EDIT: not as long as looks only 5 minute read, also fixed some spelling using crappy tablet sorry. This post is as much as me asking spiritual advice as it is updating people on where the hell I've been the last 6 months sorry for any confusion, just I feel both are tied to my situation.
There's no easy way to address this so I'll just chronicle this.
I moved to California in October because I was being targeted for being transgender and couldn't get access to healthcare, and I saw my dream of working in audio engineering/music as not going anywhere.
I moved without a job transfer thinking I'd find one durring the holiday hiring season. I had planned to roommate with a friend that was getting a new apartment, but we got lead on and I ended up homeless for 3 weeks.
When I finally got settled in with a friend, most of the places told me they already had just hired for it. Some of my hormones got stolen or lost and I ran out of the rest a week or so after moving in so emotions were high and mood unstable. I tried to get on the lease, was looking for a job, but the landlords gave me a few days short of 2 months and threatened to evict us both if I didn't leave. I did almost get one about this time, as I had an interview and good words in for me but being forced out suddenly upset this as I couldn't be homeless safely in that part of town.
I moved to be homeless almost all the time in the nice part of town and passed as not being homeless spending most of my freetime at starbucks and became one of their best customers. I also kept up on the friends I had made in the local transgender community but none of them were in a position to help me much. I never resorted to panhandling or anything but the friends I made did help me from time to time, and a couple of times extended family sent me a good chunk of money I used to surive on in addition to what I could make stretch on my food stamps.
So from January until about 2 months ago I was homeless and jobless, but I did manage to get a job at a store after a job fair. I came close to an audio engineering gig too but I didn't speak the second language they wanted me to for the job. I would work the next 2 months in increasingly hot conditions (the town is a desert) as my friend said we didn't get along well in person (I mostly blame all the withdrawal on hormones on that).
It was rough working and being homeless, and my brand new commuting bike I had gotten at one point was stolen one day when I was taking a shower at the gym. Management was able to qualify me to get the store to pay for a new bike which I've used since. It was stolen near where I used to live with my friend, and in that same area I had actually been robbed a couple of months prior (although one of the more ruthless street people took compassion on me and got it back through some guile as they saw who took it, that or he was in on it, as I gave some money for part of the trade to the thief to get it returned).
I was about to give up when I got an offer of a sublet, close to the Durga Temple and the UU congregation and the move in date was on the anniversary of my intitiation into Satanism so I thought it was a good sign. When I moved in and was setting up my altar, the death card from a tarot deck, with Kali on it fell out on the altar.
I tried to interpret this as the death of my homelessness and rebirth into the new stage of my life but deep down I knew this wasn't true. It was warning me of something bad, and I now realize it was warning me of danger. I was there less than two weeks, until yesterday where I was illegally evicted.
See, I had paid the deposit, signed a rental agreement, everything. But the subletter decided they wanted me to write the money orders to a relative of theirs to help them commit welfare fraud (as in to hide their income). They gave a dubious story about how they would loose their benefits. Things didn't add up and I wanted no part of it and even if true it's still a felony. That aside, they could always claim I didn't follow the contract or pay them since the money orders would not be written to their relative and use that to further take advantage of my fear of becoming homeless again.
When I came around to telling them I wasn't comfortable they said I should go then, and tried to claim the contract wasn't in force and tried to claim things that weren't in the contract about the official move in date and rent. They conviently left out details of the deposit in the agreement which I failed to catch before too, and say they will only give half of it back now claiming "cleaning services" even though I always followed their literally 20 rules about cleaning.
The subletter had even been making remarks about me having a "cute body" and "sexy hair" (they are double my age mind you) and were very hostile to my girlfriend and were overall pretty unstable and acting crazy. They hadn't been like this the first few times I met them. They kept making more rules all the time particularly about my girlfriend who apparently couldn't even use the shower if she stayed over night. They even tried to keep all of my deposit because I didn't wash the sheets even though I was given less than 24 hours to get out and had been in the ER last night for vomitting blood and was in bed most of the day (still feeling sick from that).
So I was forced out yesterday, against the contract's terms and illegally and am now staying with a friend for the first night in a rough part of town, even rougher than the place I got robbed twice from what I've heard. When I looked at renting a house on this same street further down the alley that my friends advised me that this is one of the absolute worst parts of town particularly as a transwoman. But for now it's that or bake in the heat before work everyday and have the constant threat of people finding my camp when I'm asleep.
I'm left wondering what I can do, as I'm about at my limit.
During all this time my practice has fallen on the wayside, and part of me feels I'm being "punished" for not keeping up on it. On the day I moved in, that date every year I do something special to keep my spirituality in mind. This year I didn't as I was tired from moving in. I somewhat feel this might be linked to how things went down. I don't know.
All I know is in the meantime I'm in a part of town you can't safely be out at night, and I will be arriving back to where I'm staying at 1AM every night because of the time of my shifts. I've had very little sleep, need to work the next 2 days and still feeling pain/sick from yesterday (again I had to go to the ER I actually was severely dehydrated in addition to the blood).
I'm just kind of still in shock. I haven't even sorted out my medical stuff because my living situation has been so unstable and I've had issues scheduling when I'm able to be awake and not working in accordance with my work schedule, although I've gotten some help in gray market acquiring hormones in the meantime.
I just, I don't know what to do. I'm so focused on survival that I don't even know if I have energy for my practice or spirituality, and yet I feel that lack of dedication to it is making things so much worse for me, when I need it to help empower me like it has so much before. Spirituality as my encouragement and source of perseverance , has been running on fumes for a while now. I came close to killing myself a few months ago until some friends came to find me and the person who is now my girlfriend convinced me not to. Sometimes I think they are the only thing keeping me strong but our relationship has always been kind of rocky even when we tried to just be friends until we actually got together and part of that was me freaked out by how fast things moved when we first met, before I became homeless in January.
All I know is my life is a mess and I can't do this homeless crap anymore, and I want to work in the field I actually want to work in, not in a mininum wage grocery store and I want to live as a woman and get proper trans related healthcare to acheive that, and to practice my religion and just have a stable life.
There's no easy way to address this so I'll just chronicle this.
I moved to California in October because I was being targeted for being transgender and couldn't get access to healthcare, and I saw my dream of working in audio engineering/music as not going anywhere.
I moved without a job transfer thinking I'd find one durring the holiday hiring season. I had planned to roommate with a friend that was getting a new apartment, but we got lead on and I ended up homeless for 3 weeks.
When I finally got settled in with a friend, most of the places told me they already had just hired for it. Some of my hormones got stolen or lost and I ran out of the rest a week or so after moving in so emotions were high and mood unstable. I tried to get on the lease, was looking for a job, but the landlords gave me a few days short of 2 months and threatened to evict us both if I didn't leave. I did almost get one about this time, as I had an interview and good words in for me but being forced out suddenly upset this as I couldn't be homeless safely in that part of town.
I moved to be homeless almost all the time in the nice part of town and passed as not being homeless spending most of my freetime at starbucks and became one of their best customers. I also kept up on the friends I had made in the local transgender community but none of them were in a position to help me much. I never resorted to panhandling or anything but the friends I made did help me from time to time, and a couple of times extended family sent me a good chunk of money I used to surive on in addition to what I could make stretch on my food stamps.
So from January until about 2 months ago I was homeless and jobless, but I did manage to get a job at a store after a job fair. I came close to an audio engineering gig too but I didn't speak the second language they wanted me to for the job. I would work the next 2 months in increasingly hot conditions (the town is a desert) as my friend said we didn't get along well in person (I mostly blame all the withdrawal on hormones on that).
It was rough working and being homeless, and my brand new commuting bike I had gotten at one point was stolen one day when I was taking a shower at the gym. Management was able to qualify me to get the store to pay for a new bike which I've used since. It was stolen near where I used to live with my friend, and in that same area I had actually been robbed a couple of months prior (although one of the more ruthless street people took compassion on me and got it back through some guile as they saw who took it, that or he was in on it, as I gave some money for part of the trade to the thief to get it returned).
I was about to give up when I got an offer of a sublet, close to the Durga Temple and the UU congregation and the move in date was on the anniversary of my intitiation into Satanism so I thought it was a good sign. When I moved in and was setting up my altar, the death card from a tarot deck, with Kali on it fell out on the altar.
I tried to interpret this as the death of my homelessness and rebirth into the new stage of my life but deep down I knew this wasn't true. It was warning me of something bad, and I now realize it was warning me of danger. I was there less than two weeks, until yesterday where I was illegally evicted.
See, I had paid the deposit, signed a rental agreement, everything. But the subletter decided they wanted me to write the money orders to a relative of theirs to help them commit welfare fraud (as in to hide their income). They gave a dubious story about how they would loose their benefits. Things didn't add up and I wanted no part of it and even if true it's still a felony. That aside, they could always claim I didn't follow the contract or pay them since the money orders would not be written to their relative and use that to further take advantage of my fear of becoming homeless again.
When I came around to telling them I wasn't comfortable they said I should go then, and tried to claim the contract wasn't in force and tried to claim things that weren't in the contract about the official move in date and rent. They conviently left out details of the deposit in the agreement which I failed to catch before too, and say they will only give half of it back now claiming "cleaning services" even though I always followed their literally 20 rules about cleaning.
The subletter had even been making remarks about me having a "cute body" and "sexy hair" (they are double my age mind you) and were very hostile to my girlfriend and were overall pretty unstable and acting crazy. They hadn't been like this the first few times I met them. They kept making more rules all the time particularly about my girlfriend who apparently couldn't even use the shower if she stayed over night. They even tried to keep all of my deposit because I didn't wash the sheets even though I was given less than 24 hours to get out and had been in the ER last night for vomitting blood and was in bed most of the day (still feeling sick from that).
So I was forced out yesterday, against the contract's terms and illegally and am now staying with a friend for the first night in a rough part of town, even rougher than the place I got robbed twice from what I've heard. When I looked at renting a house on this same street further down the alley that my friends advised me that this is one of the absolute worst parts of town particularly as a transwoman. But for now it's that or bake in the heat before work everyday and have the constant threat of people finding my camp when I'm asleep.
I'm left wondering what I can do, as I'm about at my limit.
During all this time my practice has fallen on the wayside, and part of me feels I'm being "punished" for not keeping up on it. On the day I moved in, that date every year I do something special to keep my spirituality in mind. This year I didn't as I was tired from moving in. I somewhat feel this might be linked to how things went down. I don't know.
All I know is in the meantime I'm in a part of town you can't safely be out at night, and I will be arriving back to where I'm staying at 1AM every night because of the time of my shifts. I've had very little sleep, need to work the next 2 days and still feeling pain/sick from yesterday (again I had to go to the ER I actually was severely dehydrated in addition to the blood).
I'm just kind of still in shock. I haven't even sorted out my medical stuff because my living situation has been so unstable and I've had issues scheduling when I'm able to be awake and not working in accordance with my work schedule, although I've gotten some help in gray market acquiring hormones in the meantime.
I just, I don't know what to do. I'm so focused on survival that I don't even know if I have energy for my practice or spirituality, and yet I feel that lack of dedication to it is making things so much worse for me, when I need it to help empower me like it has so much before. Spirituality as my encouragement and source of perseverance , has been running on fumes for a while now. I came close to killing myself a few months ago until some friends came to find me and the person who is now my girlfriend convinced me not to. Sometimes I think they are the only thing keeping me strong but our relationship has always been kind of rocky even when we tried to just be friends until we actually got together and part of that was me freaked out by how fast things moved when we first met, before I became homeless in January.
All I know is my life is a mess and I can't do this homeless crap anymore, and I want to work in the field I actually want to work in, not in a mininum wage grocery store and I want to live as a woman and get proper trans related healthcare to acheive that, and to practice my religion and just have a stable life.
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