Pick any scenario - they all end with your existing life history being ended for whatever reason, and you are put on the street with no ID and no history, no birth certificate, no drivers license… nothing. All your past professional and technical mad skillz that require documentation (degrees, licenses, prof certifications etc) are useless as you can’t “prove” you’re accredited to do anything. All you have is your intellect and (we’ll say healthy) body.
It’s the afternoon of a warm spring day. What do you do? Can you survive? Seriously, I have no clue of how to proceed in this scenario other than wandering around offering to do yard work, and maybe try to find a homeless shelter.
Other than becoming a backwoods recluse, how do you re-assemble a life and a decent standard of living ?
Eek! Once I survived the shock of the situation, if I survived the shock of the situation, I would look for work as an electrician, computer repairman, HVAC mechanic, carpenter. I guess I would be working under the table for a while until I could somehow get myself going.
I would seek out help in getting an identity, I would start at a police station and go from there.
Actually I might even re-enlist. I think they take 40 years olds and I guess I could lie about my age as my prior records are gone.
So this scenario assumes that my thumb prints have become disconnected from my digital records. Maybe even my paper records.
I guess boot camp would help with my weight loss attempt. That should get me back to my target weight quick.
I would work through the government and military to either re-establish who I am or establish a new me. Sounds like for the scenario, that somehow my family is disappeared also. So let me assume that my history is really gone.
I would go through the process of establishing an identity, join the service and rebuild from there. I wonder what the governments does with living John Does that want to rejoin society.
I have a feeling I might get stuck in an INS camp for a while.
Taking the OP at face value that my history is not just lost but permanently gone, going to a police station would be useless. I need papers and papers cost money, whether they’re legit or not, so first I establish shelter and then I get a source of moolah. If I’m in a small town, I hitchhike to the nearest large city because they’ll have the major shelters and relief agencies, and a lot of the larger cities provide limited free bus transportation in the downtown area. Hit the food shelters first-keep the ready-made stuff for myself, but take some canned goods for barter. Stop by the shelter to see when the line-up for entrance starts, then go out looking for temp work. I do this by following some of the more able bodied hopeless, because there’s a good chance they know where the temp worker pickup places are. A good percentage of these jobs pay daily with cash, and I’m going to need a lot of cash soon(small side note-only eat the donated food if possible until you get enough together to get some papers). Local amusement parks are also good jobwise, and keep a sharp eye out for any visiting carnivals. At the designated time I make my way back to the shelter to stand in line and try my best to be friendly to the staff, which might get me a spot near a well-lit area to put my mattress down.
Next day, get up early, try to eat enough to fill my stomach, and set back out again.
Nothing? Nothing at all? Do I have a name, and do I remember my birthday and where I was born? If so, I could probably find a way to get my birth certificate and SS card back, though it would take some time to do that, and I’d have to work under the table for a while before it came through.
And where am I? Am I in a large city, where almost everyone is used to passing by people they don’t know on a daily basis? Or am I in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else? What’s the economy like where I am?
Assume you are in some mid sized US burg. The premise is not amnesia, it’s simply that (for the sake of this scenario) you have no 'history" - you are “no one”. You have (intellectually) all your current professional or technical skills intact, but the person who you were is gone, all the history, all the past relationships are gone or otherwise inaccessible.
You may know who you “were”, but that life is gone. You have start over again, and you start over without a documented identity. The purpose of this proposed scenario is to gauge how important a documented history is in being able to survive and succeed.
How do you make it with nothing but your wits and a healthy body?
If you mean zeroed by the government (no way to restablish my SS, no prints record, nothing) but without them wanting me dead, then time is of the essence. Your employable look won’t last long. Head to a homeless shelter, get a dry place to sleep, find a job. Once I am into maintenance mode, start looking for a way to validate my degrees. Starting with a GED and whatever easy Diplomas I might get by just taking sufficiency exams or classes by mail or internet. After that, well, life goes on, I guess.
This is presuming I have no burning desire (or hope) of retrieving my previous ID, of course. That would be quite an odd scenario, though.
I am speaking from a great bit of experience.
What would the police do if someone without I.D. asked for help? They would point you to the nearest shelter if one was available, or tell you to move on if there wasn’t.
So really the major hurdle is establishing the new identity. Once you’ve done that, you can get a job, get the GED and all the other credentials.
So, let’s say your lack of ID is because you’re running - i.e. you don’t *want *anyone to know about your past life. Without money, how do you get an ID card, social security card, birth certificate, etc.?
If I showed up at the DMV without ID and wanted an identity card, what would they require? Would I have to find someone who could make me a fake birth certificate?
And in thinking about it for a second, an illegal immigrant (say Hispanic) would probably have an easier time getting pickup work and not being hassled than a well spoken, well mannered, white male looking for odd jobs. People would probably be inclined to push for your back story just out of curiosity or be leery about hiring you, because you because you are “out of context”.
I’m assuming that all of our friends and family have vanished or been killed. I have relatives/friends in almost every city so if I woke up tomorrow to find myself in San Fran/LA/Chicago/Baltimore/Atlanta/etc, I’d simply find my friends/family members. If not, then I’d survive on my own.
I think I’d stay away from the homeless shelters unless they were very safe and helpful. For food, I’d dumpster dive behind grocery stores. I’d go into pastry shops at the end of the day and ask for leftovers. I’d go into hotels and eat off of the left over room service trays. I’d steal toiletries from the maid’s carts to keep up my appearance. I’d go to the mall and steal the coins from the fountains for bus change in order to travel around. For lodging, I’d find a place that has free internet and use one of those couch surfing websites. Or, I’d go to a bookstore or library and find people that look safe, explain my situation, and ask to stay with them. I’d network as much as I could to find jobs. If none of the people I met had any available for me, I’d then seek help from the Red Cross or the Salvation Army. If the city I was currently in did not have enough resource available to me or if transportation was difficult, I’d beg/steal coins/etc until I had enough money to buy a bus ticket to another city. I’d also get a knife or another weapon as soon as I could or try to find a buddy to protect me.
I know where to get fake IDs in LA. I assume other big cities have people doing the same. I’d probably come to LA because I know how to survive in Southern California on my own but I also might go to Cincinnati because I grew up there and I know places to sleep if I can’t find lodging. With a fake ID, getting jobs would be much easier. At this age, I’d be willing to go through college again. If I was a bit older, I think I’d say screw it and use the ID to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii. You can get them for under $200. In Hawaii, you can sleep on the beach and it never gets cold enough to cause any real problems. Bus fare around the island is cheap and a lot of people hitchhike. I figure if I am going to be poor for the rest of my life anywhere, I’d do it there.
Don’t bother trying to reestablish your original i.d.-according to the OP it’s gone forever. Your two choices are:
Go the “Amnesia” route. Show up at a television station or the offices of a major newspaper and claim that you woke up that morning with amnesia. The media love a good story, and someone might start a charity bank account in your name.
Establish a whole new identity via the black market. Don’t ask me how, 'cause I’m not going to tell you.
I’m a former ticket scalper.
On one of my best days ever (as it pertains to the OP) I went to the ballgame with exactly $0 and walked away two hours later with $200 in my pocket.
So I’d probably start off something like that.
I know a few cons that would probably put me back in the green but I’m not going to go in to detail about that because it’s embarrassing that I even have this knowledge in the first place.
I would smile and make a friend as soon as I had the opportunity.
I would tell them I’d just arrived from another land when I was robbed.
I would tell them I was confused and afraid as I now have no papers.
I would continue in this vein until I found a place for the night.
And, who knows, maybe a future.
Doesn’t seem that hard really.
Relies only on your ability to sense a warm and compassionate soul in your fellow.
I’m confident I could locate one in a crowd.
To who? Even if you managed to save up the money to put an ad in the paper, what would it say? “Will teach chess-cash only-contact me at the corner 35th and Halsey(I’m wearing a red sweatshirt)”
You’re going to have to do some temp work involving some hard labor to get going first.