The thing that this gov and the media doesn't seem to understand at all, is that those of us who actually get on to the DSP are on the DSP for a bloody good reason. And amongst other illnesses anxiety and depression can often be a part of the overall health problems. Ask anyone who's chronically ill. This media hoopla and gov screaming from the roof tops about "unsustainable" and the like is going to adversely affect the mental health of us pensioners.