Hi,
My physical issues (frozen shoulders, lower spine problems, type 1 diabetes) are a major annoyance, but those do not cause my mind serious worry. However, my mental state is worrying me enormously. I feel as if I should be dead by now, and it's almost certain that I won't see 2025.
Diagnosed: ADHD, Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, Depression
Highly Likely: ASD, PTSD, Self-Neglect
From 2017-2024, I went through something of a living hell, and from 2019-2024 I ceased to function.
My wife has a gambling problem, and every day from 2017-2019 it seemed as if money would either go walkies, or my children would need their 28th new pair of shoes that year. She had £175 cash to spend, and I paid every bill. The school was a 2min walk away. Left me with no expendable income, and when it got to May 2019 I was almost certain that I was bankrupt. My father is obsessed with debt. No credit, no loans, and my mother had to hide having a catalogue. I lost my mother in 2012, and because of my wife's spending, and the threat of bankruptcy which is published in the newspapers, I started to take overdose amounts of insulin. After 2-3mths I broke down, and I handed finances over to her. She would give me £40 a month to live on, and I'd have to feed myself with this for a week after the benefits came, while she threw the rest into fruit machines down the bingo.
Then we had a clearance of old stuff from the flat. My wife's father was jailed for raping his two step-daughters and their friend. I ripped up the paper, but we never had a shredder. The drink and drug crazed woman downstairs went through the bin, got hold of a torn piece of paper, and I was targeted as a paedophile. I locked myself in the corner of a room for two years, until we finally got an emergency house move... to a place a five minute walk away, where it became clear that everyone knew everything. The place had the same local schools, so of course they did. I couldn't recover. I was in a mess.
So my wife got sick of me, and at the start of April she played games with a damaged mind, and there could only be one winner: "If you don't go now, your kids will be on the streets."
I ran out of the house, in freezing temperatures, in a t-shirt. I thought that if I went to Homeless Services, they would take my seriously damaged state of mind into account and help me find somewhere to live. Then again, I've never filled out forms or dealt with the state in my life, and I had no idea how few houses there are. Similarly I didn't realise that my mental issues don't matter, and that there's nowhere that I can possibly ever live.
And it has also become crystal clear to me that I don't want to live without my wife and kids. However, she's managed to get Social Work to ban me from going home, because I shout if I drop something valuable, or if she reprimands the kids and they ignore her three times.
I've been on a recliner chair in my friend's living room for 10wks, although it has been broken up a lot, as I've been hospitalised six times due to me making attempts on my own life (3rd April, 24th May, 14th June, 16th June), diabetic ketoacidosis, two failed bronchoscopies, a collapsed lung, and pneumonia. However, we had a conversation last night, an overdue one, and clearly I've overstayed my welcome.
My initial registation with Homeless Services was made in a smaller town, where I had been living, although I left there five days after being made homeless. They kept offering me places that were almost certain to be fatal. I know that they can withdraw their services, sooner or later, so I transferred my Homeless registration to a city where there is a housing crisis, so that I cannot be offered a flat.
Because of what happened at the flat where I got the emergency move from, I know I'm incapable of living in a shared building such as a tenement. Similarly, I'm terrified of junkies and alcoholics because of my time there, and this has caused me to refuse ten offers of accomodation.
2 x Hostel in old town (junkies)
1 x B&B in old town (junkies)
2 x Flats in old town (shared building, could be anyone there)
1 x Flat in town next to the old one (shared building, could be anyone there)
2 x Hostels in city (junkies)
2 x B&Bs in city (junkies)
So I'm now thinking that I'm either days, or a couple of weeks at most, from being on concrete, and I've already spent time on the streets. My insulin can't be stored, but I'd kill myself anyway because of the terror in my mind.
My only long-odds chance is to return home, and my name is still on the tenancy agreement. I won't remove it. I haven't been able to find a 1-bedroom house anywhere, and as far as I know no such thing exists.
Would the state refuse to allow me to go back to my own home, knowing it would kill me?
I can't even speak to anyone from Mental Health. I registered with them on 4th April, but I don't know if I'll live long enough to get an appointment, let alone go to it.
My kids are 12, 9 and 6. They need a daddy, and their daddy needs them on a daily basis, from after school to bedtime.
This can't go on much longer. I won't last five minutes on the street.
