So, this group home really is not working out. The only two things that make it bearable are that there isn’t a roach infestation, and the rent is subsidized (although being required to pay 75% of my income feels steep) so I don’t have to worry about homelessness. But the other members of the group home simply are not people who I feel like I can connect with, and the staff is so overworked and stressed out that it really doesn’t feel like they provide any actual support. Living in a group home turns out to be about as isolating as living alone. Besides, I’m tired of the bathroom being covered in poop every single time I go in there, and I just want to live someplace that actually isn’t disgusting. And I want a cat. As deeply as I love my turtle, I want an animal that will snuggle with me.
So, I need a plan. I’m going to take some classes starting in September so that I can be more marketable and also just to make sure that I can actually handle full-time status without decompensating and ending up back in the hospital. After that I plan to get a job, which means I’ll get to get the 🤬 off of social security, which would be amazing. However, it will disqualify me from most if not all subsidized housing, which isn’t great because housing in my area is crazy expensive. A hugely complicating factor is that I don’t drive anymore because I didn’t feel it was safe with my dissociative disorder (and Dr. X agreed) so my affordable-but-not-subsidized housing will have to be within about a mile of either my place of employment or public transportation. This is all very tricky and will almost definitely require that my turtle and I find at least one roommate. My certificate program will be complete in December so I would need to move like immediately after that so I can start working near my new place in January. It’s complicated but it brings me hope to think that I won’t be in this stupid group home forever. It’s degrading to my soul to live here.
The reason it’s degrading is because staff constantly says little tiny things that are too small to call them out on but that betray the fact that they really, really think I’m totally stupid. Last week I was sitting on the porch when a staff member walked past me and warned me not to stay outside too long because it was hot. I told her okay. I could have mentioned that I have lived in MUCH warmer climates than here and am used to heat, or I could have pointed out that my educational level would indicate that I am of at least average intelligence, but what I really wish I had done was compare myself to some of the lowest forms of life. I can’t say this for a fact but I suspect that there are bacteria that are capable of locomoting from an unfavorable temperature zone to a more favorable temperature zone. If I, being human, had actually been at risk of getting sick from the heat while sitting on the porch right in front of an air-conditioned house, I would have had to be awfully stupid. Like, dumber than a bacterium. And yet people talk to me this way constantly without being able to comprehend why I don’t like it.
Sometimes, I actually miss the hospital. Most hospitals suck but I had the good fortune to be in one where I felt seen and I wasn’t spoken to like a child. I promised staff when I left that I would send them a postcard, which I did, but then when I called and asked if they’d gotten it, it had gotten lost. That hospital’s mail is famously unreliable. But it made me sad because I had thought that I would be able to keep in touch to some minimal extent. It’s also extremely isolating here and I miss being able to talk to hospital staff.
So my idea of a solution is to find something that sucks less than the inpatient psych unit, which will definitely require moving and will probably involve a cat.
