Eviction

I have not been able to write about this yet as it causes great shame & anxiety.

5 years ago when my mum died i went into a worse depression & anxiety than ever before. I retreated inside myself & where i tried to forget about my responsibilities. I didn’t want to deal with reality. I was able to hide it & avoid it pretty well.

I ignored housework, i got lazy. Everything was to hard to deal with. I hated life & what was happening to me. I knew what was happening & i could see everything getting out of control but mentally i couldn’t bring myself to face it, i pretended it didn’t exist.

I was always the type of person who grew up with the thinking pattern that everything would be ok, it would all work out in the end & it almost always did. I have always had anxiety issues, PTSD, depression for as long as i can remember but nothing compared to what it is today. What it was like when i was a kid is nothing compared to what it is now. it was only after mum died that i realized that everything always worked out when i was younger because she worked so hard to make things work out & fix things & kept the burden of it away from me. I didn’t have to deal with real adult responsibilities until just before mum died. Mum took care of everything basically, although she was never good at house keeping & did hoard stuff. So i was raised in a very cluttered messy house.

I had never wanted to see a psychologist because i knew i would be forced to deal with things that i had not wanted to deal with.

After mum died i was all of a sudden at 33 years old forced to become an adult with real adult responsibilities. I had unknowingly taken everything she did for me for granted. I had no idea how hard life really was. I thought i had things bad when i was younger, it was nothing compared to what it is now. I had no idea how to handle all these things on my own. My depression, anxiety & PTSD got worse than it ever has before. So as a coping mechanism i tried to block it all out.

At the time my mum died i had been neglecting the housework, my own health care, looking after myself etc. I focused all my attention on the absolute necessities & looking after my pets. My pets were the only things that kept me alive & still do to this day. If i didn’t have them i would have ended my life when my mum died. I didn’t care about myself anymore. I didn’t & still don’t see any worth in myself. I constantly feel defeated, lonely, hopeless.

The situation with the house got out of control, i knew it was bad & i needed help but i couldn’t bring myself to ask for help because i was ashamed & embarrassed. Every time i wanted to try to fix it myself it was so overwhelming that i would have a panic attack, so again i tried to ignore the problem. The few times i was able to start cleaning up, i physically couldn’t do it because of my pain disorder fibromyalgia that causes me to be in alot of pain all the time.  I know this situation is my own fault but it was unintentional & i never ever would have wanted it to get out of control if i had a choice.

I was forced to get help when department of housing made me have my smoke detectors checked. Actually letting someone see the condition of my house was the most shameful & embarrassing thing i have ever experienced in my life. I cant explain in words how embarrassed, ashamed, pathetic & disgusting i felt. I still feel this way. I had no choice to but to confront the issues & let people in to help me. I was assured that the people who were coming into clean out my place were experts in issues like mine & would be sensitive towards me. This turned out to be quite traumatic for me. Don’t get me wrong i am grateful that i got that help. These people were not sensitive towards me & kept making remarks about this situation that made me feel worse. They didn’t care what they were throwing away & because of this i lost so many precious memories like photos, family heirlooms, important paperwork, all my clothing except  what i was wearing to name just a few. This experience further fueled my fear of asking for & accepting help. Even though i was grateful it was huge change within myself that caused me to become more depressed & distrustful of community services.

Even after that i couldn’t bring myself to reach out & ask for help for what i really needed. I tried to do things for myself but i wasn’t coping.

I developed a fear of going to my mail box because i was & still am of getting a negative letter. I am always assuming i am in trouble & that the worst is always going to happen. I force myself now to check the mail box 3 times a week & it causes great anxiety. I also have a fear of public transport that prevents me from being able to get to places i need to get to. My cousin bought me a labrador dog to be trained up as my assistant dog to help me with this, his training is slow going because i am trying to do it myself.

It took me a long time to learn to ask for & accept help. If i wanted to stay in my place where i have lived since i was 4 years old i had no choice but to see a psychologist. I was extremely fearful of this. I was scared to unpack everything that i had pushed to back to the deepest parts of my mind for most of life. I didn’t want to deal with it, it was going to be to painful but i had to do it. I was linked up with a mental health agency & have now started to see a psychologist. Because of flooding in the building where this agency is, they moved quite far away & so my aunt actually hired a car for a week just to drive me there because i would not have been able to go if i had to use public transport. I was so scared but it turns out that i am comfortable with my psychologist. I have learned things about myself that i didn’t know before. Now the sessions are by phone i am more comfortable to be able to stay at home, my safe place & talk to him.

In the meantime i have been desperately trying to find the help i need to to be able to look after my house, go through stuff that i need to sort though & get rid of. I have not been able to do this yet as it is all my mums stuff. I physically can’t do housework like normal people, its t painful for me. I try to but its hard & very slow going. Just from trying to mop the floor takes me days or a week to recover from the extra pain it caused.

I have been searching & contacting so many agencies to try to find help & i keep getting told that i do not qualify because i am not on the NDIS & i am not elderly. I keep getting refereed to another agency & thats how it goes over & over again. I am getting nowhere. To fix my back yard up i have got quotes from businesses & the costs start at about $300. I can’t afford that much money. I have had people offer help & i have asked people for help, i got my hopes up every time & not 1 single person who offered to help has come through. They offer to help then i hear nothing back or they just don’t turn up.

I finally learn how to ask for & accept help only for nothing to come from it. I am in a desperate situation & i am helpless. I can only try to do things for myself but it is very very slow going because of my medical issues. I don’t know how much more i cant handle. I am sick of struggling to keep my head above water & it feels like i keep getting pushed under again.

So now department of housing is wanting to end my tenancy because i have not done what they wanted me to do to their standards. They have not taken into consideration of my health issues & i have been begging them for help. I have written a letter to the tribunal writing basically wrote here & added more. I will have a supporting letter from my aunt & submit paperwork of all the places ive contacted to try to get help.