A Dilemma

Who’s afraid of Social Mobility it’s a tribal question

Firstly readers please accept my apologies for not posting for a mont. My excuse and even as I write this I know it’s an excuse, life went a bit (very) crazy in a bad way. I should of kept up with the blogging it helps me. I hope, one day, it help some of you out there on the other side of your internet screen. It’s weird how the internet connects and isolates at the same time, may blog about this at some point but not tonight. Tonight I need to ask you for some help.

I’ve got a very strange dilemma. I’m very cheekily hoping one of my readers out there in the real world on the other side of their internet screen will help me with in the comments section.

So without further ado here it is. Do I go for a job which if I get I’ll have to move back to England for? As you have probably guessed I’m homeless. Not hostel, B and B, temporary accommodation homeless but rough sleeping occasionally night shelter backpackers or hotel if I’m incredibly lucky homeless. I think I’ve been officially classed as homeless since July 2016 but I’ve been on the slippery slope of downward social mobility since June 2015 when I entered the land of extremely dodgy landlords, soup kitchens for the destitute and homeless. It’s a strange world down here. I jumped the border into Scotland on 30th Apirl 2018 I arrived just after midnight on 1st May 2018. I really am that small town girl who got the midnight train to anywhere lol.

Back to my dilemma, and why it’s incredibly strange. Next week I’ve got another job interview, it’s with a organisation that works tirelessly to end homelessness in Scotland. It’s also incredibly well paid. If I get the job it will definitely end my homelessness. The thing is there’s another employer that’s got an apprenticeship which would mean I get paid to gain a degree and a job for life in the Civil Service. The apprenticeship and career afterwards would enable me to give policy makers in UK government down in Westminster the evidence base they need to create the policies that effect all of us every day. Problem is I’d have to leave Scotland and return to England.

Now this is the bit that probably won’t make sense to you because it doesn’t really make sense to me. It’s why I more or less decided not to complete my application for the apprentiship I don’t want to leave Scotland or it could be I’m scared to return to England or it could be that I’m a someone on the streets in Scotland.

Yes my life since hitting the streets of Edinburgh has been harsher than anything I’ve known before. I’ve been physically assaulted, subjected to racism (yes telling someone to go back to their own country/back to where they come from is racism), verbally abused, harassed, threatened, falsely accused and punished for no logical reason. I’ve been offered so many different illicit substances so many times that if I’d bought 5% of them I’d have more drugs than most pharmacies. I don’t do drugs as the 12 step rooms gave me a pathway to freedom, I refuse to go back into the prison of addiction. Alcohol is as much of a drug as heroin. I choose not to partake in any of it, just for today and tomorrow I reckon I’ll choose not to pick up the first hit/drink like I did today.

Yes there have been and still are a lot of negatives to my life in Scotland. Some of Police Scotland seem to have a bit of a issue with me I just refuse to fit the stereotypical image they have in their heads. Plus the council my homeless case is with seems to be regretting granting me official homeless status and saying they would house me. They said this in December 2018 and I would be at the top of the housing list around now if they hadn’t removed 9 months worth of waiting list points. They really don’t want me housed in non supported housing, reckon it’s the power of that damn stereotype.

But there have also been some good bits, which I can’t really describe because you can’t really describe the friendships that form in the chaotic world of the streets. Of course most of these are with what professionals would class as extremely dysfunctional people. I refuse to describe my friends like that. All I’ll say is the blood of the battlefield is thicker than the water of the womb. I ask could you be a normal functioning individual when you’ve always been surrounded by abuse, poverty and chaos? There’s a reason I refuse to judge.

I’m refusing to do a lot of things aren’t I? You know I don’t think that my dilemma is about whether I live in Scotland or England. I think it’s more fundamental than that, it’s about my tribe. The job I’ve got an interview for next week is to end homelessness or more bluntly join those in my tribe working to get the off the streets of Scotland, help them heal and give them that hand up the social scale back into society. The apprentiship is to help every member of my tribe, throughout the UK. But it’s unlikely I’ll be working with people who are part of my tribe.

You see my tribe is the ACEs (adverse childhood events) through the roof, dragged ourselves up. We can count the times in our life when we’ve held a £50 note in our hands on our thumbs. The quite kids in the corner, wearing the uniform are older siblings had worn, with grime etched in cause baths weren’t every day, that was us. We stank of neglect. Most of us still do.

You know, I dont think my dilemma is really about completing a job application. It’s about leaving my tribe and joining the world of the normal people. A world where your not pleasantly surprised to find out that real milkshakes aren’t like nesquick and milk. Where you collected Happy Meal toys (I’ve never had a Happy Meal). Where you had new clothes not 3 times handed downs. That sort of world. Actually have no idea what a normal lifetime would even look like.

There will be members of my tribe reading this and people who are from different tribes like the norms. I know that normal people are scared of my tribe terrified that you’ll be forced to join us if you lose your job etc. I’m going to let you into a secret we’re more scared of you. You have the power we don’t, what you say counts what we say has never mattered. We may appear jealous, angry, dismissive of all of you not in the ACEs so high their through the roof tribe but if we’re honest you terrify us. Deep down we remember how normal people ignored what was happening to us some of us even found the courage to tell but we were called liars and punished. That is the wound that is hardest to heal worse than what others did.

So much fear your scared of my tribe, my tribes terrified of your tribe, and we all hate the fact society is disintegrating perhaps it’s because we’re all scared of each other.

Tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you I’ll nail the interview I’ve got next week and take a step towards joining your tribe. Perhaps you could reach down to us and listen to what we say? We use the same words as you but sometimes they are really hard to hear and your ears stop working. It’s not your fault sometimes words are just to hard to hear, but if you really try to really concentrate, ask if you think you’ve missed something, then perhaps just perhaps we can not have the tribes of ACEs high and norms perhaps just perhaps we could all be part of one tribe? We could call our tribe humanity.

What do you reckon Tribe Humanity a smile is the best way to say hello.