Homeless

Our situation is my fault if you look at Who Knew How To Prevevt It. I know not to run up bills you can't pay or go shopping until all your bills are caught up. We wouldn't be homeless if I had taken control. But no matter what I know, it is hard to take control of adult children. Moving in with my kids to try to save their butts should have given me some leverage. Being the main one paying the bills should have given me a Lot of me leverage. But it did not. Should I have been more forceful, insistent, demanding? Could I have? Does that I didn't make this All My Fault?
Maybe.
I see that my attempts were weak, ("AC when it is in the sixties still? Really?") But even if I had been firm, stated the truth that poor people don't turn on AC at all! Stop smoking if you can't buy your own! (Instead I have bought my daughter's cartons of name brand cigarettes while I smoked the cheapest myself) COULD I HAVE TAKEN A STAND AT ALL TO PREVENT THIS?
Yes. I just can't stand when my daughters hate me. I am weak. Both have either ignored my suggestions or even gotten angry at me for nagging. So I just sat here and watched us all go down. I did start to make survival plans for myself after a while, and I would be fine if it was just me, Jeremy, and Kira. But I can't not try to take care of all of them even now.
I paid the $625 in rent every month, bought hundreds of cigarettes for everyone, bought toilet paper, soaps, etc., paid on the sky high utilities when I could, all with my $9,00 a month income. Several times when the power got shut off Jess got Jazzy' s father to pay yo turn them back on. We all get food stamps, but if I try to say to them anything about how food stamps are just to supplement our food bill, not so we can buy name brand products and junk good, I'd get shut down fast. When the food stamps run out, it's cash that should go to utilities. Then in May with the lights about to be shut off again I asked Jeanette if I should pay the electric or the rent, I couldn't pay both, and she chose electric. We're being evicted by the sheriff Wednesday.
Jeremy hasn't been working. He wants to, but I haven't been able to see how I could manage if he did. There are six children here, three only 5 years old, and he has been their main and often only caregiver. He is usually the only one who even washes a dish here, he usually does all the cooking, too, and even with him doing more than his share and mine, I've never lived so filthy. Jeremy, Kira, Jazzy, Jessalynn and I went away for 5 days once. He  cleaned the day before we left but Robby had friends over that night so the house wasn't very clean anymore before we left,  but Not A Thing was done while we were gone. Not even a dish washed. How could I send him out to work?? Instead, he goes and sells plasma twice a week for $65 a week that all goes to gas, cigarettes, (he doesn't smoke) and household things. He does ALL of this for me and because of the grandchildren here. I don't think anyone except me has even thanked him once for all that he does. Instead they yell at him for being slow, for getting frustrated with the kids, even for forgetting to take out the trash.
And he is going to be homeless with us as soon as he gets through packing and storing everything he can by himself.
I have allowed all of this and the sad thing is that I'm sure that  my daughter's won't learn a thing from it all even though I have no idea who or what they will blame for it.
 But will I? Will I become homeless with them again first, trying to save them, and second, letting them walk all over me to our destruction again?
No. 

Think Again

We've all seen it on TV if not in real life: The prostitute whose pimp controls her through her drug habit. We shudder and say, "That could never be me, I'm not a prostitute and I don't have a drug habit."
I'm a 57 year old great grandma and I can no longer honestly say that.
There are thousands of people in the world dealing with debilitating, chronic pain. I am one of them. I wake in the morning and my first involuntary thought is Pain. I give thanks for the day, take a morphine, and wait to be able to get out of bed, usually with a full bladder!
I have a Pain Management Doctor, the only one I know of left in Omaha who doesn't try to just put a bandaid on it, and, for all intents and purposes, I am his prostitute. When he says frog I jump because he controls the quality of my life. Without him I wouldn't get out of bed, play with my grandchildren, or have a life and he is one of the things I give thanks for morning and night. Hundreds of doctors have told me to quit smoking. This one only had to say it once because the order came with the threat of reduced pain medication if not its cessation altogether. A good thing, right?
Recently I had the misfortune to make him unhappy, and as I sat and listened to him berate me and even call me stupid, for the first time, I realized that I am now his Ho.
And I hate it. What can I do about it?? I'm researching it, suddenly willing to try anything with any risk that has any promise of ending my need for narcotics and Him.
I may have found an out, if it works I will definitely document it. But what happened to me is still just as wrong, and I started to wonder about all the other Legal Ho' s out there and about all the addicts on the streets who are self medicating and often dealing to support it. And research does back up my claim that they are out there. Right now, I would consider joining them if I weren't so scared of the legal repercussions, which is silly because I would probably be shot first, suspected of being some Granny Narc....
What happened to me was a misunderstanding from a miscommunication, or, at least, a lack of explanation from the doctor, on top of him totally forgetting what my treatment plan has been, compiled by a possible mistake he made that resulted in him calling Me stupid and reducing my pain medication dosage. The pimp  can do that when you displease him. I didn't get slapped around  though that might have been preferred over trying to adjust to living in more pain while in the middle of moving and trying to give the children in my care a Fun summer. I was silent before my accuser, afraid that speaking in my own defense would worsen the punishment.
My husband doesn't even have that kind of power over me!
If you, like me, say you would never prostitute yourself for drugs, pray you never need them! and Think Again.