Finances
Wʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ sᴘᴏᴜsᴀʟ sᴜᴘᴘᴏʀᴛ payments ended in 2023, I ran out of money and couldn’t pay my bills. By that time, I was well and truly broken on the inside and started selling off my possessions on Facebook Marketplace while staying at the shelter. It helped with the cash I needed for bus fare and pet supplies. Meals were provided by the shelter. Breakfast was usually palatable. I relied on this method of survival until I began collecting General Assistance (GA) -- (cash aid) -- from the government.
For approximately two months, I collected GA, then was approved for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Shortly after that, I was provided with subsidized housing and used the SSI for my portion of the rent, utilities, past debts, groceries, cell phone, gas, car insurance, renters insurance, etc. These are the typical expenses you would expect when living on your own. None of my expenses were frivolous, except perhaps holding onto my domain name. The company that owns it allowed me to be late on some payments due to special circumstances.
During that time, I left my vehicle parked in the parking lot because the registration had expired. Normally, with an expired registration, they wouldn't allow clients to park in the lot. But I had a blue DMV placard, which made a difference. Once a week, I would start the vehicle and let it run until the engine warmed up so that the battery wouldn’t die. It still died a few times, but I had my trusty jump-starter that I kept charged. It took approximately a year for Mr. Roberts to send me the DMV paperwork so that I could transfer the title into my name. It pained me to contact him, so my friend Kara from the shelter contacted him on LinkedIn, and he responded to her message. After that, Kara’s family sent her to rehab in Hawaii. We haven't been in touch since, despite my efforts.
The registration for my vehicle was nearly three years past due, so I visited AAA and paid off what I owed as soon as I had the money. I eventually had to have my brakes replaced. I drove it very sparingly before getting them fixed. The mechanic who replaced them said I could have died -- the rotors and brake pads were of different sizes, and the vehicle could have flipped! If it hadn’t been for a local non-profit organization helping me out by paying for most of the repair, I still might have had bad brakes because of the cost. So I am profoundly grateful for their support! As per the conditions of our agreement, I am ineligible to receive further financial aid for a period of five years.
I miss who I once was. Complex PTSD causes injury to the brain, and no amount of therapy can talk me out of it. Before moving in with Mr. Roberts in 2011, I was an independent, self-reliant woman who went places and did things on my own all of the time, and I am now reduced to being so riddled with anxiety that it’s hard to leave my apartment except to take out the garbage. At times, my complex PTSD and anxiety feel as though they are nearly off the charts, and I am discussing a new psychiatric medication with my psychiatrist, called Effexor. My friend McDuff takes it, and said it has helped him. There might be side effects, but I won’t know until I try it.
Before my anxiety kicked into such high gear, I hung out with friends at the shelter who were also in recovery, went to in-person 12-step meetings, and got lots and lots of sun! I have since moved into an apartment that gets partially subsidized. After paying my monthly expenses, there isn’t much left over for debt repayment, but I do what I can each month. My credit score took a serious hit after some of my accounts went into collections before I started receiving SSI, but I’m working on rebuilding my credit. So far, I've been able to raise it, just not to where it was--yet. In the meantime, I'll gladly continue to pay off my debts. There’s something about taking personal responsibility that just feels good, even though I could spend that money on pedicures and getting my grey roots touched up instead.
I am approved for part-time caregiver assistance through In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), and I look forward to stepping out of my apartment for brief walks to improve my mobility and stamina. Prior to my knee surgery, despite having issues, I was able to go for walks five days a week. Then I became unable to walk very far because my knee got much worse. The walking was good for me in many ways, just not for my knee. The caregiver I had after my surgery was temporary full-time, and it took approximately six months for my knee to fully heal. I'm fully healed now but have a few other issues to deal with, including tremors, and I am unable to use a computer keyboard. This has all been typed on my phone.
After undergoing knee replacement surgery, I was unaware of how much pain there could be until the night I was flooded out of my apartment and had to relocate to another unit. I didn’t have everything I needed, such as my ice machine for swelling or even a pillow for my head, but there was a bed. I felt unsure about using the bedding that was on the floor, which must have belonged to the former tenant. My other option was to pay for a hotel at my own expense and seek reimbursement from my renter's insurance, which had a deductible.
The following morning, I was quite nervous about the possibility of going to Kaiser Permanente's Emergency Department. That’s how much agony I was in. I called my friend McDuff before being relocated because I was appalled by the whole situation of being expected to pay for my own hotel when the flooding happened, as their on-call staff failed to respond in a timely manner when the neighbor, who had the leak, called the after-hours number twice; it took approximately three hours for them to respond. Meanwhile, the leak from the apartment next door quickly flooded my apartment.
When the fire department arrived, they did a thorough job of cleaning up all of the water that had leaked into my apartment, while the after-hours staff simply watched. The experience was a fiasco. To get to the other unit, I had to take an Uber, even though it was in the same apartment complex, because I was in so much pain at that time. Both of my legs were shaking so badly that I could barely stand. Fortunately, I had a walker to use, which got me from my apartment to the Uber, and from the Uber to the other unit. I made sure to tip the driver generously for loading and unloading my walker from the back of his SUV. My friend McDuff was kind enough to help me out of the SUV, locate the apartment for me and see to it that I got settled.
I felt a sense of satisfaction as I watched the surveillance footage from my apartment capturing the moments when the fire department was there.
The last encounter I had with the fire department before that was when I had to call 911 while staying at the shelter. I couldn’t stand up without feeling like I was going to pass out. There were three firefighters crammed into my room, plus two paramedics, all standing around my rabbits’ habitat with hardly any space to move as they checked my blood pressure sitting down and then standing up.
While I rode in the ambulance, the paramedics distracted me when it was time to insert an IV in my hand, as they were struggling to find a vein in my arm. They diverted my attention by asking about my medical alert bracelet. I’ve had three documented episodes of Transient Global Amnesia (TGA), which is why I wear it. A TGA episode is when you're unable to form new memories for anywhere from four hours up to 24 hours. It’s a neurological phenomenon that isn’t supposed to happen more than once in a person's lifetime which doesn’t explain why I’ve had three documented episodes. I say documented because I suspect it happened two other times while I was alone.
It was 2001, and I was outside with my two cats, Wylie and Mimi. I looked at them and couldn't remember their names or even if they belonged to me. I didn’t recognize them and was feeling confused. I headed toward the front door of the house I was standing next to, and Wylie and Mimi followed me in, so I figured that they must be mine. I decided to take a nap to see if I could sleep off whatever was happening.
I have no idea how long the nap was, but when I woke up, I was no longer confused and had my memory back. I’m actually not even sure if I slept. I just sort of, all of a sudden, became aware of where I was and that Wylie and Mimi were there with me on the bed sleeping.
The second time I was alone when it happened, I was sitting in the back of the Highlander while homeless in 2022, when I saw that I had sent an email to an attorney's office confirming what we discussed over the phone. I lost some time that day with no recollection of the phone call or of sending the email. I only knew it had happened because of the follow-up email I had received from the attorney’s office. I wondered if that's what it felt like to be abducted by aliens -- to have a chunk of time missing from your day and no memory of it.
