What now?

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I have no idea what to do now.

All my income was from my roommates, none of whom paid any rent this month or intend to pay. Welfare refuses to give me any money during a month that I had it on paper that I was due rental income, even though the rental income was never received. This means I have zero income for the month of November. Welfare will re-instate my cheques in December.

My long-distance has been cut off, so I can't call any agencies apart from the Welfare office which is in town. I have no money for gas to go anywhere. I have just finished my bag of potatoes and have no food other than flour, oil, rice, and some raw pasta. I have no money for gas to get to a food bank or to a church supper.

My family has already refused me any money, but my mother brought me a fruit cake yesterday which I ate for lunch and dinner. They are millionaires by the way.

What am I supposed to do now? Walk up and down the street trick-or-treating for canned goods? Go to the only grocery store within walking distance and offer to exchange sex for expired food? Set my furniture on the lawn and put a "Yard Sale" sign on it?

What are the options?

tell your parents you are going to starve and are already compromising your health by having a poot diet

Can you try Freecycle for a bicycle?

It seems to me that your options include the following:

1. Do not accept "I won't pay" as an answer from your roommates. You need to be firmer than you're being now, because anything short of payment is unacceptable. If they have food, you could try bartering, right?

2. Call the churches that have meal services (assuming it's not long distance). Ask if they have any kind of outreach or pick-up services for people who can't get there themselves.

3. Apply for a job at every law firm within reasonable commuting distance. Your grammar is excellent, I suspect that it's a peculiar "Aspie strength" of yours, and you'd make an outstanding proofreader. (I know that won't put food on your table tonight.)

4. PM me your address, and I'll send you some money today. That's partly because I can't find a single grammatical mistake in your post (which makes it a first), but mostly because I would hope that someone would do that for me.

I don't do helpless. It never works for me. Doesn't make sense to wallow in self pity. I remember when I was eleven years old, holding my mom's hand and telling her not to commit suicide, and that me and my brother would NOT be better off if she just killed herself. We were living on $60 a week, and rent was $65. My brother and I collected aluminum cans to turn in for recycling and get money to buy bread at the day old bread store. Those were not sunny days.

And that was before I was diagnosed with terminal liver disease and told I had at most 5 years to live. I've lived 19 years since I was diagnosed, because I refused to accept defeat. I hurt today though. I wish I wasn't allergic to opiates, half a codeine would make me feel better right now. But then I'd get a migraine from it, and spend all day tomorrow locked up in a dark room in excruciating pain. Not worth it.

Are you crippled? If you can walk, you can go get dinner at your food bank. Are you near a church? My pastor frequently gives $10 or $20 to any stranger who walks in the church and asks. I can't say Anglican's do the same, but it's a common habit in American Evangelicalism churches.

I second the motion to not let your roommates get away with stiffing you. Say pay up, or you'll call the magistrate. If they don't, call the magistrate and start getting the evicted.

You obviously have internet. So you can use Skype for long distance. Problem solved, call an agency.

Why no job? If you can type, you're not disabled enough to not work. I know - I've worked full time while wearing a diaper for chronic ulcerative colitis and while dealing with hepatitis and pancreatitis caused by primary sclerosing cholangitis, bacterial cholangitis, and bile peritonitis. I've put in full days while I suffered from hepatic encephalopathy and I've even blacked out in a diabetic coma at my desk. I should have said no to the baklava, but honeyed almond slivers and crispy pastry crusts are so, so tempting. On the other hand, I've never worked with either a aura-migraine or a cluster migraine. Too much pain, those are truly disabling.

My advice. Get angry. Get pissed. Do something about it. The day I realized that I was accepting failure, letting other people define who I was, was the day I realized I was a loser and would never be anything. I was sitting alone in my rusty car with my last $8 in my wallet, eating crackers and cheese, I just gotten my mid-terms my 2nd semester at University. I had failed all but two classes first semester, and I was failing most of my classes again 2nd semester. I got angry at that. So I immediately changed all my behaviors, all my habits. I would not play their game. Instead, I would live my life BETTER than them. I would beat them at the game of life.

I still use my anger to achieve when I need too, but I don't need to anymore. Since then, I've also realized "they" are not the problem. The problem was always me. I was an angry child who behaved badly because nobody knew how to explain to me how to get what I wanted. Once I figured out, on my own, how to get what I wanted, it's a simple matter of going through the motions. Bathe, be nice to people, don't verbally attack people, write down what I did wrong and don't do those things again. Now, every two weeks, "they" give me a cheque for doing no more than solving math problems and giving them my advice about what the math problems mean.

I like that.

Kick your room mates out and get some new ones to move in. Make them pay a deposit before they do so.

Since you have an internet connection, you can try contacting someone online. There are the Catholic Charities; I'm sorry, I'd include a link, but the various web sites depend on your location, but if you google "Catholic charities", you should find the one near you. (This is the link for the US site, in case you live in the US. http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/ ) There is the Society of Saint Vincent De Paul http://www.svdpusa.org/ (also the US site). Or there is the Salvation Army. http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf (Once again, the US site.) Hopefully, one of these groups can find a way to help you.

There are also your local churches; I don't know what they're like near you, but I do know that if you lived in my area and called my church - or e-mailed them - they'd try to help you. If none of that works, I can't do very much - I'm pretty broke myself, although at the moment not quite as bad off as you - but if you have a PayPal ID you can PM me so I can send you money through PayPal, I could send you at least a few bucks. Maybe at least enough to get gas to get to a food pantry. If I find I can squeeze a bit more later, I'll try to. One way or another, do what you can, but try to avoid anything too desperate, to survive.