The Secret Life I Didn’t Want Anyone To Know About.

Why am I telling it now?

No one knows I was homeless for four years. It was not just me, but my twins, and mentally ill husband.

I learned many things about life during that time. One was people are better than you think, especially, when babies are involved.

We saw a lot of hotel rooms and we also made bad decisions.

I still, after more than, twenty-seven years, get triggered when I am low on money and am threatened by the landlord. The owner goes up on the rent every year. It scares me! This contract for 2024 year is going up by $400. What is a person to do?

After a while, a friend, helped us get into a program where we lived in a shelter along with twelve other families for about eighteen months.

It was chaos at dinner time.

This particular program was for families that had nowhere to go and were transitioning from homelessness or “un-homed” back into the “productive” world or society. They provided a lot to its “clients” so it saved our lives. This was in 1997 and 1998. You probably can’t find a place like that now.

To help with the upkeep the residents had to do chores each day. We cleaned, took out the trash, swept and mopped floors, etc., etc. Everyone was assigned a chore each week.

I thought that was a fair trade except my husband, at the time, did not want to participate and be thankful. Instead, he moaned and groaned about everything, as well as, getting the attendants in trouble. He caused a lot of trouble for everyone.

Maybe it was his ego. I don’t know as he is no longer here.

The stress of bad decisions came back and kicked his proverbial “ass.” He was under a doctor’s care at the VA for chronic depression, but all he could and would do, was complain. The best part was, that I had to do his chores as well as mine to keep from being put out on our own. They gave you three strikes and then you were out . . . literally!

I was able to take some computer classes and find a job. It was not the best job but it was a beginning. The shelter put down a deposit on an apartment that was nearby. They also donated a car to us. He got his Social Security Disability check and we got a U-haul and moved out. The kids, who were around four at the time, had their immunizations and were in school. Everyone wanted to get out of there.

I felt like a real person again. After a year, I lost that job and the car broke down.

I found another job and a friend got us another car, which I had to pay payments to her, but that was okay.

From then on I had good jobs! Since I was an office assistant I was able to jump from $10 an hour to $20 an hour overnight. I found that the smaller the company was, the less it paid its employees. The bigger company it was the more you got paid. I stayed with the bigger ones.

I spent time here and there and finally landed with a company that kept me for ten years. Then I got a new boss after being there for nine or so years and all hell broke loose.

New Boss That Hated People

I was getting older and he wouldn’t let me do anything. It was like “I was there, but not there” at the same time. He was giving my regular tasks to other people to do, which caused resentment on their part, and confusion on mine. He would come in every morning and shut his door. He would answer his phone in a very gruff voice when he saw I was calling. He was a pig in more ways than one. His office was a mess, he would hide food under his desk, he would have old files and cases all over the place which needed to be kept organized, and he drank. When his boss came to visit he cleaned everything up so he had a lot to hide.

He would run through a task he wanted done, but not let me take notes or anything, then he would not train me so that I could do it again for him later.

My former boss never took up for me either, then they took away my normal bonus at Christmas. It was usually about $1,000.

My kids did not have Christmas that year. And on top of that, I had been a single Mom for about six years as their Dad committed suicide when they were eleven.

That’s when I finally got it and left. I should have sued them for “mental cruelty” as it took an additional seven months to make my own decision to go. I also had to go into therapy for almost a year because of this treatment. Why didn’t I?

I didn’t because they were more powerful than me. The upper management had it all put together. They had law backgrounds and knew everything. I would have ended up looking stupid and all of them were men.

In therapy, I realized they took away my power. I had become trusting and lazy. I had no idea all this would or could happen.

Editor

On top of that, they wanted to spread the cheer, by having someone/me edit the reports from all the offices (4) that needed to go out each day. They were a valuation firm and had to send out information of all kinds in a report to clients at least once every year or 6 months.

They wanted “Me” to do this. I found this out by reading my boss's email which I had privy to.

Not me! No way! There were around fifty people that did these reports and there was no way I was going to be the “one” that was attacked by any/or all of them. I would be in tears every day if I had stayed to do that job. I resigned and moved away.

I have made it so far and I am glad I got away when I did. I found that a few people left after I did and/or they were fired. Such a weird game they were playing.

Anyway, no one knew I was ever homeless, ever! It would have been worse for me if they had.

Jo Ann Harris is an author, parent, book devotee, writer, copywriter, and film fanatic. She is an autodidact who learns about everything and rows her own boat. She grew up and worked in Atlanta, Georgia and lived there sixty years. She writes articles about love, hope, personal life stories, advice and poems. She is a published author with an article in Woman’s World magazine in October, 2017.