It’s not like me to write anything at this time of day, but I feel like I need to, because i’m having some troubling self doubt and fear driven thoughts. I am worried that I made a mistake by moving over here to Hollis and it reminds me of the traumatic experience I had in supportive housing back in Brooklyn in 2021 that culminated in me getting stabbed by a psychotic person who was matched with me as a roommate. these are not pleasant thoughts to be having, when I spent the last few weeks thinking this relocation would be greener pastures than I was in over in Jamaica.
i’m trying to challenge my negative thoughts, I swear to God I am. i’m trying to think about how there’s an adjustment to every new scene you get into, and how I am prone to catastrophic thinking…all of that good therapy shit. the fact in the matter, though is that my new roommate is fucking crazier than a bag of hammers, dude and I wonder if I should have just stayed where I was.
I cleaned the whole kitchen, which was a bug infested disaster and a grease fire hazard from this guy being here with no one else, I had to let some serious chlorox /lysol shit sit on the stove for a while to get all of the grease up and let all of the dishes and cook wear soak for a good half an hour, just to start chiseling the food off of them. I told my roommate “listen man, I cleaned up this time, but this isn't going to be how it works, i’m not cleaning up after you every day”. he started coming out of the side of his neck in what I assume was Hindi, but I don't know, it’s wild how many languages are spoken in india, it could be one of hundreds. if you’re getting tough in a language that I don’t speak, you’re actually not tough at all.
oh yeah, he had my “lost” game boy coffee mug that I got as a gift from Good Human Nate, among an untold number of dishes, cups and peices of silverware in his room that smells like a pig farm.
he’s also helping himself to my food, which I can’t even sustainably afford for myself all of the time. I said to him, very calmly “listen, do me a favor and don’t touch my shit because i’m poor, and it’s going to cause a problem”. there was more of this passive aggressive language that I don’t understand.
the whole thing reminds me of times with my roommate Antonio in Brooklyn, when I just wondered who had made the call that it was ok for this person to be living independently of a more hands on care-giver. I think that if a social worker saw the condition of my roommates living quarters, they might suggest hospitalization. for fucks sakes there is random shit scrawled all over the walls, rotting food and probably rodents.
I am compassionate, i’m not trying to flex nuts and suggest i’m going to like, fist fight a deeply mentally ill individual in any sense, I just want to clearly state where I do stand with what i’ve gathered so far…by stating clear boundaries that protect me from another damaging roommate situation, like the one that still fucks with my head 3 years later.
here’s the deal: it’s really unfortunate that this guy cant take care of himself and do things like grocery shopping and maintaining a clean living space, my heart goes out to him. this doesn't mean that because I can do these things that i’m going to be the one doing them for him, because if you’ve read this blog, you’ll know, that i’m not exactly great at taking care of myself, let alone someone else, especially without being paid. no fucking way. i think this is a perfectly reasonable stance to take, for someone that struggles to get a foothold in functional adulthood with his own mental health issues. I am not the one to take care of this fellow, not at all. do I want to be helpful to others? of course. i’m just not willing to do it at the expense of my own personal wellness.
my housing case-worker is out of the office until Tuesday, and on Tuesday i’m going to communicate these concerns and boundaries clearly and calmly and see what suggestions she has. obviously, I will keep those who pay attention (god bless you, by the way) alerted to all the outcomes and developments.
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