Dear Nichole:

I hope you did get some sleep. I can’t have you live with me, Nichole. I have the space but I don’t have the resources that it will take: arranging for your medical and psychiatric care here, as well as psychotherapy, going with you to those appointments and talking to the doctors and therapist who will see you so to figure out a plan of healing for you. Seeing that you take your medication as prescribed, knowing what to do if you refuse (we don’t have the legal right to force you), learning what to do when you get angry at us, what do we do then….? And so much more.

It reminds me of a women’s shelter where I lived for a very short time, that could be an arrangement for you: it was a house in a nice location, by the ocean, had many rooms, adult women, some with children shared the rooms, food was provided, no rent to pay, meals would be cooked by the women, sitting together to eat, a counselor or two visited every day to talk to individual women about their life situation, all this was paid by donations.

I wonder if such a place exists in Chicago.

anita