Poor

For a very long time now I have lived below the poverty level. In my childhood we never went hungry but we weren't rich. When I became a teenager I had to live off of student welfare. When I was 20 or 21 I had to live off of ODSP which stands for Ontario disability Support program. Most people think it's great but it's not. I have lived on $250 a month for many years which only afforded me a room and a bathroom and that was about it. Then it went off a little and up a little, and now I get a 1 per cent raise in September--once a year. My phone no longer works very well and the answer button doesn't often work but in order for me to be able to afford a new phone I had to cut off all my subscriptions to specific apps. It has been a freeing experience! But we don't have enough money for food. I don't know how my mother does it making up my portion of the rent and other expenses. She's a very good Mom, and she doesn't want to leave me with nothing so she goes without so that I can have some money. Mom is a special lady and she has had to endure much hardship in her life. When we found out my brother was gone it devastated both of us and now we really talk about it because I know it hurts her and I don't want to bring it up. I just silently cry in my room thinking about the times when we were very close and how much I love you and need him in my life but alas that is not to be. When I say that the tears flow and I think back to a better time well I could walk and I was with Jim next to him and it is little room--we were both living with our maternal grandmother then. He never got mad at me we often times sat together just talking, talking about life his experiences and so on. We love to listen to music together and at night he went down to the basement where he made a makeshift dark room and I would watch for hours while his hands fluttered over the paper letting the light in or masking the light. I love to watch him work and I think he enjoyed the company too. He was sober when he did this no drugs just him, and me well I smoked a little bit of pot back then but not enough for me to ever pay for it he would just give me a little. I only used it to sleep because I had such terrible insomnia and I have had it all my life. I'm a night owl but nowadays being up at night often hinders with the day so I try to sleep whenever I can at night but I often wait before sunrise and then I wait for Mom to get up and take the mask off my face. I hate having to use a BiPAP but I have to and I accept that. But I do hate the thing on my face always making farting noises and I have to lay there and wait for sleep to overtake me and then I have nightmares for the like. I often have them about being confined, getting in somewhere but then I can't get out I'm caged up or either someone is coming to take me away and I can't live at home anymore certainly not with my mom, and I dreamed this a lot of the time. I had one recently where they were holding back my mom and taking me away to live in a special home and I kept saying no Mom I don't want to go. It was very disturbing and that is a constant fear I have of being taken away or having something happen to my mom and having to live in a complex Care facility where I don't want to be. If something happens to my mom that would kill me that would just devastate me, I would not want to live anymore and I know the trauma would kill me and actually I would rather have it than have to live without her love.

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