Content note: mental illness, PTSD, trauma, homelessness.
Just over ten years ago, I lost my mind. The wit, candor, and joy left my voice. I hated sentience. I did not know how to answer the question, “how have you been?” without a murder of crows flying invisibly past my lips just before I eked out, “oh, you know … I’m here.” I was afraid to look people in the face, because I didn’t want to get caught pretending to be okay. I did not want my family to know I, in what I now know was a manic episode, abruptly quit a job I’d miserably worked for 5 years. I did not know how to explain the rapid emptying of my bank account or the bill money I’d “borrowed” from any and everyone I could. I had no way to describe the scramble and static of my mind. I could not utter to my landlord, “I need help.” I did not feel safe in my home, my body, or my own thoughts. My mess swallowed me.
When I emerged from it, I had a notice to vacate and enough shame to fill a mansion. I did not know how to say to my family, “I have to move out, because I couldn’t ask for help, and now I have to ask.” I didn’t believe that there was an option to save me from the ten years of running I’d done: from never going back to college, or from accidentally-on-purpose flunking out because I didn’t know how to ask for help then, either. Help wasn’t for me. It was for everyone else, so my life had shown me over and over. I had long ago shed the qualifications of worthiness. The choices we make when we are unwell fuel future ailments, whether we want them to or not. I didn’t get to have help in 2009 because I hadn’t asked for help in 2008, or 2002, or whenever it was that I learned no significant help was coming. I got fussed at instead. So I stopped asking until things reached a crisis point. Once things reached a crisis point, nobody could say no to me. They had to help, because it was an emergency. This bargaining chip was what I held onto when I needed to know someone would take care of me if I asked. If it’s between saving me and watching me be hurt, maybe they’ll save me this time?
My saving wasn’t what I dreamt of, but what was available: I moved back in with my mother. I didn’t want to be there. I felt like I was always walking through a briar patch in organza. Nothing went unnoticed or without commentary. I was hurt. She was hurt. We did not talk about it. We spoke around it, as our family had taught us, and pretended the tiffs over laundry and groceries could suffice. We were hurt. We did not talk about it.
I found myself running off to NYC for a week at a time: freelancing, temping, just hanging out. Do you know how distraction-hungry one has to be for wintertime New York to be an escape? How pressed was I that I would freeze half to death to stand by for a show I’d only learned of 5 hours prior? Very. I wanted to pretend like I hadn’t tried to rebuild myself with papier-mâché and beauty supply makeup I didn’t know how to use. I sought and loosely constructed a finesse to shield me from my ugly parts. Was I charming enough for a foothold?
Evictions destroy people’s lives. I did not realize how close I came to total destruction until I had a stable home, some 8 years later, all on the strength of two incomes. I did not know until it was happening to me: an eviction meant I was not worthy of a safe (read: legally recognized) place to live, regardless of circumstance. I did not have the vocabulary for it until I was fully out of the perpetual vertical climb: evictions are trauma visited upon people for no reason other than a landlord’s bottom line. I couldn’t be who I am right now without that experience. The knowing of fake-sympathetic “I’m sorry, can you get a co-signer?” in my bones and the tic under my right eye that activates when I smile so hard I almost hurt myself as I say, “no, I understand, you gotta do what you gotta do.”
That murder of crows has returned. This time isn’t new to them. When they burst past my teeth, they nearly drag the truth with them. My cheeks sting from shame and straining, even though we’re talking on the phone. I make the “it’s okay” face to hopefully shape my words in a way that belie my rage and disgust. I find a way to hold onto my real question. I don’t follow up. I don’t call back. I don’t bargain or argue. I want shelter. I want a safe place to be, so I can care for myself instead of losing my mind.