Can you offer some advice?

[Eliana]

Alright...I'll admit that this is the last place I expected to end up and that I honestly have no clue what to say. I just need someone to ask for advice and no one around here seems to be…I’ll just say ‘mature’ enough to take me seriously.

I won’t bore you with my life story (I don’t think you’ll want to hear that, let alone have to read it) and it would take me too long to write it. To put things simply: I’m lost. I’m alone. And as much as I hate to admit it (…wow...this is a blow to the self-esteem…) I think I’m scared.

I’m not one of those people who complain about everything. On the contrary, I’ve had more people say that I’m too selfless and that I have an inability to be selfish. I always give more than I take, help a person every chance I get, find God’s grace in every action of every day and, even though I’m the first to offer help, I’m always – without fail – the first one to get kicked for it.

Right now I’m a college student surviving off the refund check for my student loans (that I was able to get thanks to one of my old high school teachers) and I have nowhere to go. My parents recently got divorced after years of all of us living together in a hectic household. Instead of the usual ‘this is traumatic’ reaction from my older sister (who lives with roommates away in some other city) and I, we reacted with ‘what took you so long?’. Patrick – as cruel as it may be from me after nineteen years I refuse to call him my father – left us high and dry so many times that it began to really strike me that he didn’t care. I remember distinctly that a year ago I had to go into school and beg my teachers to let me do yard work and whatnot so my mother and I could go buy food.

Even now that I’m in college and making good grades it hasn’t stopped. Patrick had a stroke last month and wants pity from us, he got kicked out of his fiance’s house and is living with my cousin, and refuses to even really acknowledge us except to get his things from mom’s house.

She isn’t innocent here either. She’s decided that now that her kids are out of the house she can mess us up by getting rid of everything we own to move to Massachusetts with her boyfriend since she’s finally ‘free’. She hardly has money to hold that house she’s renting so I find myself handing what little money I have over to her to keep food in there for her and my cat while I’m wondering what to do. I had to sell everything that wouldn’t fit in my dorm room and fix the transmission on my eighteen year-old car so I have something to drive incase a job ever pans out. I’ve been applying for well over a year and nothing’s come up.

When this semester ends I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. This money won’t last long and I have nowhere to go. I have no job, I have no family, and… oh dear God – I have to face the reality now that I’ll be homeless. I have nowhere to go.

My mom will be in Mass, sharing an apartment with too many people and we won’t have money for a plane ticket. Patrick will still be living with my cousin in Mississippi. Emilie will be living with her two roommates, two dogs, and three cats in that house. Whatever can’t fit in my car will have to be given to Goodwill.

This is the first time in years that I’m actually allowing myself to absorb all that’s happening and, for the first time in years, I can feel tears biting my eyes.

No one here is mature enough to understand. The kids (because I will not recognize them as adults) at this college complain more about not having their cell phones than I have ever complained about anything. I get the same reaction from everyone in power: we can’t help you. Of course they can’t. Because I’m the one who’s always supposed to help, right?

I can’t figure out what to do. Should I just go ahead and look into homeless shelters and soup kitchens? I know this is probably the last thing you wanted to see today but if you can offer me any advice it would be more than welcome. I really haven’t ever told anyone else this stuff so I apologize if it seems ‘unrehearsed’ – I tried to cut away the nonsense as much as possible.

Thank you for any kind of advice you can give me,

~Eliana

[Chris.]

Wow - this seems very heart-filled, and I'm sure you have heard this alot, but I am sorry that you and your sister had to grow up in a household not fit for kids.You seem to be at a dead end, and you really have two options: To sit at the dead end and weep, or to turn around. At this point I want to say turn around - but there isn't much turning around you can do with your finances.

You mentioned that you had a cousin in which you dad stays with: Do you have any other cousins? Aunts? Uncles? Grandmothers? Best friends? Old Teachers? Anyone you are close to? Its best to ask anyone that you can think of to stay at there house for a few weeks than to go to a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Try everything - ask everyone. Obviously, once you get to a persons house where you will be staying for a few weeks than you need to go out looking for jobs (they will very from location to location). Spend days upon days applying - don't quit.

If all goes well - and you have a place to stay for a few weeks hopefully you can find a job. I know this sounds bad, and may even make you mad, but the fact is once you do receive any kind of money from a job, don't give it away, even to your mother. She atleast has a house to stay in and a roof over her head while you struggle to find somewhere to sleep. So keep that money and use it for gas, food, etc. Sometimes we have to think about what we need instead of supplying the world with things, we frankly, just don't have.



Best wishes,
Chris

[PSY]

Hello, Eliana. Welcome to TeenHelp! I'm so glad that you decided to come to this community for support and advice. =)

First of all, I can relate to your financial struggles. I am currently a graduate student with a part-time job, and the only reason I can afford to go to school is because of a scholarship through the federal government. Even with that, I need to dip into my savings on occasion in order to pay for auto insurance and other expenses that aren't covered under the scholarship. I'm financially independent and living in a separate residence from my parents.

Have you looked into federal aid programs like FAFSA? You can usually get Stafford loans (subsidized and unsubsidized) based on your income (which, from what I've gathered, is $0 at the moment). There are many other ways to get student loans, such as through banks and credit card companies. You can also apply for grants and scholarships, like I did, and hope for the best.

If all those options fail, you may need to take some time off from college. That's not necessarily a bad thing - some of my friends had to do that for a year or two. Go to your academic advisor and ask about taking a leave of absence. The college shouldn't have a problem with that, as long as you keep them up-to-date every semester. Once you have money saved up and have applied for loans, you can return to your studies.

You probably won't have to rely on soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Have you tried contacting organizations like Goodwill? There are plenty of welfare programs and non-profit organizations in the United States that offer food stamps, low-income housing, assistance in finding employment, etc. Since you are able-bodied, I have no doubt that you will be able to get the resources you need, one way or another.

I wish you all the best. The bottom-line is that you need to remain calm and exhaust all of your options. Call the same people/organizations/companies every single day. Be persistent!