Tag: living within my means

Ghimeabragh

The Sheltered Existence. Fin: New Digs

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

Yesterday, I finally moved from the “Psi Kappa Omicron Sorority” to supportive housing. The quiet is deafening. The door, puts me “between the worlds” where I can finally have some peace. The people I have met here, in this new world, so to speak, are friendly, and so far above where I was, that it’s a bit astonishing.

My room, is about 12×20 (rectangular) with a dorm-sized fridge with a sink. I share the kitchen and a bathroom. I can come and go. I am an adult. Again.

UPDATE: About an hour ago, I felt like crying as it felt like the weight of the World had been lifted from me. Sweet Relief. I still feel like crying tears of Joy.

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Ghimeabragh, Uncategorized

The Sheltered Existence Pt.17 The Long Winding Road to Housing

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

This is my last few days at the shelter. I will be moving into permanent housing by weeks end. My “sisters” at Psi Kappa Omicron have decided to send me off with a bang: a few fights, psychotic smearing of feces on the bathroom wall, and generally being little more than grade school students not wanting the “unpopular kid” to sit with them at lunch. As for me, I’ve spent a few days doing nothing but sleep. I am exhausted from all this. I’ve spent a full day at HRA waiting to get a piece of paper, that I have to go back Thursday to retrieve.

I’m a celebrity… GET ME OUT OF HERE!

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Ghimeabragh

The Sheltered Existence Pt 16 Return to Grade School

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

Sunday. F$cking Sunday. We were all awakened at 6 am to the sounds of a heated argument. It lasted until 8 am. Two hours of people yelling at each over I have no clue, but since it was left to go on, I must presume that the overnight staffer was either asleep, not at the desk or watching it for entertainment purposes. Of course, the “SHUT THE F**K UP” rang out, along with “SHHH” all to no effect.

The rest of the day was quiet. Except for the Bernice Show. Loud, annoyingly brassy and you just want to stuff a sock in her mouth. She took exception to someone sitting near her at dinner and a grade school argument of “You can’t sit there” broke out. Duration? 10 minutes.

It’s time for the pre-medication snack, and a fight is about to break out over the gluttony of a few women. some are eating a third complete meal consisting of a leftover plate from lunch or dinner (or both) an apple and a slice of pie. This is not sitting well with the rest of the women who need to take their meds with food. This could be solved if a snack were brought in for everyone, but that’s asking a bit too much, when they more or less cleared out the fridge for tonight’s snack.

Thank you, Lord for my Deliverance from this Place. Selah

Uncategorized

The Sheltered Existence Pt 15: New Sister in the Sorority House

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

and, man, does she have anger issues… She just arrived, hadn’t even done her required intake, and when she was told she had to wait to de her laundry, she pitched a tantrum like you wouldn’t believe, screaming it was because she was “new” and there was a “seniority system” and blah-blah-blah. The  culminating factor  in the police being called was that she was throwing chairs around in the Tv room. By the time the cops arrived, another had calmed her down and was pissed that the on-duty staffer had called the cops. I think it was because the second staffer was made to work.

She’s calm now, but I still give her wide berth.

Venus Sextile Saturn, , exact at 00:50
activity period from 12 December 2011 to 13 December 2011

Ad Astra

The Sheltered Existence Pt.14 – Wonder of Wonders…

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

I interviewed for an apartment last week. Well, it’s a studio in a suite that I will share with three others, but we each have our own private room and we share the kitchen and the bath. I go back next week for the psychiatric screening.  It’s a really nice building in Manhattan on the West side. My “long national nightmare” may soon be ending.

via astro.com:
Self-assertive energies Mars in the 5th House,  5,
activity period from 4 December 2011 until beginning of August 2012

Ghimeabragh

The Sheltered Existence, Pt13 Et Mi Matria

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

Happy UN-Thanksgiving. Times Square Church came and served up Jesus with the turkey and pork. I sat for a bit. got up and left, returned and began shaking with rage over the extreme level of discomfort, and the knowledge that I had reached my limit on the psychological pressure. I cracked. I vented, to a caseworker the week before, a volunteer, and I got the stealth conversion spiel from the woman who organized it from TSC. Everyone was telling me to suck it up and enjoy the turkey (which I did).  Later in the evening, while talking to a  staffer I mentioned my impression that this is not a secular shelter, and she agreed.

This morning, I got the stealth conversion via invitation to a church thanksgiving. The only way I can deal with the pressure is to be out of body, so to speak. or, banish myself to someplace else.

For 4 months,  I have put up with the unrelenting stealth proslytizing by the staff. They get all defensive when I asky why no consideration for other beliefs.   Thursday, the Umbrella organiztion will be serving a Thanksgiving meal. I told my caseworker that I feel the need to be “fucked up” in order to cope with the prospect of being on the outside looking in. I am stressed, anxious, doubling up on my meds. I sleep but wake up tired. I am angry. frustrated.  and, no one at that fucking place really gives a shit. ALL COURT HOLY WATER

 

I may be in Purgatory, but the rest of them are in Limbo.

So, Hail fucking Eris, kiddies.

Ghimeabragh

The Sheltered Existence Pt. Snippy or, I was right, this is not a Secular Shelter

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

Yesterday, I went into a snit over being unceremoniously kicked from the cafeteria where the only useful outlets are so the church ladies who hold bible study in the “library” could have the space for their Thanksgiving celebration. I should point out, that a lot of other women were also kicked out when Staff came in announced that there was to be church in the cafeteria. No notice, nothing. So I got bent out of shape. A caseworker came out and I complained to him, and he got defensive (because he knew it was wrong) and then essentially said “Tough shit, this is a Christian majority.”

So, this Thursday, which is Thanksgiving, I will not be partaking of the traditional turkey dinner, as it means I will be forced to sit through Christian prayer and testimony in order to do so.  Now, there are those who would call me ingrate and those that tell me to suck it up and compromise my religious convictions, such as they are.

 

Activism

The Sheltered Existence, Pt 12 – On Resentment & Gratitude

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

Last night, an event was held at the Park Avenue Armory on one of the “forbidden” floors. Forbidden due to the fact that we shelter residents must use the Basement for entry and exit and cannot walk on the first, second or fourth floors. There is actually good reason for this: there are a few of my sheltermates who have crashed events have stolen from them. I remember one evening when they, the Armory staff, was setting up for an event on the first floor, and they were quite nervous about us residents crashing it. That’s when I learned of the party crasher who took with her upon exit, several bottles of alcohol. A few of us who reside there know quite well that the only reason the Armory puts up with all of us and the 911 calls to break up arguments is the money that is paid to them to lease two floors. There is not a night where there isn’t some bullshit drama, whether it be over the remote, or just from boredom. Staff will let the yell-fest continue with not very convincing attempts to shut it down.

Staffer 1

(unconvincingly)

ladies, please stop…. really stop…

Staffer 2

(sitting at the desk next to staffer 1)

I think I’ll call 911

Am I resentful? a bit. I shouldn’t be there. I should have been sent to transitional housing last July.I won’t start seeing place til January – shelter gets another $9K for those three months. But someone at the Williams Street Assessment shelter decided to send me to a shelter for mentally ill women. So, here I am.

Am I grateful? Yes. I have a roof over my head, shower, meals. I am not sleeping at copy shops or on the subway. I am not sleep deprived, I function. I don’t have carry my life on my back like a turtle.

Do I feel safe? not completely.

Ghimeabragh, Uncategorized

The Sheltered Existence, Pt 11, Crossing the Abyss

Posted on by The 40 year old magpie

So, I let all my facebook friends/enemies/frenemies know what my living situation is. No one has defriended me over it. Hell, I even posted it here. So why am I still outing myself? Because I can. I am the 99%. I work, I am disabled, though exceedingly high functioning, and I currently done earn enough to afford anything, anywhere in the USA. I know, that with the assistance I am being given by both City, State and Federal, that I will rise, like a phoenix out of this mire and be self-sufficient.

Being hospitalized for “suicidal ideation” has led to a certain amount of self-censoring. Just erased a paragraph, because you, the reader, may take it in ways than it’s intent. It sucks.  Just let me say, that I am over this particular “adventure” and I want my own place.