Radio 4, siblings and housing woes

A reminder that I will be on BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind tonight at 9pm, repeated tomorrow at 4.30pm and you can listen again here after the broadcast.  You’ll also hear Mandy, as we were interviewed together (though apart, she was in Luton.  It was like talking to a hallucination.  Maybe it was a hallucination!  Who knows?) (I see they have spelled my name wrong on the website, argh!  Damn my name!)

Secondly, I’m glad you all seemed to like my article. Hurrah!  I was nervous that people wouldn’t.  I had nightmares of waking up to find, “Up yours, Seaneen!” daubed on my walls.

My sister is flying through the air back to our beleaguered home town as we speak.  It was lovely to see her  but once again I failed to show her the high life of London, given the fact that my high life consists of being excited on the rare occasions that I have enough money to spend on a packet of real cigarettes and not a dry bag of pubes.

In waiting for her visits I always dream this little glittering 80s montage where we’re laughing outside the Tate, our heads are thrown back in mirth on an open top bus and we clink glasses in a trendy bar.  ”The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis usually soundtracks these idylls, by the by.  Or that, “Time of my Life”song from Dirty Dancing.

Instead, we spent most of the time in the living room eating Hob Nobs and watching rubbish TV.   We did go to my friend’s house on Saturday and I took her to the V&A yesterday where we proceeded to spend most of our time in Europe 1600-1800, as the place is so labyrinth that the room seemed to be on an endless loop and we cycled through it over and over like cartoon characters attempting to run from a moustachioed villain.

It’s been too miserable outside to do much else.   Still, we had good times and I like having her around.  It’s nice to just be in the same place as my siblings. I’m not used to people being in my flat, so I’m not exactly the most gracious hostess.  I did make her lots of tea, and she made us dinner (fajitas, which I’d never had before, aptly demonstrating my most bland of palettes).  We talked a bit about daddy but not much.  She has a passport photo of him in his wallet; it’s black and white, he looks like he’s about fifteen.  Young, and free, and long haired and handsome.  That would only have been in the mid seventies.

On Saturday, while a bit drunk and after an argument which I won’t go into but which has snapped me out of something that would have become destructive, I explained to her exactly what happened with that whole big overdose suicide attempt in October.   She’d been asking me if she could come over and check I’m okay since it happened.  I am okay, at the moment, this week anyway, so far. So, two or so days of feeling mentally okay, that’s a good thing for me.

I remember the godawful sickness, the humiliation, nakedness, coldness.    I’ve found it harder to blog since the whole thing, too.  It was so public, it crossed a personal boundary for me.  I feel the need to be more guarded than I used to be, even though everyone was utterly lovely.  I still worry that I will end up killing myself anyway.  It’s not a rational decision and the nature of the beast is its unpredictablity.   I’m not resigned to this, in fact, it’s a horrible and frightening thought for me. It’s nothing you can guarantee against when you’ve been that bad before and when you still aren’t stable, and can’t take any medication that is supposed to help depression.  It means I can never give the assurances that people need.  I can’t say I will never do it, even though the whole shenanigans have put the fear of god into me when it comes to overdoses.  But the intrusive thoughts came back.  (What’s crap is that my head is saying right now, “Aha, you’re alone for a week!  That would be a great time to kill yourself, because no one will find you, or expect you like last time.  Pull the phone out again, lock the cats out with food. Tape up the doors. You have a gas oven.  You can do it this time”.  Which I am trying to ignore.  Ignored it for ten months last time. Thanks, brain).

Evidently Rob worries about it, too.  He refuses to let me delete my ex’s number from my phone because he wants to be able to let him know if “something happens”. But she had a right to know what went on.  I always think it’s best to explain such things as it removes the abstract element and it immediately becomes banal, therefore easier to handle.  The language of suicide is so dramatic.  The reality very much isn’t.  These are ordinary days.

Anyway, suicide, eh?  What fun.

Poor Rob had to have a knee operation today so he’s dosed up with painkillers in the bosom of his family in Leicester and I’ll see him again on Sunday or Monday.  We’re never apart for very long so I will miss him but it’ll do him good to have a break from me, from London and his job.  And to get some sleep and have someone take care of him for a change.

I’m not one of those people who panics when they’re alone.  I like being alone, but with Rob not around, sometimes things fall by the wayside.  It’s shaming to me, but true, that I often need to be reminded to do the most basic of things. I forget to eat, to sleep, to wash, to clean, to turn my phone on, to not walk in front of cars on the road.   It’s not deliberate, it’s just that I tend to forget and I’m often foggy with medication.  Some things don’t seem important, so Rob prompts me to do them since he doesn’t want a smelly, hyper, haggard insomniac for a girlfriend.  During my appointments every week I am mildly told off for not taking proper care of myself.  Still try to write, though, as I think I’d go insane if I didn’t.  It makes me feel that I’m doing something. And I do manage for the most part, it’s just when I’m quite depressed or quite hypomanic or both that it becomes a real problem and I stink and have red rimmed saucer eyes.

I’m struggling to type this, not because of any mental turmoil but because it’s so cold in here that even with my coat, a hat and a hoodie (yes! a hoodie!  I will be shoplifting at a Boots near you) on, I’m still freezing.  My hands are fetching shades of blue, purple, white and red.  I only have a little electric heater to warm the room up, but it’s 3000w, which is like having 30 lightbulbs on all at once, which is lunacy, and frankly, I can’t afford it and am trying not to think about my electric and gas bill.  I have the awful feeling I’m going to open it up and it will just read, “£allyourmoney”. And it’s Christmas so money is being kept aside for presents, and I still have no idea what to get Rob or my mum!  My mum’s going to end up with a bath set, I know she is.  I am absolutely crap at buying people presents.  But who doesn’t like to smell nice, eh?  I like bath sets!

Housing woes seem to be central to my existence.

In October 2006, I was living in a cosy, albeit somewhat ramshackle, one bedroom flat with my boyfriend. Then lo and behold, the psychotic mental breakdown that I’d been having culminated in a hospital admission.  Cycling through the wringer of ten years of untreated mental illness had to end some time.

For a long time, I’d been struggling through a series of temp jobs that I was too ill to do. I’d been working since I was seventeen.  After being released from hospital, I took, and was fired from, seven jobs in just over six months. It was clear that I had to stop working and start claiming benefits so that I could actually be treated for and attempt to recover from it all.  I couldn’t claim benefits to help with rent or anything else while living with Rob.

I had no choice but to take flight from my cohabiting existence and begin the soul destroying search for single bedsits. It was the kindest thing to do. At least on my own, it’s only me that could become homeless.

I had to move quickly. I had a minute deposit and had only just received the minimum of benefits. I saw a flat that proudly displayed rat poison alongside white goods (brand new), I saw another that advertised “outside space”, which turned out to be a larger-than-average window ledge which almost guaranteed death should one attempt to use it.

I eventually took the only place that I could afford. I moved into filthy a tiny bedsit. It had a “kitchenette”, single glazing and no heating, but I was in such a rush to move and hey, it was summer, who needs heating anyway?

It lay on a main road so that every night I’d try to sleep (on the double bed without a mattress) amongst the cacophony of sirens and clip clopping heels. It also boasted a broken window that would be fixed, honest. I survived the summer. Then winter came. The room ran on a coin meter and I chucked in six pounds a day to power a tiny fan heater that made almost no impression upon the Arctic air. Although I’d taped the broken window up, wind and rain would still leak through, and I’d awake drenched and in agony as my muscles rigour mortised due to the cold. The window was never fixed, despite my pleading and I couldn’t afford to keep the heater on so I’d sit stock still on the floor with a duvet, too cold and depressed to move.

It didn’t help that I’m mentally ill and had been experiencing psychotic episodes while I lived there. Often, I would be paranoid and fearful, convinced the others in the house would try to hurt me. I had the door locked constantly and could barely use the bathroom out of paranoia. So I ended up going in the sink to avoid running into people. Glamorous. You’d be surprised how difficult it is a for a woman to pee in the sink. It involves bending worthy of Olympic athletes. Or I’d end up on Rob’s doorstep, even though we’d been split up since I’d moved out (we got back together), panicked and terrified.

I paid £120 a week for the privilege of living there. That £120 a week could have been spent on more pleasurable pursuits like, I don’t know, being kicked in the face over and over again. The landlords had advertised the flat as “all inclusive”. It wasn’t. After nine months of living there, a council tax bill plopped onto the welcome mat. Of course I had no idea how to afford it.

I stayed in the flat for a year. When I announced my plans to move out, the previously affable landlords turned nasty. It had better be mint, they said. There’s a broken window, I said. I’ve been asking you to fix it for months. And the flat was a tip when I moved in. I didn’t have a mattress until last month. Doesn’t matter, they replied. Make it mint. I did try. Rob and I cleaned it from top to bottom, even scrubbing the walls. I stuck my head inside the oven, I got on my hands and knees with a toothbrush and I shampooed the carpet.

Alas, short of turning water into gold there is nothing you can do to impress crooked landlords. So they stole my deposit and left me to borrow sums of money in order to avoid homelessness. So began the next round of looking for somewhere to sleep.

At this point, I was supported by the community mental health team and we’d discovered something helpful: I was on the Severe Disability Premium so, even though I was under twenty five, I was entitled to a one bedroom flat. This was revelatory to me, as, living with a psychotic mental illness and being covered in self harm scars, sharing accommodation was fairly hellish for me. I was a prisoner in my own room.

Most landlords don’t accept people on benefits despite the fact that if you’re long term ill like I am your payments will be like clockwork. They automatically assume that we’re crackheads. Who can afford crack on Income Support? I can barely afford cigarettes.  I budget like a bastard to live. So there’s a little bit of sleight of hand going on. You can give them your bank statements, but just the first page so they don’t see that “DWP” pays you every four weeks. You might think the landlords don’t know you’re lying about your references. They know. Landlords are like Labradors; they smell fear. All your studied nonchalance when inspecting cupboards for insect infestation comes to naught. This is the first flat you’ve seen, and it’s going to be the last because it’s so incredibly stressful keeping up the lie. The landlord will pressure you to take it because they know you’re lying. So even if this place doesn’t have heating…well, the cycle begins again.

And that’s where I am today. Another overpriced, unheated flat but at least this one doesn’t have a broken window. At least I’m not homeless.  And in lots of ways I’m lucky. Housing is my biggest worry. I’m being kicked out of here in April and somehow, I have to scrape together another deposit (and I save as much as I can, so it will help). Having some sort of stability would be nice.

I’m still not back at work because I’m still too ill to be working.   Until I’m not, I’m in stasis. I can’t live with my boyfriend again because I’ll lose my benefits. And even then, even when I become well enough to hold down a job, what happens if I become suddenly ill again and I find myself, once more, unable to keep up my rent payments? Will I become homeless? I have only just avoided it in the past due to the kindness of others. But you can’t depend on kindness.

It seems that adequate housing as a privilege, not a right. If it were a right, there would be no homeless people on the streets. If it were a right, landlords would not be allowed to exploit tenants by forcing them to live in substandard hovels. If it were a right, the parasites who buy council housing to sell to people who can afford it would rightly stopped so that that housing could serve its purpose: giving homes to people who desperately need them.

Even on Mental Nurse I’ve seen people get on their high horse about housing.  I think everyone should have a home, not just a room.  The odd thing is that the class system has changed; the model of working classes living in council houses, and that (snobby ideal of it) being the lowest of the low is no more.  There’s an underclass now, those in bedsits and shared accommodation without any space or privacy, who are at the mercy of bastard landlords. If you live with your friends it’s alright, otherwise, sometimes it’s not fun, but the stories of my scary housemates is for another time…

I really have no idea what I’m going to do next year when I have to leave this flat.  I’m sure I’ll sort something out.  I know I’m in a far better situation than I was.

Maybe I could ressurrect my Catholicism and move into a convent.  Then smoking won’t be my only habit.

(Sorry).