I really don't want to die here.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have followed this board off and on since the early eighties. I have learned alot, laughed alot, and raged alot.

So now I need some help. I am 60 years old with next to no skills. I worked in a warehouse up until last year when I couldn’t keep up anymore. Physcial and mental problems kept me from keeping my last job. I haven’t worked in over a year and my physical problems have gotten worse.

For the last six months or so my eyes have started to bail on me. I haven’t had insurance for over a year so when I did go the doctors it was on my dime. Dry eye or some such thing is my problem. I couldn’t afford the Big Pharma drugs so I have been using OTC eye drops.

My eyes cement over when I sleep so that when I try to open them when I wake up I have to rub them to get them to open. They also itch alot when I am awake so I rub them at those times too. After rubbing them, they burn and I can barely keep them open. This happens every day and every night.

Every day I blink and rub and squirt eye drops, not such a big thing compared to the problems that other people have, but it is a problem for me. I applied for SSDI over a year ago and my claim was denied. I updated my claim with my eye problems, but that hasn’t gone anywhere. I can barely see at times.

So my IRA and my savings are gone. My love and hope for my country is also gone. A lot of people here at the SDMB have given me a lot of hope over the years, but there has been a major disconnect from the SDMB fighting ignorance and the majority of the US being paid to stay ignorant. The SDMB still gives me laughs and reasons to rage. But my hope is gone.The racist’s rose up to vote.

I have a lot of pills and a garbage bag that will fit over my head. Unfortunately, over the past few months that exit strategy doesn’t seem to be as likely to me as I once had hoped it would be. I don’t have anything to offer society anymore, yet I don’t seem to have the balls to bail out on life, maybe I am just scared.

I am on the brink of homelessness. There was a thread here on homelessness recently and there wasn’t much help there for me. Posters offered some great suggestions, but I am not able to help myself so much anymore. I know this isn’t easy to read, but it isn’t easy for me to type it out either, I have to keep blinking, rubbing, squirting eye drops, and I can’t lift fifty pounds repetatively anymore. So I need your help.

I used my credit card to pay my rent and pay for my food this month. I am out of cash, I have barely enough cash left to make the minimum payment on the card

I have at least 5K of room on my credit card. I also have a valid US passport and Ohio drivers license. I currently spend 655 a month on rent. I can maybe keep up this charade through November. It starts to get cold in November in Ohio.

I will be homeless soon, and I want to weigh my options. Commit a crime and go to jail? I have been in jail before, but not prison. Since I am too much of a pussy to take the pills, maybe prison is the ‘back door’ solution to the end of my life?

I have called homeless shelters in Columbus and there is a waiting list. You have to call them everyday to find out if there is a bed available. I am not sure how homeless people have such access to a phone everyday, especially since when I called their number I was on hold for over an hour.

There has to be a better place to be homeless than Columbus, OH. I also have a vehicle. I have thought about driving to Canada, but they have enough of our refugee’s already and I don’t know that they would care to put me into a heated home. They would probably drop me off at the border and say good luck.

The same with Mexico. An old gringo without any money? They don’t even bother taking you to the border. They will take my car away and put my carcass in the desert. Not a totally bad way to go though.

So sell my car and buy a one way ticket to where? Actually, I am sure there are places in the US I could drive to that would let me use my credit card for couple of months that would be a warmer place to be homeless in than Columbus.

I would love to find another country that would be willing to take a refugee from the US.

Dopers, most of you are the smartest and most compassionate people in the world that I know of. Five thousand dollars buys me about two months here, can I get four months somewhere else?

2

What kind of car?

3

No family? A big place like Columbus,Ohio should have free medical clinics. They are usually run by churchs. Goodwill employs workers with your skills. There is help out there.

4

You say you have no skills?? You write very well and you are articulate, there are any number of jobs that could us your skills. I would invest what I had left in an eye specialist to see if they can narrow down your problem or possibly just do more online research and maybe you can self diagnose, that seems to be a better option than a lot of Dr’s seem to offer these days. I have a similar problem with my eyes but it seems to only last for 1/2 an hour or so at a time a few times a day.

5

I have nothing to offer except what my eye dr. told me. Frequent use of a warm, ideally moist, compress on your eyes. That burning is horrid, I have to stop whatever I’m doing when it hits, as I cannot open my eyes. Try using a warm facecloth to gently gently gently wipe eyelids and lashes. Sometimes a tiny flake of dried tears can fall into your eye and start the burning process. TheraTears is one product which has no preservatives. Possibly there is something in your eye drops that is exacerbating the problem. Try, too, to just cup your hands over your eyes when they are burning; helps resist the urge to rub. You could try putting a moist washcloth in a baggie or lidded container at bedtime, wrap it in a towel, and put it under the covers. You could put it on your eyes as soon as you wake up, to soften the eye glue that’s causing irritation.

Hope this helps.

6

Open as many credit cards as you can. Take the max cash advances you can on all of them. Fly to Thailand. Take a bus to Chiang Mai. Spend $200 a month on rent there. Declare bankruptcy. See cheap doctors there. Live out the rest of your life in a nice place.

7

I called to check on this. You’re right. So that’s two things settled, 1) suicide is out, 2) fuck Columbus, OH.

I wouldn’t sell the car, I’d be driving it to warmer zipcode.

8

I don’t know the actual number of homeless people who have one, but if you are low-income or on some kind of aid program such as food stamps, you could be eligible for a free smartphone with free minutes and data every month.

9

You definitely qualify for food stamps, and it sounds like other programs in Ohio. I know you’re not a family, but this would be a place to start. If they can’t help they will know who can.

http://www.tanf.us/ohio.html

10

Ask the mods to let you set up a gofundme site, start a new thread and link to this one. You will likely get enough to tide you over while you sort things out. Good luck.

11

Long Time, you sound depressed enough that I think you should call the suicide hotline. what can it hurt? they must know about resources and they have a lot of experience.

12

I think you need a plan to get you through another 2 years or so before you can claim regular Social Security, which gives us all a time frame.

On the SSDI part of this puzzle, go get an attorney. They will get the process sorted and moving for you, and they will not charge you while they are doing it. Their payment will come out of your first check from SSDI. That will be a lump sum and it will go back to when your disability started. The SSDI process is a jumbled, hell-hole of a mess without an attorney. An attorney will vastly increase your odds of getting approved, and vastly shorten the approval process.

In terms of determining where to live, somewhere in the Southwest might get you more affordable housing and a better climate. You’re going to be treading a fine line with too much heat, and too many people, and no jobs, so you’ll want to spend some time with a house hunting site to see what might appeal. Parts of the West or Northwest might work as well, but the larger metro areas are generally priced out of reach for rents. The good news is that with the economy so strong right now, there are lots of jobs available that might work for you. You’ll find higher wages out here as well (darned, bleeding-heart liberals).

If you’re faced with homelessness before you can get the move sorted, I agree you should call a crisis line and talk to them. They normally can put you in touch with local area resources and may be able to help you find a spot.

One thought - you mentioned that you worked in a warehouse. Would it be anything that could translate to a Home Depot (or other box store) sales person or floor manager? Knowledge of parts and goods, but not doing heavy lifting in other words.

(There really are help wanted signs out all over the place out here in Northern Oregon. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but there’s a wide range. Rents aren’t that bad here either.)

Happy to help if I can. {{{hugs}}} and good thoughts for now.

13

Sunny, it is unlikely, he will survive the two years that an attorney will drag his feet getting the SS settlement. The attoirney’s fees are a percentage of all the back benefits that can accumulate, up to two years, so there is a powerful incentive for the attorney to do absolutely nothing for two years, and then spend an hour doing a simple routine filing that could have been done tomorrow morning, and has already been done (and rejected) by the applicant.

The system has been set up that way. Guess who it is designed to benefit.

14

Apologies for bypassing the more important aspects of your post, but since the early 80s? :eek:

Was there a super early usenet group for the SDMB?

15

I don’t be this is true. There is a cap on the amount the attorney can claim, so drawing it out does not benefit them. It took me roughly 2 months from filing to my payment, using an attorney. What may be happening at particular firm is that they are over-burdened with claims and cannot file in a timely manner. I reaserached my firm before choosing one, to make sure I had a reputable one to work with.

16

If you are definitely resigned to being homeless, San Francisco is THE place to be. Rents are so high that there’s no way you’d be able to rent a room on any kind of low income, but there’s tent cities all over the place and lots of services for the homeless, plus lots of tourists and wealthy professionals you might be able to sell stuff to or otherwise get money from, and weather that’s tolerable all year long (it does get chilly at times, but not freezing).

17

that is surprising and counter-intuitive…but good info.

I think getting out of homeless is so hard (not that I’ve had any experience but just reading) that you should try to get someplace ASAP. have you looked for cheap housing on Craigslist? look in rooms shared. don’t sell you car.

at some point, being homeless with some planning is better than without - but it’s still so last ditch I think you should not have it be your plan. there are cheap places, just not great ones.

honestly, I met a guy who lived in a storage place. he rents three of them because he has one just for books but he is a real exception, I think. it’s a lifestyle he has chosen and enjoys.

who have you talked to locally about options? some kind of social services?

18

There were some newsgroups devoted to Cecil’s column back then… they are still there in fact, offering TOP QUALITY PHARMACEUTICALS and other wonderful things.

The SDMB started on AOL in the late 90’s and left the nest to explore the wide world of the world wide web in 1999. I suspect LongTimeLurker has been around for a long time, and probably joined the fight against ignorance on Usenet.

19

If you tell a doctor you can’t afford the medicine for your eyes they can give you free sample medications and also tell you how to sign up to get free medicine from the manufacturer.
There are law firms that specialize in disability appeals, if you are legitimately unable to work, they should be able to help.

20

When I manned a crisis hotline many years ago, we had a great big book of community resources on our desk. If/when a caller had worked through their feelings and was in need of more specific assistance, we’d dig out the book and get them started contacting entities that could help them.