READER CONTENT WARNING
Some content in this post may offend or upset some readers. Please read at your own discretion.
It is now fast approaching the 9th May 2021, which is the 3-year mark from being released from the hospital and not being homeless as I was for nearly 30 years. During this time there has been a lot of good and bad situations occurring. Some still happening to this day. It is hard to explain some things as people won’t understand unless they have lived the life I used to live. And right now I am going to be a little blunt.
During my near 30 years of being homeless (since around the age of 14), I experienced a lot of things, some of these include child abuse, drug abuse, prostitution, rape, bashings, sleeping in parks on concrete slabs (as long as various and many other places), crime, lying to online friends about my lifestyle and situation (many decades ago now), as well as a lot of other things, some that I am not comfortable talking about.
I have known several people around the world and still do to this day, some I have parted ways with, but the most important remain in my life. During my time of being on the streets and talking with them about things and helping with some projects the one thing they never knew was that the inter time I was homeless and working from a laptop using public power and free WiFi or my phone as a HotSpot to get an internet connection. It was only when I posted an image on Facebook that they found out, I wasn’t thinking at the time of posting it, but it did get me many messages as a result. What did they see you might ask? This is what they saw.
It is a situation that occurred whilst sleeping rough and that ended up in the local newspaper of the area I was living in at the time. What a headline right? If I remember right it was page 3 or 4 of a free daily newspaper called the ‘Manly Daily‘ – which covered pretty much of the inter Northern Beaches where I used to be homeless most of the time. When this went to publication as my picture is plain as day I was noticed by pretty much everyone. This was good and bad. I experienced some issues from some trouble makers, but most people would come up and hand me food, gift cards, vouchers to go get more clothes as long as a lot of other things. For the most part, the support of the community was amazing. But due to the fact of my face being out in the public eye at the time I had to change where I slept as on several occasions afterwards bashings would occur whilst I tried sleeping. Mostly by teenagers with nothing better to do.
Honestly, I don’t know how I have lasted in this, as I call it ‘dog box‘ for the last near 3 years whilst I continue to wait for my ‘forever home‘ – which will come soon. What I do know is if it hasn’t been for several people, a particular person very close to where I live and also a couple of people in the United States there is no way I would have lasted this long. I remember way back in the first say 6 months when things got too much I nearly just up and left. But no, I spoke up, I asked for help. I got it. And I am still hanging in there, just.
There are several things going on right now that I can’t discuss due to privacy and also because I don’t want to discuss them, but they are beginning to affect me in a bad way. I really just want to lock myself down away from everyone, both in-person and online. But I know that will affect my mental health too bad and I will go in a really bad downward spiral and that is not what I want, nor need right now.
Anyway, I think that will do for now. Will write again soon.
