Is Anyone Else Worried About Homelessness?

Post Reply New Topic

If I was ever homeless, I'd probably suffer with PTSD after that. That's if I don't die of coldness and fright.

Homelessness scares me and I wish I could get some reassurance. I hope there is support services out there for homeless people who want to help themselves, if I do ever become homeless. I do not want to be tarred with the same brush as the tough "don't give a f**k" drug and alcohol addict type of people. I am opposite to those people; I need security, I am timid and nervous, I never plan to have anything to do with drugs or alcohol, and I don't even mix with those types of people. They are beneath me.

Still get in a cold sweat thinking about homelessness, though I'm safer now than I used to be. I spent 17 years moving from one grotty shared household to the next, on average once a year. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with strangers. Convincing strangers that I'd make a good housemate is, er, about as easy as you'd expect for One of Us. And increasingly strict financial vetting by letting agents made it almost impossible to find places towards the end. (The irony is, I'm more reliable about rent and bills than many a person who earns five times what I do. Apparently that doesn't count for anything.)

I reached the head of the queue for a council flat two years ago, thanks in part to them considering me at risk of homelessness. Immediately before that, I was an illegal lodger- lodging with a couple whose own lease did not permit them to sublet. It was all I could get. Three weeks after I moved out, their house was severely flooded. Had I still been there, I would probably have ended up on the street.

I'm worried about it. I have struggles with holding a job. I also have struggles with mental health. I live at a group home right now. I probably won't have to live alone for a while

It’s my only future. Nog gf, means no one to care for me, no kids to care for me when I, old. I have no family besides mom and sister.

I know what you mean.

My wife is 12 years older than me. And I have no kids.

I’m pretty much all alone in my old age.

I worry about my son in this regard sometimes. My large family has gotten smaller and smaller with each generation. There won’t be much help there for him if he needs it.

I worry about it sometimes.

I'm attending a medical transcription school, and I'm going to attend a community college in three more months. I think I'm heading in the right direction, but I have such a low self-esteem that makes me think I'm going to fail school. I feel like I'm learning, though.


EDIT: I'm confident that I have the ability to take care of myself.

I did go semi-homeless for a while. 2 years or thereabouts in the late-90's. I always had a hard time with any form of paperwork, including paying bills. Got evicted for non-payment even though I had the money in the bank. Luckily at work I had my own little office, with a couch in it. My sister let me crash in her spare room whenever I needed to, but I hated the 2-hour commute each way. So mostly I lived in my office. Kept a suitcase of clothes under the couch. In the mornings I would get-up extra early so nobody would catch me there, head over to the YMCA a couple of blocks away, shower, then come in just as the first few people were arriving. They would often comment how I was always the first one to arrive, and last one to leave!

EDIT: Nowadays I have automatic payment for all my bills. Haven't written a check in eons.

I'm terrified of both being homeless and being abused in whatever home I might have when I get older. I'm 51 as of this posting, and I have a history of having been abused by various people in my childhood and early adulthood. I'm also Trans, and I have fibromyalgia and PTSD. The more marginalized groups a person belongs to, the greater the possibility of experiencing things like homelessness and abuse. So, being both disabled (especially cognitively) and gender variant really doesn't help my situation any.

My therapist agrees with me that probably most Autistics who don't have really progressive parents and circumstances growing up likely have PTSD. I think Gaslighting is probably a serious part of the cause that, so it's hard to be trusting about the future, especially knowing I have as much difficulty as I do figuring out social stuff, communicating clearly when something is wrong, and having the confidence to know when something is wrong so I can try to stand up for myself at all.

My life is very good right now, but I'm always afraid things will change and rip this from me, sending me back into the world of pain and confusion inflicted upon me in the past, even though it's been years since I suffered so horribly. The bad old days were what I knew as normal for so long, and I fear once again being told bad things that people do on purpose aren't really happening / are by accident / aren't that bad / are my fault and therefore can't be avoided and/or are deserved. Now that I know this fear is a result of gaslighting and is part of my PTSD, I think I'm on my way to keeping myself more balanced and preventing spiraling so far down into negative thinking. But I still know I have a very realistic fear of the future concerning this, and I don't know what I can do to prevent it. It's hard to find the line between what's reasonable and what isn't regarding this, and the lack of clarity really doesn't help. Also, not knowing how to plan effectively makes it hard to let go and think about other things.

This is my biggest fear and I am fairly certain it will come to it one day both as I live with my mother who doesn't like me at all and could kick me out at any time, and because I have no way to make money and won't be able to afford or cope with finding somewhere to live by myself. I can't even face the benefits system. She lets me live here but has never made me feel welcome or wanted. In a way it would be a relief to be homeless as getting away from her would be wonderful but my son is having enough problems already and I would then be vulnerable to attention from other people and have nothing to eat and be so cold in the winter. It is a case of better the devil you know.

Without my parents I'd be homeless, for certain.