End of the line.

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Well, it seems as if it's the end of the line now. 23 years of bullcrap and in the past 2 years it has only gotten even worse. The realization just basically hit me earlier. I'll try to cut out a whole, whole bunch of what's happened over the years.

It started at an early age. Parents drinking and fighting and us living in a crappy neighborhood. Never really making friends; video games and comics were my only friends. I knew I was different somehow but couldn't place it. I was always made fun of for looking like a girl and always got pushed around. At one point me and my mom lived in a shelter because she went mad after my cousins destroyed our house. Jeez was that fun. We came back months later and I went back to school. Bullies were breathing down my neck worse than before. After a certain amount of time I learned to fight because most of these bullies were physical. I'd always beat them up if they tried to beat me up. I got suspended all these times, sure, but there were other times where I got suspended for things I didn't do (such as when somebody wrote a girl a love letter in my class and signed my name to it) so in my young mind I was just like "eh."

Even as I got older it was nothing but drinking and fighting between my parents and getting kicked out of school for things I didn't do. In 1999 my baby sister was born. I was so ecstatic. Finally, I thought, I have someone to be friends with. She died 3 days later. I cried for months. In seventh grade it was discovered I was partially deaf; this is why my speech is all screwed up. The doctors gave me hearing aids. I can't use hearing aids however because most of my problem is auditory processing. I can hear sounds just fine; just can't make out what people say. Me not wearing my hearing aids basically made me an easy target for bullying when my voice changed. (I have kinda "warped" speech common with mentally challenged people, but in my case it was due to auditory processing disorder, possibly autism) This continued through high school where everything got even worse. I couldn't focus on school work due to everything going on at home. I also finally got a girlfriend or so I thought. She completely stomped all over my heart just like every other girl I ever liked. I also lost one of my favorite aunts in 12th grade. One kid, when I told him about it (when he asked me why I was sad) basically laughed and said "who cares about your aunt?" My entire high school experience was negative and depressing, just like elementary, just like middle.

It's crazy that I even managed to graduate high school. College was a very, very sh***y time for me. I lived with three roommates, the one I made friends with got kicked out for not doing his work. He was kicked out within 2 weeks. So I had to live with these two other guys who, quite frankly, were huge a**holes and would use my stuff without permission, start nasty rumors about me, etc. Switching rooms wasn't an option because I didn't get along with anyone there. I couldn't live at home because my house was about 20 miles away from where I was going to school. We were on a budget at the time. It got to the point where the resident advisor wouldn't even help me and would even get pissed off at me because she bought in to all that crap. So I spent the whole time lonely just like the rest of my life, and graduated.

This college did not deliver on what they promised (plus the graphic design market crashed severely) which was to help every graduating student get a job. They hired a guy to yell at me and insult me and basically keep telling me (since I didn't have valid transportation) "you can walk to this job; stop being such a wuss" when walking to said job would take me several hours and would be in very busy areas in a bad part of town. So I spent a couple years looking for a job without his help, repeatedly getting turned down. Finally I got a job at where I work at now. The manager was really nice and gave me tons of hours. Though I didn't really get along with most of the other employees. You'll see why this matters later.

During this time, I lost my favorite cousin, and one of my favorite aunts. I was very depressed over this for a while.

That same year my dad was diagnosed with cancer. I'd already lost most of my favorite relatives up to that point except my dad and a couple other people, so naturally this hurt pretty bad. They cured that cancer and then it spread to his stomach. They cured THAT and then we thought it was over. My dad then broke his shoulder a month later. Me and my mom noticed after they replaced it that he was acting funny. He kept saying "we're in West Virginia!" and kept calling me by my half-brother's name. We took him back to the hospital and they told us it was an infection causing it. They gave him antibiotics and he was okay again after about a week.

Then he got loopy again and his blood sugar dropped so much he was almost dead. We took him back again and learned he had liver cancer and needed chemotherapy. We withdrew him from that hospital to take him to another. I still regret doing that to this day. The next month was just hell. He kept pulling at his catheters and everything and they took note of it. He ended up in intensive care once because he did this. The first time he was in intensive care they tied him up and stuck a tube down his throat to suck all the blood out of his stomach (he also had bleeding ulcers which they were trying to control). During this time I had a really bad premonition of me and my mom being in a room similar to that and my dad being dead. I tried not to think about it too much. They put him back on the floor and took the tube out and he was still acting weird. We came back the next day (it was almost Thanksgiving) and had difficulty getting Dad to eat. My mom got frustrated and started going off on him and then my dad just said, clear as day "I give up." and put his fork down and looked really sad. That image is burned in my head to this day. After that he tried to pull his tubes out again. We told the nurses to watch him if we left.

I decided that maybe we should go home since my mom was very visibly angry. I didn't want her making Dad feel discouraged. When we started to leave, I got a really bad thought in the back of my head, but tuned it out. We got home and went to sleep. Later that night, at 3 in the morning, we got a call. Dad ended up back in intensive care. We went back out there a few hours later and they told us what they failed to tell us before when they called: Dad was in a coma and even if he recovered he'd have brain damage. The reason this happened was because the nurses didn't watch him like they were supposed to, and he pulled out all his tubes and lay there bleeding for over an hour. Even the intensive care nurse admitted this. This was the day we found out his liver cancer was gonna kill him within the next 3 months. (which was also Thanksgiving.) My mom called all our family members and we went to the hospital. Just as everyone was getting there, they called a code blue on my dad's room. By 9:15 AM, he was dead. I'm still really pissed off about it to this day. I feel like if I'm stayed there like I started to, this wouldn't have happened.

This is when everything took a turn for the even worse. Losing my dad, who I was just beginning to get really close to, was bad enough, but it couldn't have prepared me for what happened next.

They took away my dad's pension, which I can understand, but they also took away his social security from my mom. So it became increasingly difficult to keep the apartment we were at. So we moved where we are now For once I thought things might go all right, I was getting hours at work and we were making rent.....for the first 3 months. Then my old manager quit and we got a new one. This is when everything went downhill to the point where I'm at now. During this time my mom made friends with this guy who always called me ret*d and told me he wouldn't hire me because I was weak and slow. Really wish I'd recorded him saying that; I could have gotten him fired. He screwed himself over a month ago when he got caught driving drunk again though. Lost his license for 4 years and his cushy 1,000 dollar a week job. This is the one thing I was glad for this year.

Anyway, because my hours got cut from 35 all the way down to about 10, and my mom barely making about minimum wage, 600 bucks a month was very difficult to pay. We made it for the next couple months, up until October. Now, before we moved here, even for a couple years, I'd wanted a different job. Put in all sorts of applications and maybe got 5 interviews. This was after over 500 applications, mind you.

I kept begging my current manager for more hours. He lied to my face and said "I'll give you more hours." The next week I'd been cut from 6 hours to 4 hours. More hours my ass. I also kept trying and failing to find another job. Going to the higher-ups didn't help, they had it in for me ever since my mom quit working for the same company.

So then we went to court over eviction a week after the 3-day notice was put on the door, and the attorney told us to talk to the landlords. We did that and they would not budge. They wouldn't accept us paying part of the rent one day and then paying the rest the next week. Just totally inflexible. Then just a few days ago we got the red sticker of doom. We now have to be out by Monday morning, and on top of that, nobody will let us move in now because there's an eviction on our record. Believe me, we've tried. Now we have to live in the car or in a hotel (a hotel would royally screw us because of the lack of money we're making) for the next 3 damn years. We have no family to take us in or even friends. I thought about homeless shelters, but those are really limited and they only allow you to stay up to 3 months. They claim to help you find an apartment but I've been down that route before. They don't help you find anything. If anything they help you lose a few things, like your sanity.

Called all the organizations we can call, and no help. I either have to have a minor child or either of us has to be basically half dead or missing a limb. Some help. Low-income housing isn't an option because the waiting lists are too long. 2 years plus. We are on 2 waiting lists already. We still have 2 years to go. One apartment complex we tried said we'd have to wait 3 years before the eviction is cleared enough to get an apartment. I can't get another job now because we won't have a stable address.

Just don't know what to do. The only viable options are live in the car, live in a hotel (which will keep us from saving money) or commit suicide. Just an utterly hopeless situation.

Very difficult situation. It's really not fair to you. I wonder if you called the newspaper a reporter would want to do an article on the situation. That's what happens a lot in my local newspaper to both call attention to the injustice of someone's situation and to direct and support the community can offer to the people featured in the article (especially around the holiday season, although of course people are in bad situations year-round). Not that I think it's fun to be a charity case but you've worked harder and been through more than most people have, and it seems like something might come out of going this route.

Hugs.

Whose name was the apartment in? Yours, your mothers, or both? You could try getting one in the other persons name. Also you could look around fast to see if you can find someplace to sublet it to you. Sometimes people want to move and will sublet if you have bad credit and the lease stays in their name. Also, look in the paper under houses for rent "by owner" not houses that are being rented by a company. We have had credit problems before too, and those were the things we found.

Sometimes you can find boarding houses that will rent you a room out of their home. It's not the best situation, but it's something to do between now and Monday until you find a permenant place. You can put your stuff in storage. As for hotels, look at the cheap run down places in the bad parts of town that do rent by the week. It sucks, I've lived in one before, but when you are looking for a place, it works.

Hope you find something and I'm sorry all that stuff happened to you.

Maybe if you go out on your own now instead of being with your mom you might have more options? I don't know, but it's something to look at.

Frances

All I can think to ask is what skills and resources you might have.

Well I guess one resource is that you have transportation which is some kind of car. What kind of car is it? Also maybe a little money left? Hopefully not to many debts?

Living in a car is tricky but I've seen people do it. I have a long haul van delivery job and I sleep in the van at truck stops. One time down in the Carolinas I delivered to a place and there was a car there at night with Connecticut plates and windows darkened. I guess to relocate for work the guy was living out of his car.

I think if you have any kind of employment and can get a little money together then consider a shelter or the car so you can save up. Fortunately you seem to have internet access to. I think you can pull it together and get a plan going. If you're going to use the car then try to save up for a good Cold Weather sleeping bag. For about $65 I got one at Cabela's and it's rated for negative 20 degrees. I can sleep comfortably in it at night in a van without running the heat all night.

Otherwise just be discreet where you park a car to sleep. You might be okay in a Walmart but no guarantee. Or in Rest Areas and Truck Stops.

Perhaps you could get together savings and travel money and leave behind central Ohio. Maybe head south.

Ok, here is an option, if you can do the work. A friend of one of the kids was into this. It's several organic farms all over the country that feed you, give you a place to stay, etc, for you working on their farm. It's like a commune=kibbutz combined without the religious commotations. They teach you how to do the work and such and you have security for the time.

You can Google it, or I can find out the names from the kid and Google it, etc. It would probably be just you though, I'm not sure they would ask for a mom of a kid your age - I have a kid your age and working on a farm would be out of the question for me because I'm not in shape for it.

If you want me to look for it, let me know here. For some reason I lose my connection when I try to send PM's on my computer lately, so I'll do it on my nephews computer tomorrow, when I have to go back down to my husbands mother's house to be moral support for him yet again.

Frances

Funny you mentioned this, purchase. We tried just that back in August (calling the news station at least) and never got a call back. Maybe we should have been more aggressive about it in retrospect. 4 calls a day (every 3 hours) wasn't good enough for 'em I suppose. We also tried it back when my dad died. At the time our local legal aid was going through a huge scandal so we couldn't get a lawyer from there or even the bar association (here they are very closely linked) to take on a case for us. It took a back seat to looking for a job and trying to sort out the rest of the mess.

Might try this again now that we are almost homeless.

I don't think I mentioned it in my post (it's possible) but I'd also tried to get SSI at one point because nobody else would hire me. I also tried to see if I could maybe get my dad's social security, but no go. That would have been 1,600 a month right there. Way better than the paltry under 200 a month I'm making working. My mom has been trying to get treated for depression and such and it is not working well. They keep telling her to come back to the clinic (we go to a free clinic; lost health insurance as soon as my dad passed) but they won't point her in the direction of a therapist.



I believe it was in both our names, because when the papers came through the mail, we each got one that had a court date on it.

I had been trying to see if my friend wanted to be roommates with us wherever we ended up (if we found anything at all) but he eventually said no, because his girlfriend didn't want to move. My other friend said he would have done it, but the SSI he's currently getting isn't under his control. So that route is basically out as well. Unless my friend gets control over his money or my other friend breaks up with his girlfriend.

Subletting and houses for rent by owner. I will look into that.



Far as I know, we don't have boarding houses here. Mostly homeless shelters (where a lot of the people judge you and restrict you) and hotel/motels. That's about it. We're already putting our stuff in storage; the main problem with a hotel is that my mom only gets about 250 bucks a week, and I believe the cheapest motel here is like 180 bucks a week or so, probably even more than that. At least the cheapest one we'd called so far had been that much and it's a run down little place. We won't have to pay utilities or anything but that's still a massive blow with me getting 4 hours a week at 8 bucks an hour. That's barely 100 bucks a week we'd be saving, and part of that would have to get spent eventually. The storage unit we're using is the cheapest one and it's 125 bucks a month. Another big problem is my car. It's an old beat-up gas guzzler. Something on it breaks every few months. If we still had my dad's Taurus (which we had to give back) traveling out of state would have been a great option.

With the things you told me though there may be a little hope left.



Thanks but it's not your fault. It's my life. It's been one pile of bad luck from start to finish. I left out 99.99999999999999999% of the crazy stuff that's happened, like the trip to Detroit. Oh god.



I'm afraid this isn't an option currently. You are right 'cause I would likely have more options that way if I did. The bad part is my mom doesn't make a whole lot of money, and is like me and has pretty much no true friends and doesn't have family who would take her in. She doesn't have a driver's license either and is really reluctant to try to get it. I'd be damned if I let the same thing happen to her that happened to my dad. She may make me really mad sometimes but I have to help her at least until she can try to get disability for depression. Don't know when that'll be though.



I have drawing skills and that's about it. Even those are middle of the road at best.



1996 Plymouth Neon, and boy is it falling apart. I give it another 9 months, tops. This is even after all the money I spent replacing the brakes, the fuel pump, the exhaust pipe, etc. It also only gets about 14 miles to the gallon.

Between me and my mom we have roughly 300 dollars left. 200 of that will go towards a hotel room, unless we look into the sublet angle, and the other 100 will likely go towards food and gas for the car.



That would have to wait until I got a better car. I would love to just drop everything and move to Canada or someplace.

Thanks for your advice and well wishes everyone.

oh god what a harsh situation. this might be crazy talk, but up where i live the landlord can't just evict a tenant. there is a series of notices, then finally the authorities will be called, and the process can take some time - weeks or months. basically, there may be a window of time you can squat there before you are physically removed. you might want to call your landlord/tenant board helpline to find out your options.

here is an article about the process in your state:

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5002516_long- ... -ohio.html

and ((((hugs))))

Another weird thing is I knew somebody who went through an eviction and she told me that if the landlords don't show up on the court date the case is supposed to be dropped. She lives in Ohio too.

However, when we went to court, the landlords weren't there and we were told to talk to them by the attorney (I'm guessing he was the landlords' attorney). The judge explained to us that we could get a red tag if we didn't work it out somehow. Then came the talking to them which didn't work. On the 30th we got the red tag. The messed up part is I'm sure they'd accept us paying the rent in parts now even though we're about to be kicked out. This is after they told us they'd work with us.

The process here basically took 3 weeks, tops. 3 weeks isn't any kind of time with a lot of crap going on.

((((hugs)))) back!

Wow, 4 months. Here's a (pretty long) update on what's happened so far:

Me and my mom got evicted and lived in a motel for going on 3 weeks. In late December my friend and his family took us in. It was okay for the most part, but my friend and his girlfriend had several explosive arguments. Even worse was that I found myself getting a huge crush on her after getting to know her a bit better. But that went away for the most part, thankfully.

We lived there for about 2 months, and found an apartment that was WAY out of the way from where we got evicted from, not to mention this apartment is in a terrible part of town. We moved there in the beginning of February. It hasn't been that great but it is slightly better than living with my friend, as mean as that sounds. We're already kind of behind on rent. Not really the rent, but the late payments.

My mom is still struggling with alcoholism and seems to think it's more important than rent (which is why we're behind).

Later in the month I got a new job. Liked it at first but then I started getting treated like a pack mule within the first 2 months. People there assume because I'm deaf I can't do my job or that if I do my job I need a heaping helping of praise every single time. Which isn't fun to say the least. I get angry glares from employees and customers every time I say or do anything. I'm still there but if things don't pick up, I'm seriously gonna just drop out of the work force and get on SSI. It'd be the same amount of money for not doing any work.

My car is running better after getting the exhaust pipe fixed, but it's so far gone in other ways that I fear it could die in the next year. Did I mention the title hasn't been switched over yet? So that has to be done before I can sell it.

I've had to tolerate mom's abusive friend too. Yippee! Although I haven't seen him now in about 2 weeks. Let's hope it stays that way.

My love life still doesn't exist. I got a crush on this girl at work who probably would have gone out with me.....if she didn't have a boyfriend already. At this point I think it's safe to give up on this part of my life.

Because of the predicament right now with rent, I don't have internet back so I'm posting this from the library.

I dunno, seems like even though I have a place to live and everything again, there's always some big downfalls. But still, I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm not dead or anything.