I have stress. I have the kind of stress that I don’t think many people could even begin to relate to. I’m not being dramatic.
This is what’s going on aside from being clinically depressed: if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that I’ve been in a residential addiction treatment program since September of last year, where I’ve been working on myself and some artsy shit. It’s been great; I’m so glad I came here. The plan was to arrange for supportive housing and move on to that.
The problem is that the housing stuff has been grossly mishandled. I was just informed via text message that my discharge date is the 29th of September and asked if I had a place to reside after that. The answer is no; I have nowhere to live after that.
So, I’m clinically depressed, poor, adjusting to working at a job for the first time since 2020, carrying serious post-traumatic stress, and I’m looking at a return to a homeless shelter in the fall after all the work I’ve done here.
There is a backup plan, though.
I became close with a counselor named Ashley, who called me “short stuff,” even though I’m pretty sure we are the same height. We bonded over our mutual appreciation for classic Jay-Z records. She quit this program a few weeks ago because everyone is quitting due to it being totally fucked up by its leadership and adderall-slinging head psychiatrist. Ashley never stopped texting me to either check up on me or send me a jigga track. She moved on to work at another program for people re-entering society from the kind of addicted gutter dwelling that I’m so accustomed to that I literally have a 500 post blog about.
Just bear with me; I’m going to say something positive about myself: people are drawn to me; I could either be charismatic or some benevolent force is making it so that there’s always someone looking out for me…maybe it’s both.
Ashley wants me to come to her program in the Bronx, and she told me to tell the people in charge to initiate a transfer.
Do I want to go to another program after being in one for nearly a year? Fuck no, absolutely not; I wanted to go into supportive housing. Is it better than a stinking homeless shelter or the sidewalk? Fuck yeah, it absolutely is.
I said this a few posts ago, and I’ll say it again to remind me that I believe it. I am protected by something I’ll never be able to wrap my head around. I always have been…the problem is that I forget that I probably always will be. I mean, why would it just stop just because I stop believing in it sometimes?
“O! grace when you stop believing, that don’t mean that it just goes away” -”O! Grace,” Magnolia Electric Co.
i am actually going to post my fundraising link, because honestly i need fucking help, sorry. https://ko-fi.com/evr0ck17
