By Steve Photo by Mat Amp Instagram @matamp67
It’s Friday the 14th of August. My name’s Steve Walker. I just wanted to highlight something that, that’s true to me anyway, about homelessness and mental health.
So for me, being homeless is not really concerned with not having a home. There’s so much more to it than that. You know, the popular conception is that you build more houses and everything’s all right. It doesn’t work like that for me, unfortunately. And I just want to share a little example.
So today is my benefit day. Now, for the past two weeks I’ve really, really struggled. I’ve had to walk to my mums – it sounds like I’m bitching here but this is just how it is – I have to walk to my mum’s to have a meal. You know, I’m borrowing money for a bus pass and then not buying a bus pass. I always end up breaking into it for something or other. So then you’re constructing lies all the time and none of it sits well with you.
And it’s just a general struggle, you know. So you would think that no proper meals for two weeks, living hand to mouth, borrowing money, scratching left, right and centre. You would think that when you get a decent amount of money, when you get paid, you would rectify all that. No, it doesn’t work like that for me. For some, unknown reason, the thought of going to Asda – or whatever supermarket you care to not visit in this case – is terrifying, as ridiculous as it sounds.
It’s hard to find the right words to explain why I can’t bear the thought of walking around Asda. It absolutely stunts me, it’s fascinating. Objectively, but subjectively, it’s incredibly painful. What I’ve done, I’ve gone to the bank, cause it gets paid into a savings account, which is ironic. Transferred into my card account. Sent money home. I’ve paid a lot of my bills. And I’m left with a sum of money that I have no idea what to do with. It will be frittered away on crap when I should get – and it sounds ridiculous to say out loud but if my mother, I’m forty nine years old by the way, if my mother said to me, right, son, come on, I’ll take you to Asda. And she did everything and I just on the money over, I can do that.
I just can’t understand the fear side of things. And I know this is a health platform, but for me, it’s mental health. That fear. It’s a total lack of life skills.
So this adds weight to my theory that being a member of the homeless community is nothing to do with – obviously there’s something to do with not having a home – but what if I had my own place? What would be the point if I can’t open a letter, if I can’t go shopping and I cannot pick the phone up to sort things out?
It’s very strange. I’ve done work duties today and I feel I’ve done them really, really well. So in that aspect of life there’s massive progress. But in the aspects of self care, I haven’t got a clue. It’s not a very nice feeling when I reflect on it at the end of the day, you know.
It’s very odd to me that I can quite easily… I’ve just sent hundred pound home to my girlfriend because she’s struggling. I can do all that. But I won’t pay a three pound fifty for a piece of smoked haddock? What the fuckin’ hell’s the matter with me?
You know, I just think I’m in a place where I’m not really attending NA meetings because of Covid. I’m not sharing. So, maybe I’ve just offloaded all this. Maybe this is nothing to do with the reporting. And if that’s the case, then what can I do, I’ve done it now anyway.
But yeah, I just find it interesting. The lack of life skills. I mean, I still can’t verbalise it, I’m still struggling to find the words of other things that I’m not.
I’ll tell you what I am good at. Struggling. What’s that about? When it’s all gone, all the money, and I’ve got nothing and I’ve got to duck and dive for the next three weeks, I can do that.
There’s something in that I feel.