Question 161: “Please fix my life?”

36 thoughts on “Question 161: “Please fix my life?””

1. I feel for you greatly, life has seriously given you a raw deal. The Captain’s advice is great if you want to go the “responsible citizen” route – i.e. stay within the trap that our fucked up society has created for you (and for millions of other people too). There is no way that whatever “bad decisions” you have made are the sole result of all this. The game is rigged from the outset for anyone who isn’t privileged.

   Only you can decide which route you need to take, but I would like to alert you to the fact that there is another way, that involves escaping society’s trap. It just requires seriously thinking outside the box, and a level of adaptation and uncertainty, that many can’t deal with (although I think the reality of being homeless is even more uncertain, personally).

   Namely, this other way involves saying FUCK YOU to society, its laws, the debt you “owe” – all of it. Rather than get a job, pay stores for food, pay other people rent money, etc, you can reclaim your birthright as a human being and live directly off the land, squat in the wilderness somewhere, live off the grid, and garden/hunt/gather and scavenge whatever else you might need (i.e. dumpster diving). I know quite a few people who are doing this right now, who don’t have to be a wage slave to survive – and who are living FAR more fulfilled, happy lives than anyone struggling to survive within the confines of the system.

   Yes, doing this alone is quite difficult, especially if you have no knowledge of the skills it takes – but with other people, it isn’t hard at all. It definitely requires daily work, but you’re working directly for your own survival, on your own terms, rather than for others, and you will still have FAR more free time. It is also easier the more primitively (low-key) one lives. In that respect it is similar to being homeless, except that you can have a (small, rustic) home of your own with a fire to keep you warm rather than a cold underpass or an overcrowded shelter, live in the forest rather than in a dirty city park, and eat far better than junk food. You are also far safer in the wild than in a city, any day.

   I also know people who have student loans and have no intention of ever paying them back. As long as they stay invisible to the system (no official address and no official job), there is nothing the banks can do. They can’t dock your pay if you don’t make any (at least by official means), especially if they can’t even find you!

   Regardless of what you choose to do, I thought you should be made aware of this alternative (along with everyone else, really). To find others who also think this way, and more or less live this way, I would go to the various primitive skills gatherings that are held around the country every year. Also google “rewilding”.

   Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck.

   1. This advice seems remarkably unsuited to the LW’s situation. First of all, they’re maybe struggling with psychiatric problems like depression or anxiety, which means that they probably should have healthcare. They also need a certain level of stability and cooperative oversight–both for managing their health problems and for making sure that those problems don’t get worse suddenly. Someone with a history of depression does not sudden upsets. They’re also struggling with legal problems–they should at least wait to figure out whether they’re facing felony charges. They’re also broke and exhausted, and clearly reaching out for a little bit of help and support. That isn’t something you can find while Galt, not if you’re already without the internal resources and stability that allow you to hie off to the wilderness. Really, what they need to do is stay put, find support wherever they can, and prepare for the storm that’s coming. Pulling up stakes right now would be very dangerous.

      1. Well, maybe. But from my own history of depression, trying to “fit in” to mainstream society was the EXACT THING that was causing it, and when I realized that I had another option, that opened the door out of it. Frankly, why do you think we are having a societal epidemic of depression right now, and growing each year? Maybe its because living the rat race is toxic to the soul? All my friends and I consider those following the rat race to be “the walking dead”, just going through the motions of life, without following their true vision (or even realizing that that is a possibility).

         Hence my desire to at least offer another option for consideration.

      2. Also, I am extremely dubious of medicating symptoms + returning to a toxic living situation (moving back in with abusive parents) as a true solution for depression, in general. Maybe that is what the LW feels they need to do in the short-term, and only they can know what’s best for themselves. But in general I think we all need to seriously start looking at the root causes of depression – as a psycho-spiritual disease serving as a red flag for something that needs to be addressed – rather than treating it the same as a physical disease that can be fixed by taking a particular medication (although I don’t really think physical disease should be dealt with in only that way either). With our ever-expanding pharmacopia of drugs to treat depression, and ever expanding use of those drugs, why is it that depression keeps afflicting more and more people? While those drugs may be absolutely necessary to help people manage their depression (a bandage on the wound, so to speak), do any of you really consider them to truly help the healing of that wound?

         1. Jessica, I think that one reason your comments are making some people (including me) itchy, is that in response to a “Help I might be homeless soon and my life is awful” question with “Maybe you should change your entire worldview,” which is kind of a tall order for someone who’s barely standing on her feet. I’m glad you found what worked for you. But you sound awfully judgmental: the walking dead? Really?

         2. …Maybe because more people are being treated, instead of invited to ignore the problem? Before antidepressants, there was alcohol. There was also misery.

            And frankly, this is so not the hill this woman should die on. She should get some help, and that might well involve both therapy and medication.

            And YES, antidepressants do have a salutary effect on depression. That’s like saying that insulin doesn’t cure diabetes because it doesn’t actually get your body to produce its own insulin. It’s like saying that a prosthesis doesn’t cure an amputee. The disease is the chemical imbalance. The medication corrects that chemical imbalance. It isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t work for everyone, but it does work. You’re being ignorant here, and it’s irresponsible given that this thread was set up to help a woman who has basically said that she went off her meds and out of care because both options were financially unfeasible, and not because they didn’t help. She does not need your paranoid crap about how antidepressants are a psychiatric conspiracy. She needs a goddamn doctor.

         3. Hello Jessica! I was away from the computer all day so didn’t get a chance to respond earlier – I’m glad SweetMachine and Piny have this in hand.

            It’s very cool that you’ve turned poverty into an adventure. It’s a way to take control of a situation and find the good in it, and I totally want to be your friend when the zombie apocalypse comes.

            Like others, I take strong issue with the “if you’re not scraping by and living off the land you are the walking dead” comments. Psych meds do not carry a moral value that is different from an asthma inhaler (I need 2 different kinds of asthma inhalers, btw!) or any medication that treats a chronic condition, so I’m dubious about your dubiousness and would like to say a big yay for science!

   2. This sounds like an especially bad idea for the LW, who (in addition to all the stuff piny pointed out) is without the kind of start-up capital such a plan would require.

      1. there’s really not much start up capital involved. I’ve known a small handful of previously-homeless-now-traveling-farmer crusty punk kids. their lifestyle is still confusing and hard, but much better than being homeless in a city alone. they’re currently part of an organic farm that provides them room&board for labor (and is part of a cooperative of such farms), but unfortunately I can’t remember the name of it to save my life.

         of course, that doesn’t solve the very real mental health issues.
         which one can always focus on medication and the healthcare costs — or look into alternative mental health collectives.

         1. *it is also of course because said friends had already taken the homelessness route and became train riding/traveling through that, so.

   3. Oh god, believe you me, I have totally considered it before everything got this fucked up. Unfortunately, my mental illness can’t be entirely blamed on this shitty rat race, no matter how much I wish it could. So one of the major things holding me back is that I need a certain level of medication to function and for that I need health insurance. I am really, really lucky to live in one of the very few states that has government insurance for poor people so I don’t end up bleeding out in my bathtub!

      And honestly, I would say screw the student loans, but because my parents cosigned on some of them, instead of just going into default and the like, my parents would end up stuck paying them back which they really can not afford and I am not the sort of person who could live with myself after doing that, you know? Like, if it would just affect me and my credit and my life and everything, that’s one thing. But I can’t justify fucking up other people’s lives because I currently have a “fuck the system and the horse it rode in on” mentality going on.

2. If possible, I think that the LW should really try to stop comparing themselves to their sister. That way lies madness, and what good does it do?

   Good luck with the job search. In this economy it really is a numbers game, so keep trying.

3. I got no advice, just hugs.

   1. I was thinking I shouldn’t comment on this one due to lack of any useful ideas, but yeah, Marie’s got the right idea.

      I also can proffer only humble hugs.

4. I’m currently in a (much, much less dire) financial and emotional rut, so I feel like I can empathize with you, LW.

   I don’t know if you’re feeling this, but one of my biggest problems when things start piling up is that there are just SO MANY THINGS that it is REALLY REALLY important for me to do, and they’re all so goddamn overwhelming that I just hide from them. I tell myself “I’ll get to that when I’m done [insert pretty much any procrastination activity here]” when really what I’m doing is huddling under the covers hoping the world will go away. Meanwhile my problems are getting bigger and I’m more overwhelmed and on top of that I need to do things I should have done WEEKS ago and I feel like if I do them late that I will dissolve under the judgment of people thinking that I’m just a lazy, irresponsible waste of space.

   I don’t know if you’re feeling any of that, but I imagine you are feeling overwhelmed (duh). And If you have any of the avoidance tenancies that I do, might I suggest a little tactic that my friend gave me that I’ve found immensely helpful?

   1. Make a list of everything you need to do. A real, physical list. Decorate it with pretty colors if you’re that type of person.
   2. Put that list on your wall (or somewhere easiliy accessible that you will see all the time)
   3. Do one thing on that list every day, and then cross it off. You only have to do one thing! (unless you have 20 things to do in 10 days, then do 2 things). The point is to make the huge avalanche of responsibilities into easily bite-sized pieces, and then having physical confirmation of making progress. The feeling of control and accomplishment I get when I cross something off my list with a thick black sharpie is indescribable after feeling so powerless and useless for so long.

   Also, above all else, keep one thing in mind. Know it like you know nothing else in your life.

   You will be okay.

   You will. Have faith. I do

   -hugs-

   1. Good comment.

   2. Ah ha ha I am totally the person who gets all super overwhelmed and goes and hides from everything in hopes it will magically do itself. It hasn’t before but this time it will surely work right? Right??

      I am really lucky that right now my only responsibility is to apply for jobs, because I find that really easy to turn into a consistent schedule (I like consistent schedules) that’s like, Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday five job applications a day, Thursday-Friday drive around looking for WE’RE HIRING!!!!! signs. Saturday-Sunday hit as many retail/food places as possible to turn in applications. Consistency: totally fucking great.

      Thank you for the visible list suggestion. It really does feel ridiculously good to cross something off of a list, and I bet it would feel even better if it was something I could see all the time rather than just when I happened to pull up the google doc or whatever.

      1. One practical change: try crossing off your list with a highlighter instead of a Sharpie. Same sense of satisfaction, and no wondering later which heavily-crossed-out-item you accomplished. Otherwise, you might add it back to the bottom of the list by mistake!

         1. I love this tip! If you’re more into digitizing your lists, I highly recommend http://teuxdeux.com/. Very simple and satisfying. If nothing else, watch the intro videos, because they are hilarious.

5. i got nothin too, but wanted to offer my positive thoughts and love. You will prevail.

6. This sounds like a really tough situation, LW. I wish you good luck and good courage, and I hope things get better. In relation to your parents, maybe it might help if you try to reframe the issue in your mind as a strategic issue, not a fairness issue. It does seem unfair they let your sister live at home but not you, and in your shoes I’d probably also be resentful. But maybe you could try to put that aside for some purposes. You need to move back in. They don’t want you to. Maybe rather than focussing on why this isn’t fair, you could try to figure out their real concerns with you moving in and whether you can do something to address them. Don’t just dismiss their concerns, however unfounded. Eg, as the good Captain suggests, if they don’t want more animals, you find new homes for the animals. If they don’t want a kid at home who spends all their time in the basement, you might be able to reassure them it won’t be that way. I should add that I am not advising signing up to anything that violates the boundaries you feel you need to set with your family due to the fucked-up-ness mentioned in your letter. But if you could try to see it like a negotiation, and think of things you can comfortably and honestly bring to the table to make your parents ok with you living at home, it might help more with getting what you want. Again, I wish you all the best.

   1. Maybe rather than focussing on why this isn’t fair, you could try to figure out their real concerns with you moving in and whether you can do something to address them.

      That is kind of the problem? No one in my family is ever willing or able to just come right and say This Is The Problem no matter how direct you’re asking. There is lots of hemming and hawing and shrugging and dancing around everything so I feel like I am playing detective trying to figure out what is going on. It’s like that with everything anyone is uncomfortable talking about, so I’m used to it, but it still makes conversations hard.

      And so part of the problem is that I am trying to address concerns that may or may not exist. Like, okay, you can’t handle another person in the house when sister is living there, would that be addressed by me staying in the dang basement all the time, since it has a separate entrance and everything? Or is the problem not actually about another physical body taking up space and more about the additional… uh I am not actually sure of the right word right now for what I am thinking? Something about drama?

      The point is, that is excellent advice, I am just not sure how to make it work for my situation. Or if I am like that person who just needs to accept that the lady does not want to date them and there is nothing they can do about that and the lady has been telling them that all along and they have just been ignoring her.

      Unfortunately, I suspect that I am like that person in this case!

      1. Given that you like schedules and consistency, how do you feel about compartmentalization? If you like it, my suggestion is to put That Family Stuff in a giant box, mark the box with “LATER” in large letters, and shove it in the back of your mind’s closet for a while.

         Right now you’re trying to figure out your basic daily survival. That’s a full-time job, and if your Family Stuff has been Stuff your whole life, it will keep until you’re in a safe place.

         (But if they’ll store some of your stuff, GREAT.)

         Wishing you open doors and lucky breaks, LW.

7. LW, in addition to looking into resources like libraries, food banks, shelters, food stamps, welfare, and all the other things that have been mentioned, you may want to take a look at how other people in a similar situation cope.

   There is a blog called The Boxcar Kids. It is written by an unemployed single mom with 4 kids, one of whom has health issues. They and their pets live in a travel trailer in a park. For a while, they were living in a tent. She does a lot of things to make ends meet, including networking, editing papers, tutoring, helping other people run their e-bay stores, making stuff to sell on etsy, collecting stuff to sell in her own ebay store, and accepting donations. Much of what she does is part of the “grey economy” in that many people wouldn’t recognize her money earning efforts as jobs because she doesn’t really have employers. Other people who post in her comments talk about taking on low cost child care duties (babysitting), housekeeping, lawn/yard care, small home maintenance jobs etc just to keep money coming in as they continue to upgrade their skills and look for work.

   She has been unemployed (and the whole family has been homeless) for over a year. It has been very hard and very, very stressful but somehow she has managed to move them from tent to tiny trailer to somewhat better trailer through sheer will power and hard work. Perhaps she can be an inspiration to you and offer you some ideas for earning income while looking for a “real” job/jobs.

   Good luck..

8. Make sure you have a lawyer for the criminal stuff. This is not optional. A public defender or lawyer can make a mistake less terminal.

9. Check into whether your area has a “home share” organization. Those organizations coordinate arrangements so someone (typically elderly) who has a bigger house than makes any sense for them to live alone in but who doesn’t want to give it up can share it with someone who needs a place to live, in exchange for the kind of physical work around the house that the homeowner would usually do but can’t manage anymore. Or sometimes it’s just that the homeowner and those who care about him/her would feel better if the person was not living alone, but there are no family members willing/able to move in, so low key companionship and just having someone around who would know if the person was ill or injured has value.

   Those organizations screen pretty carefully to protect the elders from being taken advantage of, and I won’t lie: it’s possible that your legal issues would be an insurmountable barrier. They WILL do a background check. But you come across to me as someone that kind of haven would be perfect for if you can get it, and you say you interview well, so I thought it was worth mentioning. Especially if you can get your legal problems squared away (I’m with Jason: get a lawyer to minimize the long-term impact of your bad decision).

10. I strongly recommend that LW start trying to find a good social worker to help them out. A lot of community resources like food banks, shelters, community health and mental health centers, etc. offer case management. Take one of them up on it if at all possible. Becoming an expert on paperwork and systems that can help you via the library is a good idea and can’t hurt, but a good case worker has a broad network of contacts and practical know-how about how to solve exactly these problems that comes from years of experience helping a lot of different people in similar situations to LW’s.

    1. I’m going to bigtime second this. If the LW lives in or near a big city that’s best, but even in less populated areas, social workers can hook you up with all sorts of resources you can’t find on Google.

       (I’m also going to throw in that depression is a medical problem just as much as asthma is, and antidepressants are as much of a legit medical need as an asthma inhaler. Don’t let anyone–most especially yourself–tell you that you ought to fix everything with sheer willpower. Antidepressants are a crutch… and crutches are awesome because they help people walk who couldn’t otherwise.)

       1. Indeed. “Crutch” and “band-aid” have become pejorative… but actually, if your leg is busted you should get a crutch, and if you have a cut you should definitely put a band-aid on that shit.

11. Holy shit, I did not actually think this would get answered since it was so long and rambly and kind of pretty obviously written at butt o’clock in the morning! So this is exciting!

    That is a really good point about seeing if my parents will store some of my stuff. Because, you know, if I have somewhere to store shit, I can totally manage to get me and a carload of things out to my friend, and hey, maybe the McDonaldses (and similar places) out there will magically be more willing to hire me than the ones around here, which would be totally fucking awesome.

    The same tired advice is still really helpful, because it means there isn’t something really obvious (or not so really obvious) that I’ve overlooked and should be doing. It’s like, hooray! I’m doing everything right, I am awesome! coupled with gdit I’m doing everything right and still nothing. It is really reassuring to hear from people who have vastly different experiences that no, I am not a terrible person who has been wasting her time because she overlooked some key part of job hunting, I am doing what I can in the circumstances it is just the circumstances suck balls.

    Seriously, thank you for answering this. What you’ve said is both helpful and reassuring, and I really appreciate it.

    And to everyone offering positive thoughts/hugs I hugely appreciate those, too. That is a pleasant (and by pleasant I mean totally awesome) surprise. ❤ for everyone!

    1. I was reluctant to respond here initially without knowing how things were going to go, but since it didn’t become any kind of flamefest… One thing that clanged a little bit to me about your letter is the bit about the stealing. They way you stated it made it sound as if you basically view your theft of your employer’s property as something morally neutral that you did that didn’t work out. A traditional “bad decision.”

       That’s not how a prospective employer’s going to view it. A record of stealing from your employer is absolutely going to make it extremely difficult for you to find a job. The best way to deal with it if you wind up having to disclose it (which you should not do if you’re not asked about it) is to take a bit clearer responsibility for what you did (which was unambiguously wrong and a criminal act) and decide for yourself why it’s not going to happen again so that you can explain it to a new employer in a way that’s believable.

       I’d especially lose the bit about how your boss was abusive and the workplace was hostile. Absolutely irrelevant to the fact that you stole, but more importantly if you include that it sounds as if you’re planning to never steal again unless of course you have an abusive boss and a hostile work environment in which case, you’ll just be more careful not to get caught.

       Stealing from your company doesn’t make you evil (most of us have done it – gasp) but a RECORD of stealing from your employer is going to be a hard thing to overcome. Start by owning up to it fully.

       1. I think this is exactly right. Any hint of justifying the stealing because of bad stuff that went on is going to sink the LW with new employers.

12. The only thing I can think to tell you LW, is that you’re probably not as stupid or as lazy as you seem to think you are. There’s this myth in the US, called the American Dream. That if you work hard and follow the rules you’ll succeed, in fact the harder you work, the more you’ll succeed. The painful inverse to this rule is that if you’re not succeeding, you must be lazy and stupid. But it’s not true. Rich people are just as lazy and stupid as poor people. We’re all just people. The shit storm that’s going on in your life doesn’t mean that you’re lazy or a bad person.

    Being a good hardworking person does not mean you’ll live the good life, and if you’re not living the good life, it doesn’t mean you’re not a good hardworking person.

13. Hey Letter Writer, all of this stuff sucks! I am sorry! As a fellow job-seeker, though, I also want to chime in with “you’re not missing anything; the economy really just blows” chorus.

    I would suggest that you might want to consider making time in your job-applying schedule to volunteer at an organization that is relevant to your professional interests (such as they are)… you might even be able to call it a part-time unpaid internship. Getting experience, even unpaid experience, on your resume is super helpful, and so much of the job market is about networking–volunteering can be a good place to start. A lot of the time, organizations just need someone to do admin-type work or fairly simple Internet research. I highly recommend Idealist.org for looking for these, and if you don’t see anything there, you can try Craigslist. If you can’t commit to the time the internships are looking for, you could look at volunteering for fewer hours weekly at a pet shelter–it demonstrates reliability and will give you someone to name as a reference who can say “she shows up on time and follows directions!” which will probably be helpful in the job hunt. And it might be a good way to get an animal fix back in your life if you do end up giving up your pets.

14. This is a bit late, so I don’t know if you’ll see it or not, but hopefully you will! If you can’t find a social worker and end up going the library route for information, it will probably be really beneficial for you to actually talk to a librarian at the library.

    There are limits to the how-to-fill-out-forms-sucessfully advice and networking resources that they can give you compared to a social worker, but they ought to be well-versed in what the local resources for this kind of stuff are (lots of libraries even make guides with this information and either put them on their website or provide print copies in the library). Librarians get a masters degree in how to find information that it’s hard to get from google, and talking to one might save you a lot of time. They may want to ask you some questions about why you’re looking for the information, but that’s just to clarify that they understand what kind of information they’re looking for so that they don’t send you to sociology papers studying the homeless when you really need to know about places to get help with food and housing so that you can get the help.

    Good luck!

    1. I feel like a librarian/social worker would be akin to a superhero. Thanks!

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