by Jeanette R. Harrison, MPH
Living in a Hotel and Feeling Completely Alone
I am currently “living” in a hotel. It is not anywhere nice. It is something I can barely afford. Having to live in a hotel during a holiday week is an expensive endeavor.
Why am I living in a hotel? Because I cannot find a place to live. I have been looking for an apartment for over 30 days, and because of my income right now, while I have been working on rebuilding my credit score, I cannot rent an apartment because I do not make three or four times the rent. Or, I do not have two or three times the deposit plus the first month’s rent.
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Photo is AI generatd |
I have one person here actively “helping” me. This woman has three kids, and she and her family live in an apartment. Someone had to cosign for her apartment, too. That is the name of the game lately here in Boise.
Even for a room for rent, there were 10 applicants. The room was priced at almost $1,000 a month. That is over half a mortgage payment just to sleep in a room and not even have your own bathroom. Then people ask for an equal deposit for that room, just to live with strangers you know nothing about.
I have rebuilt my life more times than I can count. Yet here I am, living out of a hotel room because I do not have the kind of support system many people take for granted.
I wrote last time that no one cares about me. That is how I feel. People would rather see me homeless than lift a finger to help me.
I do not have a safety net. I literally have one person physically here checking on me.
People Calling Me “The Victim”
I was infuriated when someone told me that all these “shitty things” happened to me because “I never did anything for anyone.”
I have a master’s degree. I have spent over 25 years working in healthcare and education. I spent my life not only helping other people, but also being manipulated and taken advantage of in helping other people.
I guess now this person needs me to make a laundry list of all the service activities I have done in my life so that I can somehow be deemed “worthy” of having a support system.
And somehow, instead of people seeing how painful and exhausting that is, many choose judgment instead.
People accuse me of “playing the victim” because I speak openly about being adopted, living in foster homes, surviving abuse, or experiencing homelessness. They say I “never got over it,” as though trauma is supposed to disappear simply because time passes.
But here is the truth people do not want to admit: human beings are not meant to survive life completely alone. Yet people expect me to do it so someone else can feel superior by being cruel to me.
I had to pay a therapist $250 an hour just to tell me, week after week, that people were treating me badly. I argued with him repeatedly about it. He kept telling me, “The way you are being treated isn’t normal. People are being shitty to you.”
But it was normal for me because that has been my whole life. People think it is funny or acceptable to treat me badly over and over again.
Family, Foster Care, and Being Adopted
Another person keeps telling me how “my whole family hates me.” Although this is an incredibly juvenile comment, it does feel true. Not having my back is something my family has always done. In fact, I often say if you ever want to hear anything bad about me, just ask my family. They are more than happy to complain and criticize me.
When I graduated from college, which I paid for myself, I was told I had to get a job within six weeks. When I did not have one, my parents gave me a list of homeless shelters because I “wasn’t working,” even though I had been temping.
And I am adopted. That is the part that feels sick to me. I came out of foster homes, and people were extremely harsh with me when they should have been softer.
It felt like a game to them. They were as cruel to me as possible because they wanted to see what I would do next. Or maybe they were ignorant and thought that being unnecessarily harsh was somehow helping.
Tough love is for drug addicts, not for people who survived foster care, homelessness, and years of abuse.
Being adopted and living in foster homes did affect my whole life.
I grew up separated from my brothers. I have not seen them in over 30 years. My biological family was not part of my life for over 20 years, and then when they were again, they acted like I owed them something. Like I was a bad person, but in my mind, they were. I wasn't a drug addict, a criminal or anything. I was just a person they decided they didn't like to absolve themselves of the guilt of how their family treated me.
They acted resentful because they had to take me out to lunch, and they verbally and emotionally abused me for having a master’s degree because they thought it meant I believed I was better than them.
All because they did not want to accept accountability for abandoning me as a child and then abandoning me again as an adult.
My adoptive family acted like martyrs, as though I should spend my life thanking them simply because I was adopted.
They did not show up for my events. They did not come to my high school graduation. Half of them did not send birthday cards, visit me at college, or even check in to see how I was doing. I lived in Missouri for 15 years without a single family member coming to visit me, and many of them lived within a few hours' driving distance. Because I didn't matter to them.
Even supposed church “friends” do not ask how I am doing unless I contact them first. They make me do all the work, and they act annoyed or like I am “stalking” them if I reach out.
Apparently, allowing me to be part of their lives is an inconvenience because I do not “act right” according to them.
Having to Be My Own Rescue Team
I have had to be my own rescue team since I was old enough to understand what survival meant.
Even now, people ask, “What are you going to do now?” instead of offering support or help. To them, they helped me once before, so I do not deserve anything else.
I actually had a woman I thought was my friend repeatedly tell me last year that I had no value or worth to anyone.
We are not supposed to go through crises with nobody willing to help us, but I have to.
I go through a crisis, and friends literally stop talking to me. I guess they are not really my friends. They just say, “Oh my God, we are so tired of you and your problems.”
These same people think that if I would just suck it up and do everything myself, all of my problems would magically disappear.
This week, I literally had to pack a U-Haul van by myself and pack my apartment by myself while working full time during the day. I was yelled at by a “friend” because I did not find an apartment and have my entire apartment packed while working a full-time job.
Thankfully, a few people did help me. Honestly, I did not think to ask because most people do not help. They just sit there and watch me struggle. Or, if I do ask for help, they ghost me or act like I do not deserve it.
When it came time to unload the van, two other women helped me. One woman was even older than me, and she helped unload the van. Another was the same woman I mentioned above, who had already worked a physically demanding nine-hour shift that day and still came to help me between taking her kids to activities and cooking dinner for her family.
We are not supposed to age while carrying every burden by ourselves. There is no reason on this planet that, as a 54-year-old woman, I should have had to pack a U-Haul truck by myself.
And we are certainly not supposed to be shamed for struggling after years of instability and trauma.
The Hypocrisy and Judgment
What hurts the most is the hypocrisy, the narrow-minded judgment, and the outright cruelty.
I was told someone else was better than me because they made more money, were prettier than me, and were kind. Yes, it is easier to spend time on your appearance and be pleasant when you are not spending every minute of your life in survival mode or lying in bed sick and depressed, feeling like no one cares about you.
Many people walk through life believing their stability exists purely because they made all the “right” choices. They judge others harshly because it protects the comforting illusion that hardship only happens to people who deserve it.
But life is not that simple.
Those same people had parents who bought them houses and cosigned apartments for them. They started adulthood at a massive advantage compared to me.
Some of my undergraduate classmates left college with money in their pockets. I left college and graduate school with a mountain of debt and zero dollars in my bank account because I had to spend every last dime I had on my education.
Their parents and families financially supported them. Their entire family lives in the community, and they have hundreds, if not thousands, of people they can turn to for help.
Even when I lived near “family,” I did not have anyone to turn to.
I maintain that other people judge me harshly because my supposed “family” treats me harshly, and they do not feel obligated to do anything for me.
Exhaustion, Anger, and Gratitude
Because I have to do everything myself does not make me weak. I do not have the luxury of being weak.
Right now, I would love to lie down and have even a mild emotional breakdown, but I do not feel allowed to because abusive people in my life think it is entertaining to watch me suffer. They want me to figure everything out alone when they themselves never had to.
No, none of this makes me irresponsible.
Maybe someday, when I am less furious, I will write a post about why domestic violence survivors struggle financially. I guess people need me to spell it out because they do not want to take the time to understand the math behind it.
People have no idea how hard it is to overcome trauma after trauma, abuse after abuse.
They sit there watching me overcome everything and call it a “miracle.” I am tired of having to be the miracle while everyone else sits around doing nothing.
People say they “support” my business and then trash-talk everything I do. One woman claimed she supported me and then only paid $5 for my walking course. People download my books when they are free, but somehow I am not worth paying full price for.
It all makes me tired.
I am tired of carrying everything alone and only having one person, if anyone, show up for me.
I am tired of people acting morally superior because they cannot imagine what it feels like to have nobody standing behind you.
And I am tired of being expected to smile politely and act hyper-positive while people dismiss experiences they have never lived through themselves.
So yes, today I am grateful for the air I breathe because, admittedly, I am not feeling very grateful otherwise.
The irony is that I started practicing gratitude because people repeatedly told me I was not grateful enough. Gratitude became something weaponized against me — another reason people used to justify not helping me.
Now people say it is because I do not do enough for others, which is another lie.
I have never had one person say they were grateful for me. Not once. No one acts happy to have me in their lives. They never thank me for anything I do, and they certainly do not acknowledge what I do for others.
And I do not just mean in a mother or caregiver role. I mean ever.
The last time I remember being thanked regularly was when I cleaned the house and made dinner for my ex-husband and his son. Even then, they were simply using positive reinforcement to perpetuate my servitude toward them.
Anyway, maybe the people who think they are so much stronger, wiser, or better than me should spend less time criticizing survivors and more time asking themselves these questions:
Who would I be if I had lived that life instead?
How would I have survived?
Why am I not helping someone who clearly needs it, even though they are not a horrible person?
The Thing I Am Most Grateful for Today
I am grateful I had the money to pay for my hotel because people do not feel like I am even worth giving a place to live.
Ten Things I Am Grateful for Today
I am grateful for friends who helped me this past week.
I am grateful I was able to fit most of my things into a storage unit.
I am grateful that I somehow found the physical strength and stamina to move furniture and countless boxes over two days with the help of only a very small number of people.
I am grateful for members of a church I do not even belong to who helped me move furniture late at night while their children were at home sleeping and they were missing out on diaper duty.
I am grateful for a neighbor who came up and asked if she could help me, and then asked why I did not ask for help sooner. Because I always assume people will not help me because they either do not want to or they complain afterward.
I am grateful for the fact that at least I have a roof over my head, and I am able to stay somewhat calm in the middle of a crisis, even though I am largely unsupported.
I am grateful that even on autopilot my brain stays in problem-solving mode.
I am grateful for my dog, who has been my trusty companion through all of this.
I am grateful that I finally realized people acted like I should be grateful for the bare minimum because they did not think I should expect anything more from them.
I am grateful that I know I am kind. It is easy to “help” others when you are not struggling or hurting. It takes much more character to help others while being a wounded healer yourself.
Grateful for the Air that I Breathe
I am grateful for the fresh air I breathed as I walked along the Boise River on the Greenbelt.
I am grateful for the air I breathed as a child growing up in a smogless small town in Iowa.
I am grateful for the fresh air I breathe as I smell gasoline, asphalt, and the dirt of the road when I take my dog out to walk every day.
I am grateful for the air I breathe as I realize I survived two major lung illnesses in the past four years: COVID and pneumonia.
I am grateful for the air I breathe, realizing most people would not have physically survived what I have been through.
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