The Black Hole

Mo is a guy I happened to know online at a time when I was homeless and coincidentally he was also homeless. I didn't meet him "because we are both homeless."

As explained previously:

So two months and some change after telling me that although homeless, unlike Jack, he's a man of action and gets shit done and can be there in a matter of DAYS and rattling off multiple options for how he might do so, he's still not there.

He was an off his meds bipolar individual which was why he was unemployable and homeless. I was an off my meds other medical condition, not mental health related, and unemployable and homeless because of it.

I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt and not get into it with him about "Explain your situation..." or whatever. I chose to say "Oh, okay. You can be here in a few days or a week or two, unlike Mr. Moneybags? Prove it. Show up."

And he couldn't actually deliver.

He also at some point began going on about how he was someone super important in a past life.

Yeah. 

I've never talked about this because I spent years homeless and I was treated terribly on Metafilter because of it and talking about this is potentially fuel for more of their shit.

I believe in karma and reincarnation, but I don't much discuss it with people. Most people claiming to have past life memories claim to be a reincarnation of some famous, important historical figure. It's almost never "And there's that time I was a total fucking loser and died of the plague in the gutter."

I don't care who you supposedly were in a past life.

1. Past life memories aren't provable. At best, such stories explain something about how you see yourself.

2. I NEVER hear someone like Elon Musk or Donald Trump claiming "I was King Arthur of Camelot in a past life." They're like "I'm a BILLIONAIRE and that's what you should know about me!" 

That's not respect for either of these assholes. It's just a fact that people with money and fame etc don't do interviews about how they were important in a PAST life. It's always some total fucking loser you've never heard of saying "I was King Arthur's WIFE and let me tell you what he liked in bed!" As if that completely unverifiable information is evidence she really used to sleep with King Arthur!

You're HOMELESS and you want ME to be impressed with "I'm an extremely important person because in some PAST life I did shit. Honest and for true!"

Dude, the best use of "past life memories" is "Why am I so amazingly fucked up??? What bad karma am I trying to live down or learn something because of it?"

I have a genetic disorder. I think I was probably married to a relative against my will in a past life.

I don't think I have that as punishment. I think I have that as more like food for thought. "Hey, stupid. Some things are A BAD IDEA. Here is the Buddhist koan encoded in your genes where you can't get away from it. Think on that for a few decades!"

What matters is what you are doing with your life in the here and now. I kind of don't care what people think of my "loser" homeless self. I'm vastly healthier than I'm supposed to be and I think I am doing okay for myself, all things considered.

IF you EVER hear me talking about "I THINK I was so and so in a past life!" please understand I don't want anyone to think I'm important because I think that.

If I'm important, it's because of something I'm doing in the here and now. If I'm not doing something important in the here and now, WHO CARES what hoity toity imaginary unprovable past I SUPPOSEDLY have that cannot be proven?

I hope Mo got his act more together or was happy with the life he was choosing to live, but I dumped him in part because he was actively screwing with my sanity and trying to get me to believe he was super important "because I was an important historical figure, for realzy realz!" 

I talked to at least two and probably a few people about the garbage he was spouting because it was messing with my mind and at least one conversation I stopped because I was trying to get them to help me get grounded and feel less crazy and it was clearly messing up their mind.

I did eventually hear someone casually say "His paranoid delusions are typical of bipolar people." And I breathed a sigh of relief and moved on.

I'm homeless and trying to earn a living via some means that makes sense given my medical situation. I write about homelessness and how public policy and lack of adequate housing and other factors play into this.

The last thing I want is for someone to read this and feel like "Ah, more evidence homeless people are just personally at fault for their mess!"

He rattled off at least three and possibly more scenarios for how he could arrange to be there in a few days or a couple of weeks and I was like "Well, I would like to see if that's TRUE."

If he was in fact someone who got things done in spite of his unconventional lifestyle, I thought maybe we can work out how to make our lives work together with our two medical situations and our mutual hatred of what prescription drugs did to us.

How you generalize that to figuring out how to engage constructively with other homeless people, I have no idea. But that's why I handled it that way.

My sons think I'm highly competent and respect me. We're healthier than is supposed to be possible.

The rest of the planet thinks I'm a loser and that's a problem that negatively impacts my life and I don't know how to resolve that.

Homeless people typically weren't born homeless. They typically have a past where they had housing and a job or conventional, socially acceptable position of some sort. I was a homemaker for a long time and might still be if I hadn't gotten divorced.

This clip is one of my all time favorite movie scenes. It's from Aliens and Ripley asks "Is there anything I can do?" And Sarge says "I don't know. Is there anything you can do?"

I'm usually talking about sexism when I post it somewhere, not homelessness. The book The Truth About Addiction and Recovery talked about a program for getting addicts and alcoholics jobs and said it was the most successful treatment program in the US.

It said they succeeded because they adamantly insisted "Oh, we don't TREAT addicts. We're NOT a treatment program. We just are a job referral service. That's all we do."

So they politely told the government etc. where to stick their efforts to interfere with the program and they told addicts "No, dude. We are not your mommy. This is not our problem. How you get your poor baby self to work is your problem. We just help you get the job and the rest is up to you."

And the book spent some time talking about how unemployed addicts will spend all day drugging and so simply having a job helps fill their time and give them an identity and etc.

One thing they said that I really appreciated was that they didn't focus on what you can't do and your addiction. They asked them "What can you do?" 

So one guy said "Uh, I can play basketball." And they got him a job coaching basketball and he messed up once with not showing up or being late or whatever and got lectured or whatever and then he was a successful basketball coach. And he was like"NO ONE ever asked me before what CAN you do." They just saw him as an alcoholic and that was everything they thought about him.

I did the intake process for a program for helping handicapped people get jobs and about the time they had all my X-rays etc and proof I qualified for help, to my relief, I had a job offer for a job pursued at my mother's suggestion. Because I was like "Oh, God, they are too focused on my limitations and I will never escape poverty with their so-called help."

I'm doing what I can do in spite of my handicap. I'm writing. And I'm failing to turn it into an adequate income and I'm frustrated.

But all people have things they can't do. And if you are CEO or whatever, that's frequently framed as "beneath" you and something your secretary handles. 

And if you have certain problems, the things you can't do swallow your world like a black hole and other people ACTIVELY seek to refuse to let you escape it.