If you don't mind me asking, is there any reason you live in Vancouver? From your posts it doesn't sound like Vancouver's social support services are all that great and I don't believe you have any strong connections to the city. Given you work entirely over the internet, is there a reason you can't move somewhere with much cheaper rent?
Aimee reminded me about this post, so here goes... (Read the last two paragraphs if a wall of text is unpalatable.)
When I moved in 2014, it was because I couldn't stay with my mother anymore. I had been planning on moving to British Columbia for a couple years at that point; the main hurdle was money. I had a very bad relationship with my mother and she would act in ways that would make my health worse, and she'd occasionally levy new fees under the guise of rent or "helping out" completely arbitrarily. It was difficult to save money while constantly overwhelmed and needing to pay new costs, and saying "I don't have the money" didn't really change all that much. She'd turn off the power to my room, stop paying the internet bill, no longer include my food in the delivery order, etc. She would also wake me up, knowing it'd make me sick for 4-5 hours afterwards, and then just stand in the bathroom with the door locked so I couldn't go in. It was miserable.
This all came to its climax when one March morning, my niece broke a piece of her wooden dollhouse. My mother started screaming at her. Just really laying into her. Mind, my niece was four years old at this point. Something in me snapped and I yelled for the second time ever in my life, and I said things that couldn't be taken back. She wanted me gone immediately. Of course, a couple weeks later, she said she was "just kidding," but what was done was done. That began the expedited process of getting my passport, getting plane tickets, figuring out the next step. I had planned on BC, but not a specific place. I just wanted to live closer to "the love of my life." As it was, the only choice available at such short notice was to go live with that aforementioned love in Seattle for a few weeks while I figured it out. I left my home in Ontario at the beginning of May 2014.
It was a bit of good timing, as just then a new medical program opened up in Vancouver, the first and only of its kind, seemingly specifically for people like me. So Vancouver was the most accessible from Seattle, and after applying to the program, it was also where I'd need to be should I be approved. You could live elsewhere, but how would I get to the appointments? It also seemed the best option for opportunities. It's one of the biggest cities in Canada and had a fairly decent writing market for print at the time, and right then I was still under the impression that I'd be a writer. (I actually did get printed in a magazine after moving, and I had a press pass to the International Film Festival!) So I arrived in Seattle with no belongings, and then I spent a weekend up in Vancouver where I went to apartment viewings and job interviews. All considered, it went pretty well, despite needing to pick the first thing I could on both fronts. A room in an over-filled apartment, and a job inspecting buses at Greyhound. But I was in denial about my health; I believed if I stuck with it and just forced it, I'd get better and I could maintain the hustle. A month in, that went up in smoke, and then I ended up on welfare and couldn't go back to work.
I got accepted to the medical program at the end of 2014 but there was a 2-year wait list... meaning I'd have to be in Vancouver for the foreseeable future, and then remain there until I was finished the program (which had an expected range of about a year). So my life began to revolve around the idea that this medical program would change my life in some meaningful way. Survive until x, do y, recover, ???, profit. That never happened. I entered the program in 2016 and it was a colossal waste of time. If anything, being in it made me worse.
By now, I had regressed in capability pretty severely and seemingly permanently. I couldn't take public transit anymore. I could walk for maybe ~45 minutes a day, at most. During the summers I'd disappear entirely because the heat, even the mild heat here, was simply debilitating. Today in 2020 I'm in the same position. The walking might be worse now that my L5 is shot. I usually can manage a 10-minute walk most days, but anything longer puts me in "this will have consequences later" territory. Lifting things is basically out of the question entirely now.
So, to answer your question... I'm still here because I physically can't get somewhere else. Moving to Victoria would have me with similar access to Seattle and be cheaper if I were to live alone (compared to living alone here), but the actual process of getting there is insurmountable. I'd need to take a bus, then a train, then another bus, then a ferry, then a bus... and only then I'd be in Victoria after 4-5 hours. Then I'd need to take another bus or a taxi to wherever I needed to be. Traveling that long usually takes me a couple days to recover, so any trip to Victoria to go to apartment viewings would need to be a week-long affair, and even then... there's a pretty good chance I couldn't do the trip day-of. Then I'd have to make the trip back. And then, if I did find a place and I could move, I'd need to somehow get all my belongings from here to there.
There is also the issue that I would lose my doctor if I moved, and even though she's awful, she still fills out my paperwork for the government. There are NO doctors in Victoria accepting patients. Exactly zero. So if I were to move, I'd need to be very sure that I could survive on my own income with no help from the government. And right now that's not a thing. I'm very wasteful and poor at managing my finances because binge-eating is more rewarding than hiding money for a rainy day, but the simple reality this very moment is that even if I were perfect, I simply do not earn enough to not need the support net.
), YES. So much yes. The worst car ever designed in the history of toddlers with crayons.
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