Homelessness

I hear what you're saying @chibam and you're right, they make excuses and lies not to help you.

Escaping my parents for the first time... it took someone who had never met my parents to believe me and get me out...

I was painted as the crazy wayward daughter because they "knew my dad" said he was an honourable church deacon and how dare I suggest all these things against him.

The system is designed to protect the perpetrators and entrap the victims.

And where does that leave us?

Running from everything we knew

The family we had

The friends we kept

To run in order to keep ourselves safe

I've had to start over so many times that it's no wonder we don't have security or jobs

All our energy is in surviving

@avant-garde I just keep asking: "Why me?", "Why didn't I get to have a new home? A new family of people my own age?" Pretty much everyone else got these things not long after they finished school and became adults. Why did I miss out?

I did pretty much everything I was supposed to do. I might have skipped the odd social function here and there, but I don't buy that as being the reason.

And perhaps more to the point, why didn't the mental health system - who is/was so often touted to be the reliable solution to peoples' shitty life situations - help me? You can give individual members of the community a pass for not being able to help trapped people to get back on track to a worthwhile life; but this is the mental health system's job! How the hell do we excuse the fact that the mental health system refuses to do it's job?!?

@chibam

I wrote this nearly 2 years ago, talking about the unseen consequences..

"Then there's accommodation, most kids are content enough living with their parents and they get off on a good footing, they can always move back home if they need to while studying. Often they don't leave if they don't need to or until they are ready, with a steady job, a car, a licence.
Abuse though means that you don't see yourself ever getting out, and that's exactly what the abuser wants, so that when you do get out, you have no one. There is no one to help you because they think your abuser is a good person who could never hurt anyone, let alone their daughter, so you run.
You try to find somewhere, you try to find someone to help you, but you're alone and you know it. You don't know how to live outside of an abusive environment, what normal looks like, that you move somewhere only to have them kick you out because you don't know how to live somewhere else, somewhere where they don't control your every move. You learn though and each house gets longer that you stay at."

This one I wrote nearly 6 months ago

"While I move place to place... suburb to suburb... house to house... new things to get used to... new conditions to abide by... new difficulties to face... the unreasonable expectations... and it's more than simple inconveniences... its taking advantage off the housing crisis."

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@avant-garde wrote:

Abuse though means that you don't see yourself ever getting out, and that's exactly what the abuser wants, so that when you do get out, you have no one.

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It's always been very much the opposite for me. I frequently envision what my life would look like with my proper family.

It's the people around me who seem to have decided that I'll be trapped here forever.

I guess that's the answer to the "Why me?" question I asked earlier. I pissed them off by not adhering to their cockamamie standards, so they decided they were gonna rig the deck against me. Didn't even realize I was offending them, at the time. I don't know if there was any way I could've managed that better. I doubt I could've produced a significantly better result.

The problem with walking the path that people like that have laid out for you is that it inevitably leads to you being trapped in their nightmare. If they don't see themselves as cautionary tales, as you do, then I don't know if there's any way you can hammer out any amicable agreement together, to help yourself get on track towards the life you want to have.

Maybe there's some truth in that, too, in terms of understanding why I never got any help from my supposed 'friends', either. I know that there's truth in that in terms of understanding why my therapists never helped me; which just goes to hammer home the case of why we need a much more ideologically diverse mental health system, that offers support to patients of all world views.

@chibam

I don't think it's the opposite

I always dreamed of getting out, what my life would be like, having a cat of my own, but I never saw myself getting out, trapped in a reality that I hated, they had their own plans for me, but it wasn't what I dreamed and hoped for.

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I was going through my poetry just now and came across this one

You look at me and you don't see
Disabled, unemployed and homeless
You see a women who's 35 and different
One you think is fine

You see her car and you start to think
That maybe there's something going on
All the bags and how full it is
You comment and it hurts her

You don't see the choices she makes
That everyday is different
To build familiarity
When homeless is familiar

You ask her if she has family
And she bursts into tears
She feels insulted that you'd ask that
Do you think she's doing this by choice?

Who do you think she's running from?
Could it really be that bad?
That's where your thoughts are going
Family has to be better than this

But you'd be wrong to think that
That she hasn't considered going back
[edited for guidelines]
That homeless is better than that

But you ask and push anyway
You have no relatives? no friends?
What about your church?
Where are they in this?

She gives her rehearsed answer
"My church is doing what they can"
You think there has to be someone
But for so many there's not

We wouldn't be here if we had a choice
If there was any other way
If there weren't extenuating circumstances
If home was somewhere safe

We wouldn't be here if we weren't running
Running from the life we knew
Running from the abuse
Running to save us from ourselves

If home was what you think of
We'd stay forever and a day
But for us it will never be
It wouldn't be our kind of safe

Home will never be what you think of
Home for us is freedom
Home for us is simple
We've learnt we don't need much

Home would be around us
To be inexplicably us
No more walking on eggshells
[edited for guidelines]

Home would be our safety net
Never what you would think
We find safety in community
Familiar on these streets

Home would be a space
That we can call our own
To have our own companions
A place we can call home

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@avant-garde wrote:

@chibam

I don't think it's the opposite

I always dreamed of getting out, what my life would be like, having a cat of my own, but I never saw myself getting out, trapped in a reality that I hated, they had their own plans for me, but it wasn't what I dreamed and hoped for.

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So, as I read this, you always wished for your real home, but you never believed it would happen?

It was differant for me. I always just naturally assumed that it was a given that I'd get out and get to live with other people my own age. I mean, that's what happens to people when they grow up and leave school, right? Why ever would I even considder that it wouldn't happen for me?

It took a couple of therapists to tell me that it wasn't gonna happen for me. And even then, I didn't want to believe it. I kept clinging to the hope that if I just kept going to these awful social functions I kept getting summoned off to, eventually I'd get introduced to someone who I'd click with, and who would invite me to come join their household.

It was years before I finally gave up hope.

Hey @chibam ,

Sorry to hear this.

If you don't mind me asking, what age range do you fall into? (No need to respond if you don't want to. I respect that)

I'm 41, @tyme .

So you're in my age bracket @chibam

It's pretty harsh for all those comments made to takeaway one's hope.

In my eyes, I would say never say never...

You may not get the exact house in the exact place you want, but there's hope.

I'm going to be honest...

The accommodation I'm in isn't as bad as others I've been in, but it has its own issues.

First it's the monthly inspections, that they haven't once told me are happening and I've been here nearing on 4 months.

Second it's that we're not allowed air con or they'll put the rent up knowing we have no where else because there are a bunch of us waiting on government housing

Third is the serious lack of communication regarding maintenance, outages or anything that actually affects us

Fourth is they stand by that we're classed as lodgers with the belief they can enter our apartments without notice.

I know it violates our rights on so many levels but it's either this or homeless.

The owner isn't shy about exploiting the situation and increasing his wealth.