Situation Update · 5:39pm Nov 19th, 2019
Where do I even start?
I guess the most important part for those that care is that I have a roof over my head, warmth, and family with me. I'm lucky my mom had enough space at her place to hold me until the start of December. After that, it looks like I'll be on another multi-state move to my sister's since she has a spare room. But let's be clear here: it is the thin membrane of familial care that's keeping me from being one of those homeless guys at an intersection with a hand written sign begging for change.
The rundown is this: after 9 years, my relationship with Bubbleboom has come to an end. This meant I had to move out of her family's home, that I no longer have a car, and that I no longer have access to my dogs.
I am as close as makes no difference to 40 years old and I am unemployed, technically homeless, have no independent transportation, and I'm 100% reliant on the kindness of family. I am going to have to re-learn how to live in a completely new place, with completely new situations and new hardships. Everything. I'd thought, some months ago, that I'd hit rock bottom. That my life was no longer falling apart so much as face down in the dirt. I was wrong.
I do not know where to go from here. For...basically the first time in my life, I have no one to take care of other than myself. It has been my purpose, since practically birth, to be a helper. I was a full time babysitter and maid service by the time I was seven years old. Watching my three younger siblings and caring for the home while my mom was going through school and working at the same time. I honestly never had a childhood. I had to learn how to cook and clean and deal with problems and I had to learn it fast. I HAD TO BE AN ADULT because there weren't any that lived in my home. I took care of my mom then. I was more my sister's dad than their older brother. I had to police my brother until he crossed the lines that eventually sent him to prison for life. I had to graduate HS early to get a job to help with bills. I had to keep coming back to policing my brother every time he came back and started shit again. The actual cops would call me at work to tell me they'd been summoned to my house, AGAIN, because dealing with the technical adults on the property didn't do anything.
I was the one who fixed things. I was the one who drove out to pick up people when they needed a ride or to move furniture. I cared for my grandmother in her home until she died in 2006. Then the house became mine. I bought my own car. I let friends move in and stay at my house while going to college. I cleaned up their messes, I listened to their problems, I helped them with school work and I never went to college myself. I moved to help my mom, again, with my youngest sister and my car blew up right before that and my only option to pay was a credit card. That was 13 years ago and my credit has never recovered. I have put my life on hold for someone else so many times and for so long...that I don't know what 'me time' looks or feels like.
How am I supposed to heal and recover when the thing I need to stop doing is literally what I've done for the past four decades? How do I let people I busted my ass to help because they were at the time either incapable or incompetent, help me now? I was born into a 'can do because I have to because no one else can be trusted to do' attitude. I'm broken. I know I need help physically and mentally, AND emotionally. But I keep finding myself limping along as fast as I can asking my family what I can do to help them now around this house. I cannot stop myself and if I do, I feel worse, not better.
When I get to my sister's place, it is my plan to establish myself there so that I can sign up for assistance, medical whatevers, and actual counseling. That's the best practical answer to the things that are effecting me. I still don't know how I'll move around. I don't know where/how I'll have income. I don't know where my health is going to take me. I don't know where my mind is going to end up. I don't know how to end this.
Stay classy, and for the love of God don't follow my example.
-Fuzz
Hmmm.
At least a warm plates of mashed potatoes is good for the soul, I've found.
Be strong. By which I mean, allow yourself to be weak. Allow people to help you, now that you're the one in need.
Best wishes.
Mood.
I can't offer any words to help specifically. Just know that there are people who want to do for you what you've done for others. Acceptance will come.
Good luck.
It sounds like you're at least aware of what you need to do to take care of yourself. I support this.
Dude, I am so sorry you've been going through all of this. Again, whatever you need, let me know.