And Turned Away by 3 Women’s Shelters

Trigger warning: the following post contains adult themes, mentions suicide, shelters, homelessness.

This blog post is not a recipe or health advice. If anything, my story, has some great advice on what not to do and some stories about how I clawed my way through life.

Through my life I have always been a spiritual person. It started with traditional religion, then weaved in nature, astrology, and the divine. I noticed certain beliefs that I was carrying from past events and always fascinated at healing modalities. I am also attracted to healers, in all forms. So, it makes sense that when a friend of mine recommended a healing method that worked for her, I agreed to look at it. The idea is that you have a conversation in ‘private’ with someone’s highest self that you are having issue with. Essentially, it clears up your own emotional energy before you actually talk to the person. It can also serve to just ‘drain the swamp’ and allow you to speak freely without being concerned about hurting someone. I actually do think there is value in this but I would be cautious about who is listening, and why.

The facilitator goes further and encourages you to list all the people in your life you are carrying complex or negative feelings about and have the ‘private’ conversation with them. It may be important to mention that you must ask the person permission first. (Yes, even though it is in your imagination.) You must also ask them, God (higher power) and yourself forgiveness to close the session.

I was on a quest for my best life spiritually, physically and emotionally at the time so I was all about it. I listed many people and it took some time to work through each conversation. You can imagine the conversations I had! It was encouraged to do it in a car or somewhere you can be private. My roommate at the time, came home after one such session, concluded that I had created some bad energy and asked me to do it in my car from then on. So, the car it was.

My car happened to be a Matrix. I could say things to people I thought I would never be able to say. It also surprised me the words that came out were not usually anger. It was enlightening and in some ways allowed for healing to be able to say these things out loud. It definitely ‘cleared the air’, for me anyway. I would still recommend it, I would just make sure you are really alone. I mean really alone, no phones either. At one point I thought to myself, ‘Goodness I am glad no one is recording me.’

You can find a lot out about a person if you have them write down all the people they have beef with and to have a conversation with those people. It is basically a game of ‘tell me everything you know.’ After I had some unfortunate events in my life, I was forced to reflect on this.

Someone once told me, ‘If I know your wounds, I can influence you.’ Someone with a wound can be very predictable. A habit is also predictable. If you have a habit, all I need to is create the trigger for your habit. If I can control a group of people and surround you with them, I can create an outcome. I can influence.

It never crossed my mind that someone would want to hear these conversations I was having with myself and the ‘others’.

Fast forward 2-3 years that same car gets broken into at the same time I start getting stalked. This wasn’t likely an ex stalking me. In my head at the time, I couldn’t imagine anyone that would want to stalk me or showed any interest of doing so. Getting stalked is something that is hard to prove. By the time you realize you are being stalked, it has likely been going on for awhile. They likely already know your email, address, user ID, maybe your phone number and more. If that is the case, you are likely to be pretty freaked out. Prove it? Prove who it is? You need to be able to get your phone out quickly. Someone could be stalking you to create a reaction out of you. To create chaos. To get you afraid so you are no longer using your rational mind. As I look back on this, I believe, that was the whole point of it. Decisions made in fear are likely to get you just that.

The backpack left outside my window, the stolen things out of my car, the people that were way too curious about me, could have all been coincidental. Then again, if it happens more than once, is it really a coincidence?

These random coincidences had been going on for some time. My reaction? I felt that I was being pushed and scared into leaving. (I later thought it was just to cause chaos, slow me down, put me on edge). I was not going to leave my home. The problem became exacerbated when I started getting visitors at my workplace. (The details are how I knew but would not want to spread this information.) I still was really trying to be logical about it.

It wasn’t until someone told me that there was a rumor that I was suicidal going around that I started to become quite afraid and maybe moving would be good for me. Combine all of this fear and I am thinking how I can protect myself? Another person I think I can trust, encourages me when I tell them I want to buy a gun. They also tell me to post it on Facebook. There is nothing wrong with this, however, I didn’t feel that it was wise. I started seeing the bait. All the stalking was causing the fear. The fear was making me think I needed someone else to fix the problem. I didn’t even see the correlation until later.

If I can get you afraid enough, you will start to see with fear. If you react in fear, it is probably not a good outcome. Fear is bottom level with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This means no creativity.

It is quite possible that I dodged a bullet. It is possible that it was just someone messing with me to get under my skin. The suicidal rumor was when I started taking this more seriously. I don’t think it is something to joke about at all. Period. I started becoming hypervigilant about my passwords, my phone, my keys. I began to look back and see the times my keys went missing a year back and I chalked it up to ‘misplacing them’. I saw the mistakes I made. Lots of mistakes of trusting people and how many people had my passwords. My passwords to banks, track your spending, photos in google (basically every photo taken is ‘backed up’).

You can find out a lot about someone by just following their money. In fact, one of the most influential books in my life, The Power of Habit, really explains how money habits change most under 3 major life events.

When the suicidal rumor was going around, that is when I decided that I wanted to travel. This was a great time to leave and explore what living in another city would be like.

Fast forward a few months, my trip doesn’t go well. There are some good moments, but mostly I was filled with an unexplainable ‘anxiety.’ This ‘anxiety’ is what I would more correctly label as intuition. In fact, my ‘anxiety’ had been getting bad the entire year before. Once I cut certain people out of my life, anxiety disappeared.

In my attempt to feel safe, I desperately, very desperately, reached out to someone. This doesn’t lead to anything and I really felt like I was on my last rope. You would be surprised the depths you can find within yourself when you don’t have someone to lean on. I do believe I was trying to head the messages of my guides and my own intuition. I believe I am really shit out of luck.

At this point, I am technically homeless. (I had left the four walls of my home after my car got broken into when I believed I was getting stalked.) I had moved in with someone to feel ‘safe.’ Because of some other things that happened, I didn’t have a car at this point. I really see the vulnerability of homeless people, which I had already been compassionate of. To put it lightly, I have never felt so afraid. I really don’t know what to do but I decide to call a women’s shelter. This is the reason I am telling the story.

I google the first women’s shelter on my phone, a woman answers. I am upset, crying already. She says something to the effect of how I need to tell her my name, because they require that you have an ID to get in anyway, and prequalify over the phone I suppose. She also asks why I need to get in. I don’t like this, but I am afraid enough, and very desperate, so I comply. I feel that I need help. So, I tell her the story, basically my name, what I know, where I am and why I am calling. (Why do they need your location?) Then she tells me they are full. I am a bit taken aback but I can understand. I ask her advice. She says I can call another women’s shelter. I am still hopeful. I never in my life thought I would need this type of service. I call the next one. Same process: what is your name, what happened, (what do you know), where are you now, and then her answer, ‘we don’t have room.’ This time I am a bit more upset. if I remember right, I get real and tell her, ‘I am not mad at you, but you just asked my personal information, found out where I am, that I am homeless and then, only then, tell me you don’t have room.’ Since I am at her mercy, what would she recommend I do? She tells me I can get a hotel but I would have to give my credit card information away.

I am not even in a relationship and I am having these issues. At this point, I can’t imagine someone that is at the mercy of a shared money situation where it would take a simple login to find out which hotel you are staying in. Most show the location. I found that Air BnB doesn’t. I do think that it can be a problem if you are not using your own name because you are scared. Thinking two steps ahead is necessary. If you leave town to get safe, use a different name and have no other way of being tracked. There is a chance no one can find you, or know’s where you are if you go missing.

I believe I was put in the situation to see these problems. To see and witness this process. She gives me a third shelter to call. I call them. The same thing happens. I am not happy. I am angry. I point out to the woman that only after she finds out my name, where I am, what happened, that I am homeless on the street- she tells me there is no room. Because I am upset, I am not sure how clearly this came out. I also say that I am going to do something about this and I am not some random person on the street. What I really mean is I believe I will be believed and I want to help. I will stick to the facts. I will acknowledge that I was very emotionally upset, but also that I am pretty rational and can point out the facts of the situation. I know the process of ruining someone’s reputation. If you can get someone addicted to drugs, you can discredit them, among other things. In some cities, even drinking publicly could be frowned upon.

It has been almost two years and I am barely finding the courage to revisit these events publicly. I have only the interest in helping people realize they are not alone. People don’t become homeless at random. It seems to be that it is a process, just like it was for me. I have heard the assumption is that they got there by doing drugs, yet here I was homeless and said no to a lot of drugs, wasn’t on drugs. I am seeing the result of all of this. The result of all the manipulation that I went through: I was afraid to reach out to people, I was homeless. I was being offered drugs on the street. I was getting to a very hopeless place that scared me enough to muster some kind of plan to get out of it.

Why should you care? If your son or daughter is involved in a domestic situation and someone is losing control of their emotions, there needs to be a safety net to protect both.

Before I left town, I reached out to my Employee Assistance Program. I am sure they are doing their best with their knowledge, but I was not taken seriously. Before the unfortunate event, before the events leading up to it I called to get help and nothing came of it. (I also called a provider and they didn’t call me back.) I am not mad at any of these people and definitely wouldn’t say who they are because I would not want anyone to misunderstand. What I needed was a safe place. In a matter of one month I went from a rational late 30′ something’s adult professional who was imagining more travel in my life to homeless, hopeless and fearful.

I grabbed myself up by the bootstraps and got a semi permanent home and the next weeks I rested, slept, felt appreciative. It wasn’t until I was safe for some time that the triggers and ‘panic attacks’ started. I don’t believe I had a panic attack before, but once I had one, I can tell you it was a version of it. The nightmares, the replay of the terror, the irrational thoughts of not being safe, luckily I learned not to take action on. I felt them. I was able somehow, with help, to know that my instinct to leave, due to not feeling safe, was absurd, since I was in a home now.

I have heard that you might hide things from yourself until you feel safe. When you feel and believe you are safe, past emotions are safe to resurface. I believe this to be true. That journey is another story.