Counseling Cattle Call, PTSD, Rank Vaginas, Disrespect, Lies About Housing, So Sick of the BS

I tried to figure out how to put a bubble over the cat which says 'those bastards'.

Over the last year this was me writing about my experiences at the Interfaith Sanctuary. Sometimes I was too traumatized to write and sometimes too sick or both. Right now I am so sick of all of it, the bullying, the lies, the constantly changing rules, not being told the rules have changed, the gaslighting,the negative effects on my health, the lack of caring from city hall, the filth, the viruses, the noise, the women who don't bathe and have rank smelling vaginas that waft into my bunk causing gagging and the egocentric lack of common courtesy such as talking on their phones after lights out or early while others are trying to sleep. The noise level and the foul body odors in the dorm are just unbelievable, instead of talking many yell like they are putting on a show. Oh the drama over nothing or based on poor judgment. They have policies that spread the viruses quite efficiently, "That's how we've always done it." If I mention I have a defective immune system and so do others they immediately start discounting my concerns which are very valid.

Then there is the BS from the director Dan about how there is housing for the homeless all over Boise. He says he finds someone housing "every day." I asked for a list of those landlords, so far haven't gotten one. Then more BS. Since Dan was getting on my nerves I began giving him PTSD ranting versions of my stories so he asked me if I wanted counseling. Don't make me start the ranting stories about trying to get counseling for PTSD since 2005. I haven't even started about what happened in New Mexico or why I left Alaska a story that is very hard to believe but true. I saw a very good psycholigist here from Maryland, but the constant changing of my appointments and other issues ended that. I saw a lovely woman at CWA who left the agency, but the second one told me since I read books and was resourceful I did not need counseling, yea she really did say that to a former RN and while psych was not my primary specialty it was one of them. Total BS. This is what goes on.

The crazy community clinics in Alaska did not even call back in three places. The misdiagnoses because don't they always have those poorly trained social workers who don't have the education and experience to diagnose people in those clinics. They are utterly clueless. Then on top of it I have neurological issues that make sorting out what is going on the job of a psychiatrist, not an incompetent social worker or psychologist. Every place a different misdiagnosis, then the same story has played out here. I was suicidal  in Alaska for the second time which BTW is SOP due to the abuse and horrible conditions and what you have to observe happening to others, the corrupt government, the massive drunks and corrupt/inept law enforcement and the massive bullies. This social worker...get this...tells me it would be OK to hitch hike from Homer Alaska to Anchorage while suicidal because I was not young and beautiful. I said, "That's a crazy thing to say to a patient. She then bolted out of the room, never saw that crazy woman again, she is probably doing some crazy thing with a patient right now. I worked with psychopaths, some of them prey on older women and other types of predatory individuals target whoever they may see as vulnerable. I was trying to get to a program in Anchorage where to my surprise the psychiatrists were able to diagnose me with something that made sense. They also told me I needed to write a book, now I have material for two or three books. Having been a supervisor of an acute adult psych unit I was well aware of what my diagnoses were before going there and it is super obvious. But that does not stop hacks at the incompetent clinic for the homeless, Terry Reilly from making two misdiagnoses within five minutes of my arriving. Neither of them could have been made even if he had spent and hour with me while being way out of his area of expertise. They fired me as a patient and I will be writing more about that.

Dan told me this Affinity Inc has someone he can get me an appointment with and I ask if they have anything to do with Terry Reilly. He says no. Then the students tell me there is an appointment made for me on Monday at 8 AM. I had something to do that morning, but did not do it to go. I already knew it was probably going to not work out as nothing ever does with any of these agencies that "help" the homeless. I even told someone she will either not show up or be late and I can't take anymore of this crap. It is never about helping the homeless, it is about managing us, pathologizing us and criminalizing us. So I leave for a while and go back to the shelter a little early. While waiting, a few minutes before she was supposed to be there staff tells me she called to say she was coming. I ask what that means, is she going to be late...what? He doesn't know. I waited a while, then another person showed up obviously to meet with her. Then I say, "Oh, I see, this is a cattle call." And yes it was apparently more people showed up after I left saying, "How do I get out of this gulog?" I AM SO SICK OF BEING TREATED IN A DISRESPECTFUL WAY BY EVERYONE BECAUSE THE HOMELESS ARE NOT SEEN AS EVEN BEING HUMAN. I worked my whole life since high school with health problems until the abusive policies of this country and Alaska mostly affecting the Native people gave me PTSD.

What I needed long ago was housing and to not be exposed to the abuse and trauma that continues, layer upon layer here in 'Merica. I need to get the hell away from all these people who make very bad decisions that harm me. I need to do the things that treat ME/cfs, be able to sleep, eat healthy food, have some peace. I thought the problems in Alaska were due to it being backwards, but the same abuse, the same filth, the same lack of competent health care and the same lack of housing is here in Idaho. The treatment that works for PTSD is to give the person control of their life, but instead we get trauma piled on top of trauma for years on end. At the shelter we have no control, even though they put up a sign that says only we can control the rest of our lives.

The bad behavior of some of the women is not supervised so that limits choices even further. I have better judgment than all the staff put together, but am not allowed to make my own choices about housing, toxic chemicals, protecting myself from viruses, protecting myself from second hand cigarette smoke, protecting myself from sociopaths, toxic people and more. Even what I bring in for personal hygiene is controlled. I can't even use a hair drier. I cant write at night. I can't do the things I normally do, nothing. I can't even read a fucking book at night due to the junior high slumber party in the dorm every night and it has gotten horrible. There was a ban on books at one point, but that only lasted 24 hours. Can you even imagine such a thing? All this goes on while the rank va-jay-jay odor wafts into my bunk. I have complained about that odor every day for weeks now and it just gets worse. It has been an ongoing problem over the last year and the shower policy went from Nazi to nada without a word being said with regard to changing. Excusifying is the response to complaints.

I saw the police harassing people who were sleeping outside. One said they gave them tickets. That day I walked by and said to the cop the reason they are out here is the shelters are hell holes. There are other reasons people sleep in cars or outside, but day in and day out the craziness, the abuse and putting your property in danger of being thrown away or stolen makes the Interfaith Sanctuary a torture chamber of trauma. That shelter is crazy making. It makes mentally healthy people nuts, so imagine the effect it has on the mentally ill.

No social or revolutionary movement succeeds without a core of people who will not betray their vision and their principles. They are the building blocks of social change. They are our only hope for a viable socialism. They are willing to spend their lives as political outcasts. They are willing to endure repression. They will not sell out the oppressed and the poor. They know that you stand with all of the oppressed—people of color in our prisons and marginal communities, the poor, unemployed workers, our LGBT community, undocumented workers, the mentally ill and the Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans whom we terrorize and murder—or you stand with none of the oppressed. They know when you fight for the oppressed you get treated like the oppressed. They know this is the cost of the moral life, a life that is not abandoned even if means you are destined to spend generations wandering in the wilderness, even if you are destined to fail. Chris Hedges