leaning on families vs. homelessness - Mari
 

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Originally Posted by Mari Teri, I too live with the fear of homelessness but I had family step in to help when I was close. I would imagine that acutally being homeless changes how one thinks about many things.

It is hard to hear about others who have had to live with the fear of homelessness. I feel for you. Yes, homelessness changes your entire perspective on so many things and it strips away certain securities, unspoken, that the normal person carries with them thru-out life.

One time of homelessnes, living in a church shelter, I called my older daughter and asked if she could call my father to ask if they would let me move home. They hated every moment of it and made me pay dearly for DARING to impact their lives. Loud unpleasant complaints to relatives, right in front of me... Complaining loudly and frequently about how my mother's niece was VICTIMIZING her father, having moved into his home with her young child when she nowhere else to go. Her father didn't complain and was happy to be helping rear his precious grandchildren. He is the kind of man who personally nursed his ex wife thru her final illness and death.

I signed up for food stamps and bought food for them, but they didn't even say thank you. They were even angry and resentful that my daughter had not offered a home to me -- with her and her husband and toddler in microscopic 1.5 bedroom apartment. And their lease would NOT allow another adult. So I finally managed, while paying for car repairs, insurance, etc, to finally save up $800 or so and they gaily said goodbye to me. I enrolled in one summer class, paid the deposit on my daughter's first apartment, drove her everywhere that summer, paid for all her groceries (foodstamps), bought her cigarettes and struggled to find a job. My daughter screamed and yelled at me (bipolar I), and I was so traumatized, I couldn't complete my single class - either semeser. Then she stole all the money I had left but a bit in my purse to pay her legal fees off, and threw me out that night, piling all my possessions on the sidewalk.

I didn't even consider calling my parents. I knew that I was not supposed to fail and show back up on their doorstep. That wasn't in the plan. I slept in my car and on a few couches. I begged a friend with an answering machine to let me use her phone number and address while I looked for a job. I never even told my parents about what happened, how I lived, until a couple of months ago. I was ashamed for them to see me as such a loser.

I found a live-in position as a maid and cook. Solved both problems - money & housing. But never again will I do it. It is a nightmare to be in constant fear of losing both at the same moment because they no longer need you or their kids convince them to fire you. Worst part, now that I had a "home", my parents made me take all the possessions I had ever left with them. I didn't live in a garage apartment, I lived in a warehouse.

This second time when I asked them for help while I sought mental health intervention, I spent my entire allotment of food stamps on the family and ate very cheap for myself, but my mother told my dad I never did more than buy the occasional loaf of bread or gallon of milk, and that I spent all the rest of the $120/month on myself. What? Filet mignon and truffles? Had to keep up their self-image of being USED AND ABUSED by the FREELOADER. I paid rent of $50/mo for all the EXTRA electricity I was using - for one shower a week and washing my face and one load of clothes a week? Anyway. Maybe it was my body heat making the air conditioner work harder.

I did housework, yardwork, painted a cottage. Wasn't a lot more I could do. My parents told me I was not mentally ill, that I did not have bipolar. They told me that I had gotten fat to get on SSI (I wasn't THAT fat, but it made a great thing to tell people, I bet). Told me I had just TOLD the doctor my diagnosis (and apparently coerced him into passively agreeing with me??). I begged them to come to an appointment with me so they could talk to the people at the clinic and hear about my illness and how the clinic people saw my functioning and my needs - but they refused repeatedly. All they wanted was for me to leave. Even tho I lived in the cottage and they sometimes did not see me for days. I was encrouching on their lives and making them see me as a deadbeat child sponging off them. I was not being a good daughter according to the American standard shown on 1950's TV.

With family like mine, living on the sidewalk can begin to sound GREAT. In fact, I was seriously considering it - VERY seriously. That's how bad it was. I planned it. What clothes I would pack in my little 20-year-old sedan. What would I need. Could I find a place to park where I wouldn't have to feed a meter or worry about getting towed.

After I got SSI, lost my food stamps and moved out to a HUD apartment, they then had my sister move in for 18 months after her divorce. No complaints in front of HER and no demands for her to leave - tho some encouragement towards the end. But she was a teacher and had a good-paying job and was helping support her kids. Plus she owed them a buttload of money - they had put out $10,000 towards her divorce and more (she gets $1,000/month in alimony). What is funny is that she was paying them only a little more than I had a month, and SHE considered it her paying back the loan. But they saw it ONLY as rent and still consider her as owing them the entire amount.

They still can't understand how come having an apartment and Medicaid and groceries hasn't made me able to suddenly become "well" and "act normal".... more signs of thinking I was just faking it. But now they are ashamed of me and really don't want me around local people. Image is everything. My dad asked me lately if I could move to the city so I would live far away. And as it is, I only see them once every month or two. Hardly ever talk to them on the phone. Never leave my apartment. But they want me to move away.

Now THAT is sad and makes me want to cry for myself.... it really gets to you when you finally sit down and write it all out. Telling my truth. Telling the truth, tho, for MANY MORE PEOPLE THAN JUST ME. It is the truth for some of us - the ones whose families are severely disappointed in them and embarrassed by them.

Teri

Dear TEri,
This breaks my heart reading this about your family.
They are just monsters....
Why do you even have to have any more contact with them?
For your own sake be rid of these people.
((((HUGS))))
bizi

My mother told me let the state take care of me when she had it in her power to insure that would never have to happen.
You don't know how hard I have been trying to feel compassion for her since she died more than eight years ago. I know that will help me heal.
I am beginning to feel some compassion for my only sibling,an older sister who is very well off who wrote me that we are strangers when I asked for help.
I am so glad that you got into HUD housing and were so resourceful and SO STRONG that you could still stand and function while being treated so brutally...how can we really trust anybody when you can't trust your family.
Even if we weren't bipolar, how you compensate for such cruelty?
It is so heart wrenching...and it is really their problem....
Bobby

Dear Teri,
Those parents take the prize in ,well, a few things.

If you wrote a book about them, people might think it is fiction.
I am very very sorry that you had to go through this. I hope that your living situation is better now.

Your family goes behond "disappointed" and "embarrassed." They are petty and mean and horrible and I don't know what all else. They clearly have something wrong going on. Cripes!!! Have you been healing yourself?

Speaking the truth is good.

Mari

Bobby,
You are amazing to be able to find ways to heal through this. (Weird sister, but I guess that she had a mother for a model.) I will get a copy if the I Ching.
Mari

actually Myra has outdone my mother...but since she isn't my mother I think it is easier to feel compassion for her
http://www.amazon.com/I-Ching-Book-C...e=UTF8&s=books
get the wilhelm translation of the I Ching..it is by far the very best....it is so beautiful...if you need any help with it I am available...I am not humble when I say even though I have read it for years and years and yearsthere is so much I don't understand still and it is always fresh when I read a hexagram...so many universal truths...you can't argue with it
Bobby

Dear Bobby,
Thanks for the book translator suggestion.
I'm expecting to need help with it!
Mari

Dysfunctional families
 

Teri, I know it is hard to live alone, and boy do I remember giving and giving just to see a friend or a family member. People will always pretend to care when your feeding them. Not everyone is like that. As long as you allow it, they are not going to change. I know she is your daughter. Stay away. If she calls, tell her you can't afford to be around her. Period. Practice saying "no!"

hi carolee,
You are struggling for sure with your sons issues, glad that you found neurotalk to get some support.
It sounds really challenging to make things work out.

This is an old thread, I wonder how teri is doing these days....?
anyone stay in touch with her?
bizi