My Support Forums - View Single Post - Can you live with a group of people and get along?

manicminer · Jan 13, 2013, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Innerzone

Until recently, I didn't know if I could really do the housemate thing. Especially as it's far less common for my age group. There are so many variables for a successful situation! Not to mention concern over "issues". Like trust. I lucked (totally accidentally, really) into a good situation. The recipe for success on this one is: Private space that is separate from main area of house with a private entrance option. Just a couple of other people (both a bit older). No drama. No kids. Mellow. Quiet, but not stiflingly so. It is equally ok to hang out or not hang out. This is a good thing -- cave-time doesn't get anyone bent out of shape (though this has not been thoroughly tested. Been pretty steady, so can't really comment yet on how disruptive symptoms might be that dynamic.), and getting a bit of socialization is convenient and low pressure. I like it very much actually!

You're in kind of a tricky situation (like you don't know that, right?

). Have to admit that I could not deal at all with a kid in the mix. (Haha, and I have one! He's 20 now though.) It adds a whole 'nother dynamic. You actually put it very well, mm, and it might not need quotation marks... "family". It's going to be hard to not feel like a 5th wheel at times. Rare are the people who can truly make someone feel "part of the family". So that one's going to be hard. On the being "like they are your parents"... Is that in specific ways, or is it just a general feeling/atmosphere?

If you are inclined to say.... How did you come about living there? Did you know them before?

The BP part.... do they know? (That is something my housemates don't know. For me it's a lurking fear that waxes and wanes. Things have been steady, but the fear lurks-- not so much of whether they find out or not, but of what form a "disruption" will take.) That's probably enough questions for now. Have a few more thoughts, but they're kind of dependent on the answers to the ones currently posed.

Prime example: I went off for a few days with a female companion and did not check in. Because my housemate didnt know where I was, he called my work, my bar, my friends, and was nearing calling the police, and was extremely angry with me when I returned. Now that his fiance and child live with us, the two of them together worry when I do not come home from work on time, or double at work or go to my gf's place for the night without informing them beforehand, and they make it known to me that they want to know where I am.

I knew my now housemate through our fraternity in college, although we didnt live there at the same time. He started a new job at a warehouse that needed a driver and got ahold of me to let me know. I took the job and moved in with/ began working with him and have lived there ever since October 2010. The gf and child moved in Fall 2011. We met her while selling sausage at the local farmer's market. There was another roommate that came home from Afghanistan in Summer 2011, but has since moved out.

My housemates do know of my bp dx, but he has always been dismissive of it, and wasnt extremely dismissive of my need for medication. Although I was to blame for using the disorder and the side effects of the meds as excuses for my poor behavior (made him furious with me and doubt my dx even more) I received no kind of support from him. He was very happy to hear I wasn't taking my, in his words, "zombie pills" anymore.

The ex-husband/father of the child was an issue in the beginning, as she had a PFA against him but he still had partial custody. The man was an obviously mentally ill abusive alcholic and threatened her life on more that one occaision while she was living with us. Its a bit un-nerving for me to get a phone call from my roommate that the child went home and told daddy what a good time she had at our house over the weekend, he was not happy about it, and to strategically place loaded firearms throughout the house in case he came in an attempt to harm any of us. He has since been incarcerated for other violations and is out of the picture for now.

To add fuel to the fire, she does not have a full time job (makes income through selling her baked goods), and he has not worked since the end of July when he was fire from his job as a warehouse worker at another mine. So money was very tight. He cashed in his 401k at 28 and has since used up all of that money.

Luckily through a series of events, we had a need for a temp dayshift warehouse worker here at the mine. When my boss proposed this idea, I told him I had the man for the job and he would not have to just sift through the pool of potential workers at the temp agency (has backfired on him in the past.) So this week he got approval to hire a temp and my roommate started work out here today. Its not guarunteed to be permanent, but at least he'll be back into money for a little while.