How was the homeless experience and why did it happen?
--if you don't mind sharing
I won't go into too many details because it'd be a very long and fucked up story that will make a long post even longer, but the short as to why it happened was because I made the mistake of staying with a family member short term, in-between jobs, and I found out they had a severe drug addiction and were in the process of getting evicted. My best friend was sort of AWOL because his grandfather (who was like a dad to him) had passed away very suddenly and wasn't answering any calls or messages. So I ended up having a bunch of my belongings being stolen and being locked out of said apartment with no recourse. All of the people who I once considered friends for years beforehand turned out to not have the time of day to help me out, nor was I entitled to that.
As to being homeless itself, it was absolute hell on Earth. The first week I stayed in an abandoned house with some other homeless people, but they were the most psychotic, unhinged members of society I've ever met, online and otherwise. Worse than even the majority of lolcows that have threads here. Fighting all of the time, screaming at each other at all hours of the day, stealing shit, trafficking pounds of illicit drugs, the whole 9 yards and more. The addicts are probably the worst people to exist on the face of this earth and they'd do better off being forced to labor in bauxite mines than being left to their own devices. Most of them are in fact happy with being homeless, although there's more to it. Had to get into several crazy fights just to make people leave me the fuck alone. After that, I slept in my car near the woods for around a month while trying to get some kind of motel voucher from my local government. Had to use those 5 gallon water jugs and trucker stops to shower and clean my small amount of clothes, and I at least had enough for a hobo stove so I could cook up the food I got when I had food stamps.
I think, even more than them just not having any interest in fixing their own situation, people fall into traps while they're in this very vulnerable position(drugs, mainly). I kind of view it as being possessed by demons, their soul, their essence, what makes you "you", all of that gets taken away and eroded when one decides to do drugs in order to cope with their lives. I saw people who'd been smoking meth and injecting heroin/smoking fent for decades, like 20, 30, even 40 years, and they were no longer what I would call human beings, just walking talking flesh sacks full of extreme rage and misery. The government has absolutely 0 interest in helping people get out, for one there's simply too fucking many of them, and secondly the people who are in charge of these homelessness crisis management boards get paid more the worse the situation gets. They're farming homeless people, basically.
The worst part about it, at least to me, was how other people treat you, even just how they look at you, homeless and otherwise. Other homeless people look at you as an opportunity to try to steal, or latch onto your life, or even just to tweak out and try fighting you, and normal people don't even acknowledge you exist, let alone see you as a human being. Which, I can honestly understand, I never blamed anyone for averting looking at me or avoiding me because of how 95% of people in the same situation act, but it was still profoundly humbling, and I've never felt so alone. I ended up being able to get a job working at a warehouse and was able to get my own apartment and stabilize my living situation, but, I'll never forget being at the absolute bottommost rung of the American social ladder. It changes how you see other people, how you see yourself, and it gives you a very profound appreciation for just being able to go to sleep in a normal bed, in a safe room, being able to actually get a restful nights sleep without being full of paranoia of someone trying to make you a victim, being able to eat homecooked meals, and having conversations with others even if it's just chatting about the weather or bullshit at work. For me, being able to have these things, and go to the gym and to work, are almost luxurious.
You never know just how suddenly your life can become a living nightmare to find yourself waking up to and being inside of. That's why I say like I did earlier, to cherish your life and never take anything for granted. To seek improving yourself and enjoying what truly fulfills you. We all have more resilience and power than we give ourselves credit for. Never let yourself be consumed by despair no matter where you may find yourself. You have the power to change your life, to take charge of it and make it what you want it to be, even if it takes time and suffering. It is okay to be sad for a while, to be depressed, even for extended periods of time. But nobody is coming to save you or change anything besides yourself, no matter how unfair it is, no matter how much it hurts.
