Hi there Hunnies, I’m so sorry I haven’t been posting much for a little while. But things have been rather Chaotic over the past couple of months with living conditions being so uncertain and my head being fried with it. But I’m glad now to have a roof over my head and a comfortable bed at last.
Comfortable Bed and a Roof over My head
It has been so long since I slept in a comfortable bed with a comfortable sleep with a roof over my head without the fear of losing it. But after a turbulent couple of months, I eventually got offered some emergency accommodation in a hotel room which although far from being the ideal home, has been such a relief to finally have at last.
At a loss
Since moving out of my last private let flat last June, I’ve been at a loss as to where I want to actually live. My initial plan was to spend the summer on the road working festivals as I have done year after year since I was a teen and find some inspiration on the way and hopefully have decided on where I want to live by the autumn time.
However, when the autumn came, i had so many ideas swirling around in my head but the dreaded old depression kicked in and I ended up staying put back here in Bathgate, just a 5 minute walk from where my old flat was at my friend Luke’s. I had put him up for a little while when he moved back up to Scotland from Bristol the previous year. So now he had now got a council flat after spending a few months in a local hostel.
I’d initially just landed back there at the end of the festival season until i figured out my next move, but as the winter drew in, and with it the depression, I’d decided to stay put for the duration of the winter as Luke was happy enough to have the company and I was still at a loss as to where I wanted to live. I mean, I could have rented a place back here in Bathgate again when i finished the festival season but was kinda sick of living around here as I find it a bit too familiar and detrimental to my progress in transitioning as I’ve lived around this area for years. It’s also close to my family who barely talk to me now as they dont agree with my Transition.
Where to live?
So I felt the need for a fresh start somewhere but where? The kinder climate of England and the South certainly was appealing. But Scotland has been a really progressive country over the past couple of decades under the SNP and has become a great place to live if you are Transgender, although the future of that is questionable now after the unelected UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to block the Gender Recognition Bill a few weeks ago. A Bill that was democratically voted in at the Scottish parliament with an overwhelming majority.
As the winter pulled in, depression and anxiety was becoming worse and I was finding it harder and harder to be decisive enough to go anywhere. The flip side of living here for so long,especially over the pandemic is that I have also became comfortable and safe around here for me and the idea of going somewhere else was becoming harder to deal with.
In the past, I’d have just grabbed my rucksack and guitar and off i’d go, seeing what occurred when I got there, wherever that may be. But I’m a bit more safety conscious now as well as being a little older and not so ready to rough it so much. I’ve really just been longing for home comfort and the depression was getting worse for me to sort that out. Luke had been hinting lots at me hanging around so I agreed I’d just stay there until the spring came around and write off this years indecisiveness to experience.
The best laid plans
However, plans were dramatically thrown out of the window a fortnight before Christmas when I found Luke Dead in his Bedroom. His flat was just a temporary Flat from the council and I was just staying there as an unofficvial lodger. So I had no legal right to reside there any longer. I seriously needed to find somewhere else to live and quick. The problem was, it was the middle of winter and my depression and anxiety was at its peak. I went into a state of panic and wasnt managing very well to get on the case with findiing somewhere. I could see myself like a fly on the wall knowing that I was going to get evicted any time soon, yet my head too screwed up to deal with getting somewhere.
My first visit to the council didnt go well at all and the workers doing what theyre good at, and fobbed me off with an out of hours number for a place in a homeless hostel or one of the local Hotels that are full of drugs and just pretty much an ugly scene that I desperately wanted to avoid. I knew, that being around all that scene would only hinder my personal progress and make me feel so bad about myself with Dysphoria that I felt better sleeping in my tent up the hills in the woods, even though it was not Winter Solstice yet and a lot of cold weather to come.
Fortunately, It didnt come to that then and Lukes family were happy for me to stay there as long as I could before the council contacted them. I agreed to help in the meantime by sorting out his stuff for them to collect. Fortunately, a freind from a Transgender support group m a member of on Facebook volunteered to come back to the council with me and give me some support. So we managed to see a housing officer who registered me as homeless and advised me to come back to them when I get put out of the house.
Finding a Roof over my head
The weerks that followed were absolute torture. I knew I had to get my act together but could feel myself helpless and hopeless, grounded by depression. Many people who dont understand depression think it’s all about just ‘Snapping out of it’. But It’s really not that easy. I felt like a complete mental invalid unable to cope yet feeling the pressure of knowing that I could be evicted at any moment. This caused frequent anxiety and panic attacks. Trying to seek help from recommended government departments, council and mental health departments was just an absolute nightmare and I found myself in a state of panic, begging for them to help me. Yet, i’d just get palmed off with another phone number. Batted and balled from department to department. I was getting nowhere.
Eventually I was evicted a fortnight ago when Lukes family came up to collect his things and give the keys back to the council who had been wanting the place emptied. I had to once again go back to the council and present as homeless again only to find that there was no trace of my registering homeless just before the New Year. Luckily I still had the bit of paper with the housing officers name and email adress and a few other details on it which showed I had made the presentation back then. Since then they have found it.
I expressed to them my anxiety and my fear of going into a homeless hostel and explained that I felt safer in my tent, especially as I had only been attacked a few days before in the street by a gang of Transphobes. Fortunately I didn’t have to stay in my tent too long and my friend who lives locally let me stay on their sofa for a bit until I got something sorted out. I’d since learnt of a government funded Rent Deposit Scheme where the local government could make a discretionary payment to cover the deposit on a private let as well as one months rent in advance. So I had been looking at Private Let houses all over the country considering various places
A Comfortable Bed at Last
Then on Monday morning, I got a call from the council offering me room in a local hotel that is just a small one. I had been considering the possible offers they might give me as regards the local hotels and had already figured it would be a good offer if they offered me this hotel. So I accepted their offer. It has been so good to get a comfortable bed at last. One that I didn’t have to worry about the council coming in the morning to evict me.
So I moved in here on Monday night and have had an excellent sleep the past couple of nights and enjoyed waking up nice and fresh with an en suite bathroom with a walk in shower. So, it’s been great to relax at last. It’s far from being my Ideal home, but it’s somewhere that I feel relatively safe and warm. I haven’t met all the neighbours yet. But there’s only 5 rooms here and the couple of neighbours I have met so far seem friendly enough, so here’s hoping things will be good here. It’s warm, dry and comfortable and I have a TV in my room along with my laptop. So, I’m glad I can start to get my head together again hopefully without having to panic. It feels great to be sitting down writing again at last as this is something I really enjoy doing, but my head has been so fried with everything lately, I haven’t been able to sit down and write a post for so long.
Where next?
To be honest, I’m still no further forward with where I want to go yet, but at least I know I’m secure enough here for the time being and can actually think straight. The way the politics are going in Scotland recently, I feel like getting out. But I will need to make some money to do that. So I want to get back to work soon and keep as busy as I can this summer to make as much money as I can so that I have options. I also need to get my passport replaced as I lost mine a couple of years ago and now I have to start from scratch getting a signature too. But hopefully I can get that sorted soon.
When I get things like this sorted out, I know it’s a step in the right direction at getting my life sorted out. It gives me the sense of achievement which builds my confidence again. Hopefully this year, I will feel much more confident in myself than I was last year and can be decisive enough to get on with moving in the right direction rather than grinding to a halt like I have done this year. I really have to say that although things have been tough over the past 7 years, this year has most certainly been the darkest in my life and I have never felt so vulnerable before.
But I feel like I’m now starting to head in the right direction. But I’m also just glad to be secure and comfortable enough for now. Although my head has been too screwed up over the past few weeks to travel any distance, which is also partly due to my lack of funds to do so also, I’d like to thank all the people around the UK who did offer me a place to stay recently.
I
