ULOG: My First Ulog Facing Homelessness, PTSD, and Obesity

It looks like I might be homeless soon and I am pretty worried about it. I am not sure what is happening or will happen and I can’t think very well right now.

I’m in a good place to live now. I've been here just over two years. This place is a sober living home, so no one is drinking and causing trouble. It’s all men here and about half of us have been here for quite a while.

It’s hard to be away from your family, but we stick together and get along for the most part. This place is clean and safe and has a nice yard and other common areas. It’s close to public transportation and has pretty good food stores nearby. I hope I do not have to leave.

I was homeless for about 5 years before this and it was a really hard life. Many of my friends are still homeless and keep telling me to hang on and figure out how to stay where I am. Things are a lot worse now than when I was out there. San Diego's homeless situation is a crisis these days.

I went to the State hhs office today. I filled out forms and go back again tomorrow (today really) for an interview to see if I can get help. My friend got aid from there and told me I might be able to get it too. It’s usually only for three months, but they try to help people who cannot pay their rent.

My rent is two months overdue. With late charges I owe $1200 right now. My landlord is really nice and has been very patient, but she cannot wait forever for the rent.

I have PTSD and I was getting counseling for it. But the counseling was only every two weeks and made me feel worse. I have trouble sleeping and wake up with bad nightmares. I get afraid to go to sleep because I don’t want to be scared out of sleep again. I start yelling and scare my roommate. The one I have now is young and nice and helps calm me down. But if I wake up like that, I can’t usually get back to sleep.

Me @bxlphabet One Sleepless Night

I’m in some groups for PTSD. It helps me to talk to other people who have this too, but it seems like most of us don’t improve much. I have learned some strategies to calm down when things scare me, and they help, but sometimes I am too scared to even think to try them.

It’s not a good idea to go on drugs for PTSD. They mostly don’t work, they have bad side effects, and then you are addicted. I know people in my groups who struggle badly with the drugs doctors prescribe. They seem to have it worse than those of us who do not take them. So I do not want to do that or even try it. When you go to doctors, the first thing they want to do is put you on drugs.

I’ve been posting on steemit regularly since January even though I have been here since last August. I post about travel from trips I have taken in the past. I post about San Diego since I live here. I post about healthy food because this is really important to me.

My mom, @fitinfun is the reason I post on steemit and the reason I care so much about healthy food. My mom was obese and really sick for most of my life and she was in the hospital a lot. When I was really little, I worried about her all the time. She used to fall or not be able to breathe, and then the ambulance would come and take her.

Sometimes I did not know if my mom was even still alive when I was staying with people and she was sick somewhere. If I asked how my mom was, people wouldn't tell me anything. I have a lot of nightmares about that time.

But finally, my mom lost weight and got healthy when I was in high school. Then we started to eat a lot better and I picked up the habit of trying to eat better for myself. I’m vegetarian and post a lot about the food I eat to stay healthy on a budget. I really like doing these posts the most.

Recently I found some photos of art I did at camps and classes. My mom always encouraged me in art and I like doing it. I thought I would post some sketches in this ulog and I hope you like them. I think it would be good for me to do more art besides photography and I will plan to keep posting the old ones too.

Even if I can’t stay here in this home, I will try to keep posting on steemit. It’s been a good place for me and I don’t want to stop.

Yesterday after I posted here, I found a post by @berniesanders right below mine. The title was, “Hello” and the text was only “How are you doing?” For some reason I decided click in and say a little bit of what is going on here. I'm not sure why I did that. I think I just wanted to talk to someone.

I was lucky enough to get good votes from Bernie and his people after that. Plus he made a nice encouraging comment. Then two other people @justinashby and @markush gave nice comments and wallet transfers to me. This really boosted my mood and confidence.

My mom has been telling me to post more about my story, but I felt like it was too personal. We talk about this a lot. She posts all about her weight loss and obesity stories to try to help other people. She says maybe my story will help people too. A lot of the reason my mom does what she does is so that no other kid will be scared if his obese parent is too sick to take care of them. I already have friends whose parent has died from obesity and that was my biggest fear.

So here, you go, steemit. I will try to be more honest from now on. If you are fighting obesity and have a kid, my mom will help you. This is all she does now, no matter how broke we get. My one friend who lost his mom is like my little brother, and his mom was a second mom to me. Both of us miss her and he is having a lot of trouble dealing with her loss. Don’t let your kid be like us.

When my mom lost weight it turned out to be easy and that makes it even worse. I knew my mom could lose weight and feel better, but I was too young to help her. I tried my best to give her ideas to be more healthy, but she ended up having to do it by herself. I hope anyone else can learn from her and that we both can help people. I know there are a lot of kids like me. Even though I am 25 now, I still feel the pain and fear like I used to when it was really happening.

My post today is for the ulog tag sponsored by @surpassinggoogle. I have not wanted to tell my story until now, but I think this is the best place to do it. I'm also using the socalsteemit tag because my story is from San Diego.

All of the photos are mine and the art is mine. Just one of the photos of me and my mom was taken by someone else when I was getting an award.