Hi
I was on here a very long time ago but only a handful of times. I am desperate for some help and hope that this is the right place to come. I don't know if hope is the right word as I feel very hopeless right now but still have a tiny bit of faith in humanity and wonder if I will find it here.
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Hi. We all need help at times. I have quite a bit of faith in humanity. What are you hoping to find?
I have been sick and getting sicker and sicker every year. I am on disability and work part time (against doctor's advice but I will die faster if I am homeless). I keep ending up in hospital, in ICU last time was diabetic coma and pneumonia that went septic. I am going blind now and always sick.
It is impossible to find an affordable place to live. I have used up all my savings and maxed out all my credit cards now. I am going to bounce a cheque to put oil in the furnace (never done that before but I hope it is possible and I am scared to do it but don't know how else to get heat) I will no longer be able to pay my high rent in a month or two. I can't find anything affordable or else I would try and move, as sick as I am. I have looked high and low for help and there is none for me. My family could easily help but won't.
I now will have to quit my job because my body just won't hold up.
I don't understand my family. I am 50 years old and always worked hard but as a family daycare provider so did not save much or have a pension. I have always dropped everything and gone to my parents to help them as they aged. Now my father's response to my needing help is to take out life insurance while I was in ICU this summer so he and my sister will get money to dispose of the body when I die. (Actually that's pretty stupid as they can't collect unless I live for at least 2 years after the policy starts!)
My father and sister (my mother is dead now) are middle class and always rail and rage against the CONS and HARPERITES saying very violent and hateful things and proclaim to be so superior as left-wing people. I myself have done years of social justice and left-wing activism when I was healthier but never agreed with the violence and hatred towards those of a different ideology. I just don't believe in violence at all.
Anyway, I just don't understand why they claim to be so superior and so socialist but they will not even help me at all. Not even to cosign so I could buy a trailer to live in with a low mortgage i could afford which would cost them nothing and my life insurance could cover if I died before paying it off. Not even to fill my oil tank for this one winter that for the first time I cannot afford.
What is socialism? To let your sick daughter / sister die in the cold when you have more than enough wealth to help?
The best someone could help me I think is to find a VERY VERY good home for my 2 cats who have kept me alive and been my best friends for so long now. I am so heartbroken, and just plain broken that I am fine with dying but I don't know what will happen to them.
And please don't be hypocrites like my left wing socialist family that claims such superiority and hatred toward right wing. That does not help the world or the human condition at all. It's just so ugly and sad.
You probably can't help my cats but please if nothing else please don't be a hypocrite or violent or hate/rage filled towards those who are politically different. Please don't be a hypocrite in your life either.
Thank you so much for caring enough to respond to my post here. It means so very much to me. Thank you for listening it feels good to tell someone, anyone. Bless you for that. If you have any ideas for my cats please do let me know. They are my biggest worry. They deserve a very good home together.
Also...too bad I am not a drug addict or a criminal as there seems to be lots of help and sympathy and love for those. I wish the government would pay for my needles and my insulin! (I have to take insulin for mutants as I am allergic to the normal stuff so mine isn't fully covered)
I have to say that after a few years of being away from activism I look back at it all and think it was all so misguided and false. I am just thrown on the garbage heap to die by them.
Welcome here, and perseverance in your struggles.
A bit of advice too. This is only a discussion board. And you'll get the most out of it if you enjoy participating in that for what it is.
As to misguided hopes...
I'm healthy and can expect another 20 years or more- though one never knows. At any rate, I dont face your very present concerns.
But I'm old enough that the end of it for me on this planet is in view.... what happened 20 years ago is an eye blink back... and the kind of change I looked for, realistically, I'm not likely to see that.
That is unfortunate, and very sobering when I think of what the very young will likely face [painful in the fleeting moments I picture my daughter, before pushing that aside as one must]. But being sober and mindful does not mean being without hope and the satisfaction of doing what one can. What one must.
What city do you live in?
The humane society should be able to put you in touch with foster-keepers for the tabbies,with your situation in mind - the outcome dependent on their ages, health.
For yourself - one supposes you've explored all agencies, making sure to get past the front desk with your case? I learned a couple of years ago of the importance of hope, and I detect a feistiness in your posts that I've found personally to be helpful in measured amounts - in maintaining that mental "condition". I have evaluated homes for energy efficiency where heat is at a premium, one woman depending on her border collie to warm her feet while sleeping.
Welcome here, and perseverance in your struggles.
A bit of advice too. This is only a discussion board. And you'll get the most out of it if you enjoy participating in that for what it is.
As to misguided hopes...
I'm healthy and can expect another 20 years or more- though one never knows. At any rate, I dont face your very present concerns.
But I'm old enough that the end of it for me on this planet is in view.... what happened 20 years ago is an eye blink back... and the kind of change I looked for, realistically, I'm not likely to see that.
That is unfortunate, and very sobering when I think of what the very young will likely face [painful in the fleeting moments I picture my daughter, before pushing that aside as one must]. But being sober and mindful does not mean being without hope and the satisfaction of doing what one can. What one must.
Thanks for the reply KenS. I have already gotten much more out of this than expected. It is like a burden from my shoulders to stand up and say to SOME types of left-wing socialist people please look at yourselves and your own back yards and please do not be hypocrites there, and also please do not use violent and hate and rage filled words because it will not effect the change you want to see in the world, in fact brings you lower than those you claim to be so above. I just feel if this is my last message it is an important one.
You know how Christians say "what would Jesus do?" I tend to say to myself "What would Ghandi do?" as far as responding to those I find myself in opposition to. I am no expert in Ghandi, I just watched the movie. LOL But hey it works for me!
Hi Glenl, thank you for replying to my original post and allowing me to feel open to getting all the heartbreak off my chest. It was such a relief to do that!
I live in a remote place 100 kms north of Nelson BC but I am planning (not "hoping" dammit that is too weak a statement!) to eventually move to Castlegar or Trail to be closer to the hospital and my doctors. My mistake to live so far but I didn't know I would get so sick so fast. I used to be like super woman!
ETA: No it's been a long time since I was like super woman but my brain didn't seem to get it for the longest time! I always figured if you can go on sheer will power your body should follow - bit of a disconnect there but yikes I get it now!
I found a stray kitten a little while ago. I wasn't in a position to keep it, although we do have dogs, I was surprised and impressed by the number of volunteer cat lover groups in our city. I hope that they exist and are as fanatically "cat loving" as I found in red deer. If you contact them, in your city, I'm sure they will help put your mind at ease with regard to your cats. My mother is only alive to take care of her cat, so I can appreciate their importance to you.
Your story has affected me. I will remember it. I care.
Thank you for the comments about how to find homes for my cats. I have looked into those option and had an arrangement through 2nd Chance Animal Shelter in Nelson but they have since cut back and changed staff.
I feel it is akin to trusting the government foster care system to take and place your children for you when you die. It's a last resort but not a very good option in my opinion. A bit too risky for my most loyal friends and family who have saved my life (literally) twice in the past 6 months, they kept rousing me until I could call an ambulance. (Kept trying to "help" the paramedics too, but their help wasn't appreciated much LOL)
Send me a PM with your email address.
I have to say that people caring on here has energized me and restored my more positive attitude. I have just remembered a local email list kootenaycommunitycafe and I will post on there for both rental housing near Castlegar/Trail and a potential, wonderful home for my cats for when the time comes that they need it.
Caring and kindness are such powerful things. Thank you all for your replies to me.
Being in Ontario, I can't be much help. Besides, with three cats already . . .
I do have a couple of Facebook friends in New Denver. I take it you're closer to Nakusp? None of which is much help, just feebly trying to make you feel less isolated.
When my son lived in Rossland for a year on a low budget he managed to find a low cost trailer to rent. Don't give up.
I don't know if you are on provincial disability, disability from a previous job, CPP disability, or a combination. It's not easy to get CPP disability but it sounds like you may be about to qualify. Anyway you must have a caseworker who should be able to help access emergency first-and-last rent. The Castlegar & District Community Services Society and/or the Castlegar Hospice Society may be able to make a good referral.
What the problem is with your father and sister I cannot guess, so I won't try. Help yourself, apparently, if no one else will.
Oh my goodness, I don't even know where to start. An extremely caring and generous person has helped me here. I want to respect their anonymity if they wish it but they have completely changed my life in an instant.
This person just gave me, a total stranger, enough help to put oil in my furnace so that I will be warm until I give notice and move in the new year. (I have the landlord's blessing to put diesel in from jerry cans so I don't need to order a huge and costly minimum via delivery truck, and even a loan of the jerry cans!)
Then on top of that I am able to get new lenses in my eyeglasses, which on top of regular laser surgery for retinal bleeds (and some weird thing where my retinas keep making extra blood vessels) will give me very decent vision again.
Then on top of THAT I am able to have a damage deposit so that I can realistically(!) start looking at moving much closer to my doctors and the hospital. I just can't express how grateful and blessed I feel. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and please know how MUCH you have helped me. This has completely changed my life from hopeless to VERY hopeful.
It's also really important for me to say to everyone who responded to my posts with encouragement and good wishes and caring that did help me SO MUCH as I said before, and please do not ever doubt how powerful that has been, and always will be.
Wilf your words touch my heart, because isolation was very much part of what I had been feeling before I came on here. Your attempt to make me feel less isolated is incredibly powerful, not "feeble" at all as you put it. I didn't know about those services in Castlegar so thank you VERY much for mentioning them. I will look into them.
I think something miraculous will happen as far as finding affordable housing goes. I think people's caring and good wishes and help here is really creating a miracle for me.
There is no way I can express how grateful I am and what a difference this person's gift, and everyone's caring have made to my life. May everyone be so blessed!