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virgoheartt · 6 years

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psa.

hey guys!! so, i don’t usually make posts like this because outside of the roleplay community, i’m not incredibly helpful or resourceful. however, over the last couple of months i have gained a lot of knowledge due to my circumstances that i’d thought i’d share in case anyone is going through exactly what i am right now, and that is: trying to get integrated within a homeless shelter that is clean, safe, helpful, and can equip you with things in life you might be lacking or struggling in, due to financial instability or whatever happens to be your situation. this post is very long and will be put under a read more, as not to disturb the flow of anyone’s dash. it will include links to helpful websites, clarifying and debunking some common myths about homeless shelters, resources for every state in america, and more (all placed on a page on my blog, as tumblr was being a massive ass about having this show up in the tags with certain links embedded)! i do apologize that this only covers the united states and not other countries, and if anyone has any resources or resourceful posts on tumblr about homeless shelters and what they’re like/what they can do/etc in other countries, please do message me with the link and i’ll add it to this post as soon as possible!! PLEASE LIKE AND/OR REBLOG THIS AS TO HELP SPREAD WORD AND HELP THOSE GOING THROUGH POSSIBLE HOMELESSNESS RIGHT NOW.

so, first and foremost, i would like to debunk a few common myths, that i myself, even had before knowing more about homelessness and shelters.

the first is that many think a homeless shelter will be worse than living in their toxic, possibly abusive household. and that is simply NOT TRUE. as someone who has lived with an older, highly abusive family member and then recently, a really toxic family member who drains me mentally and emotionally, i can tell you it’s not worse than what you’re going through right now. it’s going to be a massive transitional period, where simply luxuries the majority of us have (such as cell phone service, laptops, tvs, entertainment, etc) will become just that: luxuries. things you can only obtain after overcoming homelessness. but i guarantee you it’s worth it. a lot of those who face homelessness, i came to find out, are those who show a pattern of poor life skills. many are ashamed of it and to be honest, i was too at one point. but i’m not anymore. because 9/10 times, good life skills weren’t taught to growing children, as poor life skills usually roots from parents or parental figures lacking in sufficiently teaching their child/children how to live outside of survival mode. and that’s not okay, but it will be. because you’ll learn life skills through people who want nothing more than to see you succeed.

you have to be gone during the day, at which time you have to carry your belongings around. now, typically, if a homeless shelter is actually good and of some quality and value, you’re not going to be gone all day carrying around nothing but your belongings and standing in the heat, cold or whatever other disastrous weather that you might face while being homeless. a nice and helpful shelter will keep your belongings safely stashed away while they help you in the pursuit of finding a job, equipping you with things such as job readiness and preparation classes, transportation, and clothing, all to ensure you become successful. (*IMPORTANT SIDENOTE: not all shelters will offer all of the above, but that doesn’t mean they’re not good shelters to stay at. even those shelters which don’t have a lot of funding and thus, don’t have all of what is said above, a good shelter will try it’s hardest to find outside resources to help with your circumstances and situations.)

the majority of homeless suffer from severe mental health problems and substance abuse. while yes, according to a study taken in 2010, one in four homeless individuals suffered/currently suffer from a serious mental illness (and i just happen to fall into this category, as i’ve battled with schizophrenia since the age of fourteen), city officials have stated that lack of affordable housing, unemployment, and poverty are still the top three causes of homelessness in a survey conducted by the us conference mayors in 2014 and roughly is it said that one-third of those adults who are in shelters had chronic substance use problems in 2010, according to SAMHSA. that is about 184,666 sheltered adults out of a rough estimate of 554,000 adults living in a homeless shelter, according to the department of housing and urban development (hud) in december 2017. and compared to how large the united states’ population is, that’s not all too bad, considering. another thing to note about homeless shelters is that the good ones will always test for drugs/alcohol upon arrival and even if they decide to take them in, they’re helping them take initiative in getting sober and staying sober as a requirement to stay in the shelter and their program.

homeless individuals live most of their time in the streets. however, according to HUD’s survey, about 69 percent of homeless americans lived in shelters in 2014. and if not a shelter, it was said that at least 30 percent of unsheltered homeless seattle residents live or at one point lived in a vehicle of some type, according to the vehicle residency research progran.

your personal property will be stolen, no ifs ands, or butts. although you will need some sort of money saved up or after sustaining a steady income through a trustworthy employer, a lot of shelters (especially the ones that are of the golden few) will offer some type of place for you to put your things on a rent-type basis until you can get into transitional living. and more often than not, they tend to be air conditioned. however, as much as i’ve looked into it, i couldn’t find a place that helped individuals with storing away personal property at no charge or at a late charge.

now, some things in which a homeless shelter can/will help you with are the following (as always, please do your research prior to staying at a homeless shelter, if you can. thus, when you do the research you can see if they offer any of the following and if it doesn’t say on their website, then you can definitely inquire about it. if they don’t offer it nor give you resources to some outside resource that can help you, DON’T STAY WITH THEM.):

mental and physical health sevices

substance abuse services

employment assistance

shelter

transitional housing

permanent housing

housing coordination community integration

navigating around

case management

crisis medical services

crisis transition

some helpful resources/a short description of what they help with are listed below but the links can be found here (*IMPORTANT SIDENOTE: if you’re in fear for your safety in terms of searching for somewhere to stay and such, please be wary that computers can be monitored and it’s impossible to 100% completely clear, so please, if you are afraid your internet usage is being monitored, please call the national domestic hotline, which the number is listed below):

what it’s like to stay the night in a homeless shelter --- here is an accurate descriptive inside look at what it’s like to stay a night/a few future months at a homeless shelter, as written by an undercover journalist.

homelessshelterdirectory.org --- a website that will help give you all sorts of helpful information from quality/emergency shelters to helpful programs to help end homelessness and in almost every city in the united states.

the national domestic hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3224 TTY for the deaf/hard of hearing --- a hotline for anyone of any age who is experiencing domestic violence. they’re open 24/7, 365 days a year.

ending message: homelessness is a demographic of people who have faced some sort of trauma in their lives, whether it be multiple incidents and varying from one thing to another, to simply only facing sudden homelessness, it’s a problem that faces a lot of people on a day-to-day basis all around the world, and even currently in my life. i hope this has helped in some sort of way and especially if it helped to relieve some anxiety you feel around staying at a homeless shelter, which i do sympathize with, but wish you the best in building a life for yourself again. if anyone needs me to clarify or touch on some more things or anything specific that i can try to help with, feel free to IM me here or for a short time (as i won’t have my laptop with me as to not encourage the chance of it getting stolen) i will be answering as much as i can in my inbox regarding this.

#rph #rpt #rpa #psa #important #ok so two things lmao #1) i know this isn't rph stuff #but i know you guys will help me get the word out on this #and it's very important to me and i'm sure others #2) sorry if this kept appearing on and off your dash lol #it wouldn't appear in the tags thus i had to fix it

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agingerwithaseoul · 6 years

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I want to talk about feeling distanced from a part of yourself, or rather separating a toxic part of yourself and convincing yourself it’s not really you.

I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to play the victim here at all. I was faced with a challenge and i failed it. I was weak where i very easily could have been strong. I was put into a very uncomfortable work situation where I was the most depressed i have ever been in my life. I had to sit in the kitchen at work because i would just be crying uncontrollably at the office. It was everything from minor sexual assault to not having a bed for 3 months. I was being emotionally abused for 3 months straight by the person who basically controlled my job, my housing, and the opinions of everyone around me. This then continued for many months after that.

Because of my depression, the new people I was working with treated me in all different ways. Some were over the top supportive and asking me how i was doing every day tears or no tears, and some were the opposite.

By the end of the summer I had lost 20lbs and was trying to figure out how to see a therapist with no american medical insurance. I had to ask my abuser if the company would cover my therapy and his response was ‘you need to make more friends.’ I never got treatment.

I came back to Korea with my depression for 6 more months, with the treatment by the new coworkers getting even worse, which in turn made me treat them poorly too. That’s when the toxicity of my personality became clear. Luckily I had my best friend and my boyfriend with me in Korea so I wasnt facing it alone, but my depression was turning into something much more dangerous. This was the first time in my life I had met people that unapologetically made me feel horrible and openly ignored or belittled me and my defense mechanism was to try to do the exact same back which, doesn’t work. During this time I also had an infection that almost cost me my kidney, they’re both permanently scarred. I didn’t go to the hospital early on because I didn’t want to miss work and give my abuser an excuse to scold me. Later I needed surgery.

The coworkers were taken out of my life without much closure, but the anger in my heart was still there. It was like a bad break up where I check up on their instagrams not knowing what I’m looking for. Do I want them to be unhappy? Do I want them to be happy? I dont know and its unhealthy.

My depression significantly lifted nearly simultaneously with me not having to deal to those people and after I started YouTube I was so happy! My best friend had just moved away so I was suddenly missing a huge piece of my life. YouTube was something that was motivating me to leave my house and the comment section was where I had most of my human interaction.

Looking back on it now, I was much lonelier than I would ever admit to myself. As for my boyfriend, youtube was like my own little world so we never talked about it and it felt very private and very mine. He is always a shining light for me, but only recently did i let him into this part of my life.

Though I thought my depression had left me alone, something happened that proved I was wrong.

I had done something that was misunderstood, and it was the first feeling of being attacked that I’ve had since the time I was depressed. This misunderstanding caused someone to do something so small and so petty that it shouldnt have bothered me, and writing it here seems so stupid, but it really hurt me. My best friend had left, i had started this new fun creative adventure and every time i logged in i would be met with a small gesture of hate. To them it probably felt like nothing, and looking back on it I should definitely have been able to handle it, but at the time it felt like i had made these special paintings and every day i’d find someone poured a bucket of red paint over each and every one of them. It really sounds so dramatic but I was (or maybe still am) emotionally weak from basically 2 years of emotional abuse and it got deep under my skin.

Everything about this situation was so petty that I didnt want to talk to anyone about it, so I buried it. Then I gave up. It was like someone kept picking on my scab i was trying to ignore and i took the bait. I got angry and acted out, but it was worse because i had the internet and i could be anonymous. And my actions hurt people. I hurt people. And i can never undo what i did or excuse why i did it.

The scariest thing about this was, i was able to completely separate the me that was mean in this one space online, from who i was “in real life.” That person i was being was the opposite of the morals and standards i hold myself to “in real life” even though so much of what i consider my “real life” is online. This is where im going to get confusing because to be honest im still confused.

There was a part of me that felt satisfaction seeing people agree with some mean thing I wrote online at the same time i’d feel totally ashamed and guilty and i couldnt sleep because of what i did.

I know i seem really positive and happy and like a supportive friend and i am, but there was a small part of me that wasn’t or still isnt, i guess, because i know even though im suppressing it, its still there. What was most unhealthy is that i was so sure it was just an internet persona that i didnt consider it to be a part of myself. The person you see on youtube or tumblr or instagram is honestly who i am, its not a fake personality i put on, thats genuinely how i am if you were to meet me on the street. But i refused to accept that that isnt completely me. There’s that 1% of me that is a person i loathe, that im ashamed of, that i wanted to stop being, but part of it felt like such a release to play that role.

I was so ashamed of myself that i couldnt tell anyone. Even my friends that i really trust, it was such a private thing that it almost felt like it was part of another world. Not the reality i lived in. again, confusing but thats just how i felt and honestly still feel a little bit. I didnt want to tell people about it because i didnt want them to think that was who i am, but really it was just i didnt want to admit that that was who i am.

Then one day, it really hit me how badly i had behaved. I felt ashamed and i knew i needed help.

Luckily i have a friend who is understanding. I had lied to her face many times when it came to this dark side of mine. I knew she needed to know and i trusted she would have the best advice and wouldnt sugar coat things for me. And luckily i was right. She listened, and she held me accountable. Now that i finally let someone in and that someone was able to tell me point blank ‘what you’re doing is wrong and unhealthy’ i felt the ability to come forward to the person I hurt. Whether or not they believe me or accept my apology is out of my hands, but now that I know I told the truth, I can begin to move forward.

Now I’m working on figuring out what it was that made me act like that. Why was my reaction to such minor harassment so cowardly? What is it that affected me so strongly? How i behaved makes me feel actually nauseous and I know I will never do that again. I hurt people because i could and thats unacceptable.

With online behavior nowadays especially here on tumblr or youtube, its so easy to be someone you arent. But as you act out that persona long enough you have to accept that its not some persona, its you. Its me. I took those thoughts and words from my own mind and put them out there by my own choice. That rude person is a part of me and i need to deal with it. I think having a great support system around you is important and i lost that now that i have such infrequent contact with my friends.

So if you’re reading all the way through, perhaps its because you’ve felt something like this to? Maybe not taking advantage of online anonymity but maybe you have a small part of your personality that you’re not proud of, that you separate from your true self. I hope you can accept that that is also you and that we all need to work on that if we ever want to grow.

I’m sorry if this is coming out of seemingly nowhere because this is so not my personality, but it is. Its something i am going to deal with and i hope that this inspires anyone else to reflect on some part of themselves they’re ashamed of or distanced from. To accept it as part of you and to grow from it. You cant fix something if you pretend it isnt really there.

Im sorry this was vague and i will feel uncomfortable talking about this with anyone that isnt someone that knows the situation so im not going to answer any comments about this but please see this is as my first step in acknowledging and moving forward. Thank you for listening if you’re still here.

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possibilistfanfiction · 7 years

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hey jude!!! just read ur last anon abt being nb and wondered if u could talk abt ur own gender experience?

well basically i didnt grow up in a very open household, like rly Zero discussion of gender, so i know i Experienced gender entirely but i played almost exclusively with the boys in my class until probably grade 6 or 7, & at puberty, even tho i was a better athlete than most boys in my class still, i started hanging out with girls more, at recess, etc. i was always into androgyny, even if i had no idea (& i didn’t) what that was—i liked some femme things, absolutely, but i wanted nothing to do w skirts or pretty shoes. i wanted to be in adidas running sneakers 24/7 if i could help it, & i wore a uniform to school w the option of a skirt/pants, & im p sure i always wore pants. at the time this, to me, seemed more functional, & it was, but it was also, as i can understand now, something that made me feel Less like a girl, although not at all like a boy.

when i was older, 12, 13, 14, my parents wanted me to dress nicer, & i was v much into like american eagle shit, although by mid hs i was into some vintage stuff. one rly big odd style influence for me was mia wasikowksa in this weird movie called restless bc it was this v soft femme androgyny & i think for me this kind of gender expression became very important to see & understand. it wasn’t that she didn’t look like a girl, or that she wasn’t a girl, but she also sometimes looked like a boy, or wore boys clothes, but she wasn’t butch. idk this movie sent me for a loop honestly lol.

& obviously my understanding of gender expression didn’t correlate (& doesn’t correlate!) w so many gender identities, & “passing” is extremely harmful as a notion, etc. but when i was younger my understanding of gender & sexuality was very limited & began to expand when i saw very femme but still andro ppl, even tho i couldn’t articulate it at the time.

when i was a teenager i knew i didnt want to rly have a single thing to do w any boy, which made me sure i was a lesbian bc thats the only narrative i’d rly known abt queerness, or queer women, or even queer ppl who presented as femme. there werent any out lesbians at my school (no fucking way), & the only out queer kid at all was a white gay guy a year older than me, who was popular in the way white gay boys can be popular in high school. but i read voraciously, was fascinated by the crossdressing in shakespeare (paris in the merchant of venice was a particular fixation of mine?) & anyway. i knew i was queer, i knew i liked girls, & i knew i was outrageously uncomfortable w my body, particularly my breasts. for a long time i thought this was because i was ashamed of my sexuality, when i came to sort of understand that, but ofc now i know abt dysmorphia & dysphoria, so yknow. knowledge.

when i went to college i came out big time, & it became very important to me to both be queer & look sort of queer but not queer enough to be Queer—i wanted ppl to be like ‘maybe into girls, but maybe straight.’ as im sure many of us know, this was a lot of internalized shame abt a lot of things, so that sucks. however, i cut my hair which was like the first comfortable thing i had done for my appearance in a v long time, & also smth which my parents hated & i did anyway. i wore a Lot of rly femme stuff bc they hated it tho? so this was all v confusing for me bc my parents are v homophobic, & here i was in college starting to read queer theory & gender theory & falling in love w like. the most beautiful, brilliant girl, & also spiraling into a mixed episode after i got diagnosed w bipolar I, which sort of put everything else on the backburner for a year.

eventually tho i sorted that out (as much as u can sort smth like that out) & i started to rly pay attention to androgyny. i went to europe & i think theres a whole bunch of nuances to fashion that exist there that certainly arent here, & i spent a winter in warsaw so there were aspects to fashion & expression there that were entirely abt functionality, which i was v attracted to. in college, as well, & especially after college, gender became smth i was v much invested in bc i was (& absolutely am) a feminist, so my place in the canon & zeitgeist was one as a queer female writer. it was so so central to who i was, & what i was writing abt. every single thing i wrote in college was in some way a balm, some sort of piece abt myself, learning abt trauma & the body. sorting through a lot of hurt. i could write a theory piece abt elizabeth bishop & reading it back now i know it was also abt me, that kinda stuff.

when i went to toronto i rly rly started being invested in looking critically at gender & my experience of it bc being read as a woman was smth that was grating on me, even tho i had identified as woman for so long, & had no desire at all to transition. i know 100% i am not a trans man, so that was confusing for a long time because i sort of knew there was a space between but it was very hard to conceptualize. eventually i sort of came to understand gender is a color wheel where cis boys are blue & cis women are pink & then theres literally a ton of other colors out there, so yknow. lots of different experiences of gender. some days i feel much more strongly like i identify w women (in mostly political situations, it matters to me to be read as “female” sometimes bc rights for ppl w vaginas AND trans women are FUCKED UP in so many places). some days i hate the idea of identifying as a woman. i also never want to identify as a man. so when i was in toronto i rly started to know a LOT of queer ppl w so many different expressions of gender. & we were all young & lovely & open & fucked up & we would get fucked up but we would also go read together in the park & wander around alleys in the snow & like. there’s a Muchness to toronto that i experienced that helped me, personally, understand these intersections between my own sexuality & gender & expression as much more than just a gay woman who isn’t butch & isn’t femme. i was rly lucky to become part of a community that identified as Queer, & so i became v much understanding of these different aspects of my own identity that fell outside of binary—my sexuality, my gender. Queerness is a vital & profound thing to me & i was rly able (& so fortunate) to have a close friend group of mostly queer ppl & then a few of the actual literally most incredible allies i’ve ever known & will ever know.

so then from there i just rly kinda thought abt things & like i got a binder & stuff in TO but rly started to evaluate my dysmorphia & dysphoria (i had struggled really badly w an eating disorder in/post college) & was able to sort out that so much of it had to do w feeling uncomfortable in the way my body was read in the world. & that will always happen bc i LOVE makeup & i have a “feminine” voice & sometimes i love skirts & i shave my legs bc i like how it feels sometimes & i dont ever want to go on T—none of these things make anyone ANY gender, but ofc theyre coded as “female.” but i’m learning to just yknow educate where i can & take a lot of solace in the community of ppl i have fostered who support & understand my Being. i’ve also allowed myself to be invested in aesthetics & fashion & how much a role that plays bc like. yah fuck Yah i look cool shit bc my friends love it & absolutely i wanna wear the same vans maia mitchell has & i want a melodrama hoodie & i LOVE local toronto designers & their angsty patches abt sad songs & whiskey but i love fashion born out of histories that is connected to smth i can understand, like queer punk movements, or smth my friends & i share, like blundstones (which are gender neutral, which is cool). i’m fascinated in how ppl express their Selves, & we are so unfortunately Finite in our bodies in the sense that that’s rly how the world, in our day to day interactions, processes who & what we are. so i invest in the care of mine by trying to listen to it, trying to make it comfortable—& clothing is a huge thing that can do that. also its fun so anyone who thinks loving (ethical, cool) fashion is vain can eat my ass

anyway lmao now i have a p decent sense, atm at least, of what makes my body its most comfortable (even if that is v far from Comfortable at times). i love my tattoos, & i basically never rly want long hair again i’m p sure, & i love makeup, & if i could wear vans or blundstones every day for the entirety of my life at this point that would be incredible. those are easy things, & i try to allow my body, in its cultural place, to have access to them as much as possible, which is so important to me in a sense of having access to a physical space that matches my mental space of gender identity. politically sometimes i feel v v much a “woman” in terms of my lived experience, & i allow that of myself as well. sometimes when i write it’s important to me that my poetry be read as a queer person but also someone who is culturally coded as a woman, bc those are still always central concerns of my work—the trauma, the power there. but day to day i’m mostly happy spending my time obsessing over other things, like what to call this new genre of music halsey & lorde are making, or why my dog stevie is a Fanatic when it comes to ice cubes. ive come to enough terms w my gender, & my sexuality—& the expression thereof—that unless someone is talking abt gender, or someone asks me a question, it’s not smth that is constantly on my mind, which is. Nice. its so nice lol.

also i would like to point out that i know my experience being non binary is rly rly white & western in so many ways & i get that. my cultural experience of non binary gender is also v much this like. ive felt frustrated before but never in my life have i felt scared to be non-binary while i was like out & abt in the world, bc i still pass as a cis white woman literally everywhere all the time (which has its pros & cons but like, still, a lot of privilege). so i do try to keep all of that in mind as well when i try to center myself & all that jazz

& who tf knows where all of that will take me. i feel like, bc ive learned to listen to my body & my brain so much better than i did when i was younger—even when they might hate themselves—i am so much better at filling up a space in the world that occupies smth healthy. which is not smth i take lightly, & i’m also so open to changes, as long as they feel good & beneficial & true. which is sort of new for me. who knows man ur mid twenties are a wild ride

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