Zero

A -Z Blogging Challenge – Theme: Homelessness

Z =Zero

A day late but here I am at Z, I didn’t think I’d make it!

When I think about zero, I think about my life over the last 3 years, and it has been that a sometimes never-ending line of zero’s, first with a breakdown, I had:

Zero Confidence, Zero Faith, Zero Life, Zero Worthiness, Zero Self-love

Well I managed to pull out of that, however in the meantime, homelessness coincided with my breakdown and is the last of my hurdles to overcome, and it has been the hardest to deal with, I feel displaced, marginalised, invisible, stupid, embarrassed, isolated, which all adds up to a big fat zero.

 

 

 

In writing these posts, it has made me really face my situation and own it in a way I hadn’t done before, and has made me much more focused on what needs done so I can be housed again and thank to the readers who have put forward suggestions and made me re-examine what my options are, which are still zero, but perhaps with more creative thinking I can move to the next stage.

As I said right from the start, I never dreamed this could happen to me, this was something that always happened to other people, yes I judged them, and know there are many reasons as to why people lose their homes, and why many end up sleeping rough on the streets.

Mentally I think I’ve coped reasonably well, but am prepared for the fall out, as I do wear homelessness like the mask I wore for depression, and even though I’ve been open here and some very close friends know I do feel fraudulent in many ways as I cannot quite come out with it to others, I’m embarrassed and fear their judgement and the stigma that follows, and I’m not brave enough to face that.

I also fear actually being housed you’d think it would be a relief, but I’ve survived like this for so long it’s normal now, it like taking a giant leap into nothingness, then find the landing has been quite soft, which in turn will bring me in from the edges of society and being visible again.

I still have quite a bit of residual anger at myself for allowing this to happen, or at least not acting sooner, but in my own defence I didn’t know I was breaking down and how severe it would be, which rendered me pretty useless for over a year, and I missed the boat at those crucial early stages to get help, now 3 years on its difficult, and this bullshit about not fitting any of the criteria, makes me weep sometimes with the sheer hopelessness of my situation.

 

 

 

 

So in conclusion to this series, I need to get from zero to hero, in that I’m housed rather sooner than later, in my current living situation I’m Ok for the next 2-3 weeks and after that who know, but would like to think that significant progress has been made, I’m very tired and would just like to have somewhere to call my own and start rebuilding my life, however if life continues like this I can’t even begin to imagine what the future holds.

As the saying goes, “when you hit bottom, the only way is up”