Hi anita,

Yes all the questioning at the council was because they needed to place me somewhere and the flat is clean and safe. I was also referred to a support worker, I think the council sensed my stress and wanted to help. But these things aren’t always so simple and I again had to do more paperwork. I needed to access what support I needed and asked if I use drugs (which I do not) drink etc. I don’t know it made me feel very low. Like what has my life come too!!

I wanted so much for my life, I never envisaged that in my 30’s I would be registered homeless and a lone parent, particularly when a lot of friends have a job, or a home , or a father in there child’s life. It is not just that though, friends that I have here have been very caring, we are at another friends now while she is away for a week, and they care very much about us.  I wish I could have gone from my last place to somewhere to reflect on exactly what I want and how I want to live out motherhood both for myself and my child. But I also was worried what if I find it all too much, what if I find that the support I have here is better than somewhere else. And choices to get up and go  become harder. I have done so much paperwork with the benefit system that I do not know even what I want anymore. Maybe I am filled with the stress of the last place anyway and now having gone through all the council stuff it has been too much for me, I don’t know. How do you lift yourself high and detach yourself from your circumstance enough to go forward.  A friend has said that I should speak to someone who know the experience of stress and housing etc and see how I can improve my self esteem and confidence after such an experience. I also am aware that my emotional bucket is full and I need to find ways to let go of all the emotion.  I need to have the strength to have gone through rock bottom to move forward to a better life for myself and my son. Every thing feels very much up in the air I suppose, the council have said they will have to put me in temporary accommodation form next week as the council flat is not ready for another three weeks, another set back. I am so down at the moment, sorry to be so , thankyou for listening Lynda

Anita thank you ! This is very helpful and I am learning so much from communicating from you !! Lynda

Hi anita,

I honestly don’t know  if I am going in the right direction, I want to make tomorrow better than today but these past few days have been very hard. I have an awful feeling in my stomach. I have been staying with friends who know my homeless situation and helped and said I could stay with them till my council flat comes through, but  its been so hard. I am not excited at all about moving in. Where as my friend is trying to be there and wants to go shopping for things for the flat. But A) I want to save my money as I am not sure I want to be in the flat long, I still feel like I do not want to go there and B) the little money I have I want to save to explore the co operative idea. I have just de cluttered  from my last place and wanted to in the future not buy much at all. The keys are ready tomorrow to the flat and when I pick them up the council have also said I will need to go on universal credit instead of claiming housing benefit as they do not do it anymore. I feel like I am going further into a system I do not want to be part of.

I have such mixed feeling about the move because my head is in the co operatives idea and I now feel I should of taken the leap weeks ago and just have gone to a co operative to volunteer and then seen what happened from there. My head is all over the place.  I am finding it hard to find the joy in this move and to feel its a way forward. I want to be around people and to be exploring a life, meeting someone to share my life with. I have had nowhere to completely relax these past few weeks but at the same time am not looking forward to being on my own. I am just not excited about the move and feel like I want to be somewhere else, I feel like I just want to walk and not stop.

I think leaving my flat was the start of a path to changing my life and it was the right thing to do. I just wish I had had the confidence to maybe take a leap of faith again. I feel really scared and my stomach feels ill. Maybe the flat will be a good thing as it will give me time to think but my heart is still in exploring co operatives and I have been arranging going to visit a few as an initial introduction to it, but I think friends are seeing it as I am settling in my flat where I am going and I feel a bit guilty, because they are good people and want the best but I feel like I cannot even make long term plans here, and I suppose do not want to, and feel I cannot commit to anything long term as I feel I do not know yet where I want to be ,I just want to change my life and meet new people and see what is out there.

Thank you for listening Lynda

Hi Anita,

I think my friends do understand the idea its more been there has been no where I can stay to fully get the co operative idea going, I would of needed a lot support in terms of them being ok for me to stay with them for a while and going and coming back a few times to see the co operative. Everything has been so last minute and the friends I have stayed with have had children, partners etc. I did not want to jump into a co operative and leave everything behind because if something happened I was worried I would have been in a scary situation, esp with being on low income. I have had to make quick decisions I think.

The co op idea could happen very soon and its about talking to the right people which I am doing and also learning more about it, which is why I am looking into volunteering. My friends I think are looking at my situation now and trying to help and I maybe have not been honest enough with them that I really want to explore the co op but I feel like I cant just keeping jumping from friends to friends as its not fair. But I think I am also sad that I feel the way I do and emotional. I feel like I want to keep my friends happy by having a date and place to were I am moving but I also have wanted to resist anything permanent here.  I have wanted a think just the space to relax.

Maybe the co op idea is not practical straight away, but I so wish it was ! I do not want to let the friends down who have helped me stay with them and are helping me gather bits and pieces for this flat, I feel like I am in too deep really. And with me just staying with them I have felt the pressure to move fast, I suppose.

I think it would also have been a risk to spend the little money I had left to travel to a co op and for it not to go through.

I have spoken to a few co operatives that are looking for members this week and one has said I can visit for a few days and see what everything is like and another has said I can come and look too.

Its just having somewhere to come back too I think, and maybe I have that now , I don’t know

Lynda

Hi Anita,

I wish I had been more honest with my friends in the beginning and really asked for there help in this regard and had the courage to look for co ops straight away. I have stayed with various friends and a friend I was staying with a few weeks ago, I did speak about the co op idea and she did say that I could go and see one and then come back, but it very much felt like she was getting pressure from her husband as to how long I was staying, were I am staying now is her friend and so I have felt a little out of place here and scared of going back to the council for emergency accommodation they kind of saved me from that and they are really kind people and I think just wanted me to find somewhere secure.

I have spoken to them about the furniture and also about my feelings towards the apartment and that as I was staying last minute I did not want to be a burden on them.

I feel I have gone along with other people and not spoke up for myself and been more honest, who I am staying with did ask me why I did not want the flat long term, and she did not really understand my answer.

I should have been more honest but at least I can learn from this. and will try to not let others take over which is a little as to what has happened, everyday since I have been here they have asked “if I have heard from the council” and what about this and that, and what the process is with the flat…etc and I suppose I did not want to upset anyone.

It has upset me a little all there questioning and trying to take control and about how they feel a flat would be better but at least I have been honest.

thank you for the advice in regard to my anxiety that has really helped and being honest with friends.  I am going to collect my keys shortly for the flat and will let you know the out come

Lynda

hi Anita,

I have moved into the council flat, it is all very new and a new area so its very different to what I am used too! I have looked at our last few exchanges and I have realised like you say to be honest not only to my friends but also to myself.

sometimes I am scared, I still feel sick about the move and were I am, why I do not know, and there is also something inside me that does not want to settle here.

The council handed the keys over to me last time we spoke and I felt a bit sick going into the flat, the walls are all plastered (no paint or wallpaper) and there is no flooring carpet etc. I stayed one night and then go a coach to a co op in Glastonbury who were looking for volunteers. In my head I thought ” I just want to get away” and so even though there was still lots to do and I didn’t really have time to organise packing everything, I thought I have to just go! So we got the coach to the co op. It has members that live there and also there was a few volunteers to help with the house. When I arrived there , I was not sure I was doing the right thing, I thought “maybe it is best I had come once I felt more myself” so the first few days I was not very social and kept myself to myself. But then I thought well even if I am a bit mixed up at the moment I am here so make the most of it. Anyway the people there live as a family , there are other children, and they practice gentle parenting which is very much what I believe. So everyone was patient with my son and he made great friends. They also share the childcare so I was able to do a dance workshop that goes on in the house every weekend, and I made some real bonds with the people there .

One of the ladies that was volunteering decided to leave back to Spain and we had an honest chat, she was talking about how it is important to follow your heart, and to trust yourself and to also know that everything is going to ok. I told her about my situation and said ” but I don’t know if I have made the right decisions and I don’t want to go back to my flat, but feel like I want to be around people but feel like I am not able to make a choice at the moment. And I just feel fear and maybe I should start trusting” I started to cry and she said ” maybe you just need to breathe for a while and find what it is you want, and its ok to change your mind, but to look inside of me and stop looking outside at others and that the answers are inside of me”. She said I should start to meditate.

I came back Wednesday, and am still slightly confused as to how much I invest in the flat? Do I paint the walls etc etc. But accessing myself by being honest with myself is the first thing and when I do that I can be honest with my friends and others ….who are wanting to help with this flat by giving me furniture and helping painting etc but who possibly don’t know how I am feeling.

Being on my own back at the flat for a few days I noticed that I could make a life here but it depends on whether I want to  and it is really is that simple, even if my emotions are all over the place at the moment. It is hard to be alone with a child and so maybe a co op would be better.

I am finding it hard to get me time at the moment so am going to focus on that.

The man who owns the co op in Glastonbury has also asked us if we want to go back to visit again and that we are a joy to be around so I may do that in the coming weeks.

Much love Lynda

Thank you Anita, I will be kind to my inner child , and I will talk to her! Tell her that I am safe and what it is I need to do ! I did feel like I was around people who I felt were creative like me at the co op and had the same ideals I was also able to be spiritual in my needs and what it is I want to do ! Lynda

Hi anita,

I was just looking at our last few exchanges, particularly the being honest with friends. I have been feeling and what I think is coming to light is this thing I have been having of accepting myself for who I am and I think the “being honest with friends” maybe has also coincided with being honest with myself too. I seem to get into situations where explaining myself becomes too complicated and I have feelings of overwhelm and that I cannot breathe.  I have come to the position of I need to just slow down, to just slow down and breathe…..best I can. Once I do this and I will not get into such a mess, to just sit and like you have said before to sit and breathe. The second thing is that I am scared of intimacy I think, do I stand still enough to be present in front of someone, and say who I am, mistakes I have made, what I have done. To not be agreeable all the time and to not want to just be what everyone wanst me to be. Because I am guessing whatever situation someone has gone through if they have carried on regardless to get up every day then that only shows strength in someone, so why do I go speechless and cannot find my voice when someone asks a question about my life or do I blow over it or pretend to be ok when I am struggling.

If I had of just stood and presented myself for who I am, slowed down, been truthful.

Very much needs doing to the flat, wallpapering etc but that’s not a stress, it will get done when it is done. What is very evident to me is that I am living without a life!! No wonder I find it difficult being a mum when all the focus on everything when myself and my 4 year old son is at home is on him. and vice -versa, for him no wonder he continually wants my attention. I need to have a life again, am desperate for it. And being honest is the way to go.

I have a chance to go for a camping trip next week with my son, which I am hoping will be good.  Although after a period of being at the flat my motivation goes down and I think once I am there, meeting new people my motivation will go back up again!

I am at least seeing some kind of light I feel, an old university friend (male) has got back in touch with me via face book. He always asks how I am, which of course is very attractive, he is single. I was excited that he had got back in touch with me after 8 years, I left university before completing the course and he has said he was gutted I left and that he has always had a soft spot for me. It is always so nice to hear from him when he sends me a message via Facebook and he lives not far from where myself and my son are going camping. And we have arranged to meet up. It would be lovely to meet up just the two of us and have a babysitter for my son, and I rushed into the excitement of it and said we could go out together when I am down and I would get a babysitter so we could talk. And last night I thought….why did I say that!!! I think its a need in me to make excuses for my situation possibly, to please someone. I don’t know….But the reality is  that my son needs me when we go away together and while it would be nice to spend time alone with someone and talk, I do not have to be apologetic either. Its difficult to spread my attention while meeting up being with my son but also I have given a false impression to him of my situation. and if I am not presenting myself honestly to someone then it will not go anywhere anyway ….and what is the rush!! I suppose its a need in me to be with someone and lightly chatting with someone online is not always the same as the intimacy of meeting with someone and talking.

Anyway…I have been thinking of all this this evening…..

Lynda