Long-term Unemployment & Suicidal Maniacs

Hey everyone,

I wanted to talk to you all today about something that's really been freaking me out.

I've been unemployed for nearly 3 years! I use to work as a traffic controller and had done a fair few jobs before then including retail sales, kitchenwork, audio/visual setups and general labour work. I quit my last job because a supervisor was breaking policies and blaming it on everyone else. I complained about it to my manager but she did nothing to stop the bullshit that was happening on the worksite. I was particularly fragile at the time as well, having just lost my mother to cancer - the last thing I needed was to be working with a foul hearted person.

I snapped at the job site and ended up quitting after a few weeks of being barked at by a totally rude and hypocritical supervisor. I liked the job, I liked the pay. I done a good job as well - standing around in the sun in one place for 10-12 hours a day isn't easy. I dare anyone to try it.

My referral for the job says that I had a bad attitude. What a way to send a person off after they put almost 3 yrs of work into the damn company. It's ridiculous that just because I quit over an abusive and dangerous supervisor, I'm the one to cop the dirt I guess. Such is life though. Sometimes you roll the dice and it lands on six, sometimes one. I moved away from my hometown to escape the sad and twisted memories and I haven't been able to get a job since..

Three years unemployment doesn't just mean I've lost a lot of income. I've lost confidence in myself, I've lost trust in society, I've lost social status, I've lost weight from eating fuck all and trying to keep things rolling constantly.

Since I've been in the new town, I've lived in 3 houses. The first house was with a couple. Ever feel like the third wheel? They were keen on buying a house for themselves and 'getting serious' so I ended up moving out and into a house with one of their old friends. This new place was incredible. It had fast internet, a great neighbourhood, the house was beautiful and the housemates were awesome, apart from one - the main tenant who'd been there for longer than the rest of us (I'll refer to him as G from now on).

G had just hit his 50's and decided to take a year off studying vet science. After studying for so long, what's an old man to do for a year - G started partying again, getting into drugs, bringing home overly-drunken chicks and creating drama at the house. By the halfway point of the year, he'd lost his mind and was starting drama with housemates, myself and pretty much anyone associated with the housemates. Eventually it ended up with him knocking on my door at 1:30 in the morning with a big cut across his neck. Yep, a suicide attempt. I called emergency services who showed up 15 minutes later with the police by their side.
G was taken to a mental hospital for a few days where he was administered different depression medication to the stuff he was already taking, and then somehow managed to convince the experts in the hospital to let him off so he could come back home and attend a housemates going away party. He came to the party, drugged up on new anti-depressants and straight away started getting into the alcohol.
Incase you don't know, mixing alcohol and anti-depressants is a terrible idea. G sat inside at the dining table for most of the night with a bandage covering the six stitches on his neck, drinking and dancing to music with his earphones on, looking out at the 30 people who came to the party. You can imagine that's pretty weird for party goers to see. I knew something was absolutely wrong.
The next few days, G drank alcohol from the point he woke up til when he passed out and soon got into a huge argument with a chick who lived with us as well. The argument was getting hotter and hotter to the point that I wasn't sure if G was going to go all out and start attacking her physically, so I called the cops.

G heard me on the phone to the cops spelling out my street name, so freaked out and slammed a sliding door on my arm. I pushed it open, lost my temper and punched him in the head because of it (with the cops still on the phone). It sent him falling backwards into the kitchen bench and then the housemates broke it up. I went back to my room and locked the door, waiting for the cops to arrive. I'm not a violent person but he definitely deserved that.
When the police arrived, they had a big discussion with him but said to the rest of us that unfortunately because G was the main lease holder, the rest of us had to get out of the house and find a place to stay that night. Pathetic. Three people in their mid-twenties, kicked out of home because a 50 yr old had lost his mind and police/psychologists didn't know what else they could do. Protect and serve - Get fucked!

I grabbed all of my valuable stuff in the 15 minutes that the police gave us to grab it, chucked it in my car and took off to a mates place. I received a text at about 4 am that night from G saying, "I'm in your room."

As expected, he was trashing it.

When I came to grab the rest of my stuff the next morning with a friend, G was waiting and instantly started throwing death threats and insults towards me. I just went about my business to take photo's of my trashed room and grab what was left, then I got out of there.

For the next two/three weeks I stayed at my friends house. The old real estate agent contacted me and told me that G was being kicked out of the house and that I'm welcome to come back and live there again. I really would've liked to, but my other previous housemate had already taken off in a plane back to his home city after seeing things go down hill here, so I couldn't afford the house anymore. I declined the offer from the real estate agents and they blacklisted me for it.. Funny that.

Being blacklisted is like a bad job referral, but for houses.

So, let me make this clear again - They offered me the house and then blacklisted me because I couldn't accept it. I didn't even get my bond back.

All thanks to G.

I was lucky to get into the house I'm in now. When I enquired about it, the real estate agents were cautious because I'd been blacklisted from my previous agents. I explained what had happened and the lady was nice enough to trust me and give me a chance. I spent the remaining money I had, paying mine and a mates bond off so we could get into the house. Pretty much a few days afterwards, I'd found out my cars rego expired. I was too poor from paying the bonds and so had to let my car go for the time. That was over 8 months ago and I'm just getting my car back on the road now. Roadworthy, repairs, rego. Expensive shit. It really doesn't help when you're unemployed and you're in a new town where you have hardly any friends, and the past few years have been the shittest time you've ever had. Witnessing mums death had already put me in a bad headspace. Keep in mind, I moved to the new town to clear my mind and get a fresh start from thinking about all of that. I didn't expect that in moving to this place, I'd have to deal with suicidal maniacs and long-term unemployment for example.

I've really searched for a job in this town but it really is dead. The media says it's the worst place in Queensland for a job, ratio wise - close to being the worst for employment in Australia. I've had to teach guitar to locals to get by, build sheds and do odd jobs, but I am falling far, far behind and I don't know what to do anymore. I go on facebook and look at successful friends and wonder when my chance will come again. I come here on Steemit and look at successful steemians and hope one day I can get to such a level. I send countless resumes to companies & business and never hear a word back. I go online and shuffle through 'work-from-home' scams and pyramid schemes and just end up feeling hopeless and like I've wasted another day digging a deeper hole... 

Thanks for reading,

                             Shredlord

- Credits to Pixabay for the Img.