If you somehow managed to read my last post, first of all thank you, second of all congratulations! It was long and really not my best work for various reasons. But I got sick of trying to rewrite it and make it more Christian-y or Bible-y. I just wanted to get the last three years on the record so I could try to start the process of moving on.
But.
I really need to talk about the part in the middle of the story, where I was living with the woman I referred to as Elderly Roomie. (Spoiler alert, this one’s long too.)
How It Started
In the autumn of 2022, I was unemployed and facing homelessness AGAIN. My mental health was in shreds. I hadn’t been able to find work, even gig work, in no small part due to a major natural disaster in my area. My savings had run out, and I sadly informed my very nice landlords that I couldn’t pay the rent. Rather than evict me, we reached an agreement whereby they would utilize my security deposits for final rent, and I would voluntarily leave the home by December 1st.
I decided it was finally time to kill myself. I still had The Stuff, so I unpacked it and scheduled my demise for November 30, 2022.
Intervention
Everyone I knew locally had ghosted me. But one friend, a woman in another state whom I’ve known online for nearly twenty years, stayed in touch. I’m calling her Miss R. She realized what was about to happen to me, and she started making phone calls. She knew a married couple in my neighborhood, who used to live in her state. Miss R gave them a thumbnail sketch: “My friend C is a fellow Christian in your neck of the woods. She lost her job and she’s about to be homeless. Can you help?”
I talked to Miss R’s friend, the wife. The wife made her own calls. She connected me with a woman in leadership at their church. More calls were made. That woman connected me to an elderly lady in their church who had a spare room.
This was a DAY before my scheduled suicide.
I went to meet this elderly lady. We talked about my situation, in broad strokes. I told her that if she allowed me to stay with her, I would contribute to the household with my food stamps, since I had no job, and she was retired and on a fixed income. I offered to help out around the house, too, as she was disabled (she got around okay, but some things were challenging for her). She agreed to let me have the spare room. We did NOT discuss the length of my stay. But I was grateful.
There were red flags from the start. But because Elderly Roomie was a Good Little Christian™ who did a good deed for me, I forced myself to ignore them.
Red Flag Number One: The Mold
Elderly Roomie lived in a 55+ mobile home park (a community where everybody’s at least age 55, no kids allowed). And mobile homes aren’t always up to the task when a Category 5 hurricane like Ian rolls through. Elderly Roomie’s roof was badly damaged; it was tarped and waiting for repairs. And there was very obvious mold in the ceiling.
But, and I still can’t even believe this actually happened, Elderly Roomie insisted that the black sludge in the ceiling of the hurricane-damaged home with the half-ripped-off roof…was not mold. She claimed that she, herself, was highly allergic to mold. And she was having no respiratory problems at all, therefore it couldn’t possibly be mold.
Elderly Roomie remained firm on this, undeterred by the fact that as soon as I moved in, I got extremely sick. Fever, horrible cough, constant trouble breathing. It lasted a long time, though I dutifully attempted to apply for jobs anyway. I begged her to get a free mold inspection. (After a hurricane, there are always mold remediation companies offering such free services.) She refused to even consider it. The obvious mold was not mold, because she wasn’t sick, end of discussion.
I wish I had moved out. But I believed I wouldn’t survive living in my car again. And Elderly Roomie was a Good Little Christian™ who let me stay in her home rent-free. If I turned up my nose at her moldy roof, that would be ungrateful. Right? God had intervened to save my life when I planned to end it. People had gone out of their way to find me a safe place to stay so I wouldn’t be homeless. “Beggars can’t be choosers!”
Red Flag Number Two: The Bed
Elderly Roomie had charitably given the use of her spare room before, to another girl. And she made a point of telling me that this previous girl would not make her bed. It quickly became clear that Elderly Roomie had a specific hang-up about this. She was one of those old ladies who liked to keep her house Just So, which of course is not a problem in itself.
But, I’ve come to learn, I myself have a neurosis of my own about being told to make my bed. I suspect it’s because “Make your bed or else” is a requirement in institutional settings, like the group home I spent a year in as a kid, or the homeless shelters I’ve stayed in. Presumably it’s the same in prison.
Regardless of why I am the way I am, I was also VERY PHYSICALLY SICK, as well as struggling greatly with my depression, exacerbated by the circumstances of having lost my home AGAIN, and my failure to find a job. I tried to make my bed for a while, but I just couldn’t keep up with it. Yes, it was that difficult for me. And the sight of the bedspread in a rumpled state (or, God forbid, me sitting on it) in my room caused spasms in Elderly Roomie. She clearly believed she was showing extraordinary restraint, but it was obvious that I was triggering something deep in her.
Red Flag Number Three: The Food
I suspect Elderly Roomie had some “food insecurity” as a result of a difficult childhood. She had also had weight loss surgery in recent years. She was no longer physically capable of eating large amounts, but her refrigerator and freezer were jammed with huge, rather ludicrous quantities. Like me, she hated to waste food; like me (and my own mother), she had a tendency to hang onto food that was “perfectly good,” past the point where it was actually good.
Now, I love to cook. In the absence of therapy and/or antidepressants, cooking a delicious meal is something that always lifts my spirits, and I was anxious to share this with Elderly Roomie. Food might be one of my “love languages” in that regard. Few things make me happier than when I cook something and another person finds it delicious. So I frequently made a number of my favorite signature dishes to share with Elderly Roomie, and she actually enjoyed most of them. But she chafed hard whenever I chose to cook something fresh, instead of using up the seemingly-bottomless leftovers in the fridge. Over time, her frustration with my refusal to eat her (poorly-sealed, sometimes disgusting) scraps before making something new became more and more pronounced.
In addition to her fixation on the leftovers, she also displayed increasing levels of resource guarding. If you’ve ever worked with dogs, you know that resource guarding is when an animal viciously snaps and snarls because they think you’re going to take their precious food away. This analogy may seem unkind, but it is apt. Here’s an example:
The Cool Whip Story
One Sunday, Elderly Roomie and I were in the kitchen discussing that day’s sermon (we always went to church separately; I preferred the early service, she liked to sleep in). We were enjoying a brief spiritual discussion. While we talked, I took a dessert out of the refrigerator, a small parfait she had made for me. And then I took out a container of Cool Whip and added a couple of spoonfuls.
Elderly Roomie saw what I was doing and stopped mid-sentence. She froze in place, open-mouthed, standing there in shock and horror. Staring at me. In the middle of a conversation about the Lord, she lost all thought of everything except my EFFRONTERY. “You know there’s Cool Whip in it, right?” she sputtered. I replied yes, I knew, but I just wanted a little extra. “But I was saving that,” she continued to sputter. She then made a quick exit, presumably in a futile effort to control herself.
I’ll remind you, dear reader, that I was on food stamps. I was happy to grocery shop for both of us, especially since she was disabled. There was a shopping list in the kitchen. If she added “Cool Whip” to it, I would’ve gladly bought more for her. By the way, this wasn’t even name-brand Cool Whip. It was generic.
NOT unicorn testicles, or some other rare, exotic delicacy you can only get two weeks out of the year from the foreign black market. Off-brand Cool Whip.
For the record, I never kept score. She didn’t need to ask if she wanted to use one of “my” onions. In fact, on several occasions I gave her my food card and PIN so she could shop for what she wanted after church. I did. Not. Care. But Elderly Roomie very much cared.
Red Flag Number Four: The “Gifts”
In case you need to hear this:
A gift is not a favor. If you’re giving someone “gifts” while running up a tab in their name, those are not gifts.
Elderly Roomie (on a fixed income!) did spend money on me. She bought things I never asked for, that she decided would “help” me. Some examples of her largesse:
- She took me thrift shopping for job interview outfits: Two pairs of used khaki pants and a blouse.
- When I was helping another lady with odd jobs, Elderly Roomie ordered me two moisture-wicking shirts. (I was sweating excessively, and it disgusted her.) (Sidebar: Old people are always cold and don’t use their air conditioning. It’s a thing.)
- While refusing to get a FREE mold inspection, with my constant breathing problems and headaches, she ordered an air purifier for my room. She also provided essential oils and supplements to help my respiratory distress. (None of it helped.)
- She bought me new sneakers, and made me throw my old (dirty, unacceptable) ones away.
- Via Groupon, she got me an oil change (then had a cow when oil dripped onto her driveway, so she sent me back twice to make them “fix” it).
- At Christmastime, she gave me a blanket with dogs on it (she hated pets; that probably should’ve been Red Flag Zero).
Again, I didn’t ask for these things. Still, I was grateful, but not grateful enough. For example, the khakis. I put them away and wouldn’t wear them until I got an interview. But Elderly Roomie got it into her head that I should wear them to church. I refused; I wanted to keep them as new as possible until I could use them for their intended purpose. We had several conversations about this, but she was not only uncomprehending, she was angry. We didn’t even attend services together, but she acted like I was embarrassing her.
Red Flag Number Five: Her Memory
Elderly Roomie’s mother had had dementia. Horrifying to witness in someone you love. As a result, Elderly Roomie was rather paranoid about her own neurological issues. She knew she was starting to have memory problems, and was receiving health care to monitor it. Unfortunately, she became extremely defensive any time I had to point out that something was not as she remembered it. I tried very hard to be sensitive about this. But when her memory was telling her something about ME that was not true, I needed to defend myself.
This played out in a number of arguments about conversations we had previously had. One example: She picked another fight with me about the pants. I reminded her that those khakis were for job interviews and I wouldn’t wear them to church. She retorted that I wasn’t getting any interviews, and then bizarrely claimed that I had said “All job interviews are online now anyway.” What? I never said any such thing. Job APPLICATIONS are online, but job INTERVIEWS are still usually in person. But she insisted with agitation that I had indeed said this to her.
Another time, we nearly came to blows over potatoes. She claimed that I had boiled some, and was chastising me for not putting them away. I hadn’t boiled them; I almost never boil potatoes. I usually cook them in the oven. She became so agitated, she grabbed a potato and started stabbing it violently with a fork in an effort to prove that I had cooked them. She was quickly abashed when she realized she was stabbing a raw potato.
Fights like these became more and more frequent. I did my best to “pick my battles” (sigh), but when I’m falsely accused, I must speak up.
The Downward Spiral
Weeks rolled by while I tried to do what I could. I applied for jobs, and worked whatever small gigs I could find (there weren’t many). I went to church every Sunday, and tried to participate in occasional church activities. And at home, I tried to be a good housemate.
Elderly roomie and I watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy every weeknight. We found a new cop show that we both loved and looked forward to each week. Her out-of-state grandson played basketball and we watched his games together. When she needed tech support with the TV or other appliances, I helped. I fixed a few doodads around the house, opened jars for her, lifted boxes, got down on the floor to replace the refrigerator filter, stuff like that. My physical health was declining, but I was happy to be useful, especially since I couldn’t find work.
I truly was trying. It’s not like I was walking around complaining about the lack of air conditioning. I thanked her frequently. For Christmas, I gave her a notebook I designed myself with her favorite Bible verse. But her neuroses clashed with mine more and more, and the things she wanted me to do — make the bed, wear the khakis to church, eat the leftover goulash in an unsealed plastic bag — were just too much for me. She began losing her composure, snapping at me and being passive-aggressive whenever I was in range. I started hiding in my room, avoiding her. Month after month, I remained without a job. When I did get gigs, I did the right thing and chipped in towards Elderly Roomie’s electric bill, but it was never enough. She found it harder and harder to tolerate my presence.
So naturally, she told me I had to leave.
I remember the conversation well. She had prepped for it, referring to her notes. “I had no idea this was going to go on this long,” she said. “I thought it was only going to be for a couple of months.”
(Sidebar: Elderly Roomie knew that I was unemployed and had been forced to leave my home because I had no money. Even if I had suddenly acquired a good job as soon as I moved in with her, I never could have gotten my own place in only two months. I was starting over from literally zero. How does math?)
At any rate, she gave me a date for when I would need to be gone. I politely agreed, since by this point I was relieved to be getting away from her. Yes, I was HAPPY that I would soon be living in my car again. Florida summer was fast approaching, but life with Elderly Roomie had left me so fearful, twitchy, emotionally exhausted, and physically sick from long-term mold exposure that I was GLAD.
Winding Down
Why didn’t I just leave, since I was so miserable anyway? I’m not sure; I think I was still hoping for another miraculous reprieve. Regardless, I was determined to be as chill as possible while riding out the remainder of my time with her.
She didn’t make it easy. Example: At one point, after cooking pasta, I put the colander away in the cabinets. Later that day, I found the colander back out on the dish drainer. Elderly Roomie saw me looking at it; she said I had placed the colander in the wrong spot, so she took it back out.
She removed the colander, and instead of placing it in the “right” spot, left it out, expecting me to do it. I am not making this up. This is the kind of nasty, petty, passive-aggressive bullshit she was pulling in those final days.
She also started hiding things. Toilet paper used to be stored in the hall closet, but she removed it, forcing me to buy my own with my sparse cash. She took certain foodstuffs, that we’d previously shared, and locked them in her car, away from me.
Elderly Roomie occasionally inquired as to whether I had found a place to go. I primly replied, every time, “That’s not your problem.”
When the day finally came, she made a special point to have a witness present. She invited a girlfriend and they sat in the kitchen watching while I packed. Clearly she feared…something on my part? No clue. I loaded up my vehicle and left without a word. She later texted me to gripe about some things I’d left behind, which she put on the curb for me. I replied, “You can keep it or sell it. Thank you for everything.” That was our final communication.
How It’s Been
As of this writing, it’s been slightly over a year since I left Elderly Roomie. There was a brief interval where I lived again in the cramped confines of my car. Then, with help from Miss R’s friends (the local husband and wife), I was able to secure a room rental in a much more comfortable environment, where (as a paying tenant) I had certain rights. I was able to use this time to sleep in a cool room, enjoy the affections of cute pets, cook whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and breathe mold-free air every day. I remained on pins and needles for a long time: hoarding my toilet paper, flinching every time I used my new roomie’s salt and pepper (she didn’t care), hiding in my room. But I was safe.
Of course, I’ve continued to have various problems. I now have much more frequent and severe upper respiratory illnesses, which I do believe are related to Elderly Roomie’s mold. Depression continues to interfere with my life, and I haven’t been able to secure meds to deal with it. My physical health, which was poor before all this even started, has really deteriorated (worsening arthritis in my knees, gastro issues, the aforementioned chronic pulmonary issues). I’ve gained a lot of weight. And things between current roomie and me have been tense for a while for various reasons (nothing worth a blog post, though).
But I’ve been safe.
Ungrateful?
During my five months with Elderly Roomie, I tried to talk to a few people about what I was dealing with. I asked for prayers and advice. Remember, I was constantly sick from the mold in the ceiling, and I was struggling greatly with my depression, exacerbated by my circumstances. I couldn’t find a job. I had no savings. The Abuser held sway over my mind, repeating over and over that I was a complete failure and should have killed myself when I had the chance. I wrote frequently in my private journal about the possibility of ending my life anyway.
But except for Miss R, my out-of-state friend, every other Christian I spoke to indicated that I was being horribly ungrateful. They made it clear that complaining about Elderly Roomie was not something they wanted to hear from me. She was a Good Little Christian™ who had allowed me to stay in her (mold-infested, yes I’m going to keep pointing that out) home without charging rent.
Grateful
With some distance on Elderly Roomie, I’ve been wondering: Was I actually ungrateful? She showered me with objects I didn’t ask for. She considered them “gifts” but they came with strings attached: Be grateful, on her terms, by her definition of gratitude. Failure to do so means you are a Bad Person.
But what does grateful mean?
I guess when you get right down to it, “grateful” is just one of many words that mean wildly different things to different people, like “love.” When I say I was grateful, what actually do I mean? I’m forced to confront this question.
Connotation vs. Denotation
Dictionary definitions of words tend to vary pretty widely (and nowadays they can be altered upon the whims of special interest groups, don’t get me started). Here are a few relating to “grateful”:
appreciative of benefits received (Merriam-Webster)
showing or expressing thanks, especially to another person (Cambridge Dictionary)
warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received; thankful (dictionary.com)
feeling or showing an appreciation for something done or received (Oxford Dictionary of English)
Of course, these are all useless because words don’t just have definitions. They have feelings. They have implications. Overtones, undertones, and subtext in addition to monotones and plaintext. Connotations.
I said “thank you,” but I wasn’t grateful according to others. I expressed appreciation, verbally and non-verbally, but I still wasn’t grateful. For Elderly Roomie, I returned various favors and repaid various kindnesses by whatever means that were available to me, but I wasn’t GRATEFUL.
Why Can’t You Just…?
I suppose it’s clear to anyone and everyone what “grateful” means to someone like Elderly Roomie, and what was expected of me. It doesn’t just mean saying thank you. “Grateful” means obedience. It means keeping your head down. Not just humility, but humiliation. And above all, don’t complain, EVER, about anything, even bad things. After all, you were GIVEN [fill in the blank, see above]. The proper response is to fawn.
Why can’t you just make the bed? Well, I tried. But when I’m struggling, I just can’t. It’s a fact of living with depression. It really is too much to ask of me. Yes, really. YES. REALLY. IT IS.
Why can’t you just wear the “nice” pants to church? I could have, but I was operating on a scarcity mindset (reinforced by her stinginess). Those were the only “nice” pants I had, and I wanted to avoid using them until I got an interview. And unlike the Cool Whip story, if I wrecked the khakis, I knew she wouldn’t be buying me any more “nice” pants to replace them.
Why can’t you just put the colander back where she wants it, when she passive-aggressively takes it out? Because that’s bullshit. Sorry. It is. Come on.
Why can’t you just go along to get along? I did the best I could, but I have to stand up for myself when someone is being abusive or telling lies about me.
And all the things I did do to help out around the house and contribute? Those don’t count as gratitude, points in my favor, evidence of effort, etc. presumably because those were also expected of me.
Black Sheep 4 Lyfe, Yo
It would seem that I cannot win. Because I’m a person who has pervasive mental health issues, in addition to increasingly-uncomfortable physical health problems, there are things I’m unable and/or unwilling to do. And that small handful of things means I am doomed to a life in which I cannot have meaningful, safe, mutually-respectful relationships with other human beings. All the things I AM willing and still able to do? Not good enough.
You might be tempted to accuse me of having Main Character Syndrome. That I’m so self-absorbed that I actually think I’m the hero of a show in which everybody else is a guest star. I would argue in response that of course I’m the main character in my OWN life, we all are, and it’s only natural to look at MY relationships in terms of me, first and foremost. Yes, I need to look at those other people’s perspectives as well, and I do try. I’m well aware that I’m not the star of someone else’s show.
But…how other people view me affects how they treat me. And how other people treat me affects many (most?) aspects of my life.
Outside Looking In
Elderly Roomie and I got along moderately well for a while, each choosing to overlook the other’s red flags. It’s fair to ask: In her mind, what were mine? What follows are things I imagine her thinking and saying.
C doesn’t respect my home. She knows I’m old and set in my ways, but she won’t make her bed. I’m afraid she’s going to permanently wrinkle the bedspread. What if I have a guest, and they see her messy room? I would be embarrassed.
C is sick all the time. It’s probably just allergies. I know the black sludge in the ceiling isn’t mold because I’m not sick. A free mold inspection sounds scary, and it’s pointless anyway because I know it’s not mold. I’ll spend money on things to help clean the air for her, even though I’m on a fixed income. But she won’t stop talking about mold. The black sludge is not affecting me, so it’s not a problem. This is MY house.
I took C shopping for nice clothes, but she keeps wearing those ratty jeans to church instead. People in the congregation know she’s living with me. She’s reflecting poorly on me when I’m not there.
C doesn’t appreciate all the gifts I gave her, out of the goodness of my heart. I’m on a fixed income and those things cost money. I would never disrespect someone the way she does me.
I don’t understand C’s depression. She should simply do the things I think she needs to do in order to get back on her feet.
C is not really trying. She doesn’t want to apply for jobs. If she was really trying, she would be working by now and paying more bills around here.
I’m not going to let C walk all over me any more. If she needs toilet paper, she can buy her own. I don’t want her using my spices when she cooks. She’s disrespecting me when she takes MY food.
This is all speculation on my part. But Elderly Roomie demonstrably had some very rigid, black-and-white thinking. Anything that deviated from HER norm was incomprehensible and unacceptable to her. And she increasingly displayed her feelings as offended or even outraged, if I didn’t display sufficient “gratitude” towards her in the ways she expected.
What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?
I…don’t think I actually have a solid “in conclusion” to wrap this post up with. It’s already way longer than I’d hoped. Living with Elderly Roomie had profound effects on me: Emotionally, spiritually, and yes, physically (MOLD).
Did I learn anything?
Well, clearly, “Do not agree to live in a house that has obvious mold.” Because, as a matter of fact, it’s NOT “better than living in your car.”
Apart from that, I think the lesson is not to allow myself to become trapped in an environment where “gratitude” is a foreign currency. When someone expects and demands gratitude from me, I need to ask what that means. I need to examine whether I’m able or willing to provide it. And if I’m not, I need to decide whether to remain in that environment, before the decision is made for me.
If I must live with other humans, the relationship should be spelled out, in writing, on paper, with specificity (i.e. a lease).
When people offer me “gifts,” I must scrutinize the nature of those gifts, and the nature of the person(s) giving them: What do they want in return, and is some aspect of my life dependent on those people?
Thank You
If you read this whole thing, I’m grateful. Truly. It’s a long, rambling mess, just like the previous post, but I’ve spent over a year letting these stories marinate in my still-broken brain and I needed to let them out. Thanks for your kind attention, dear reader.