A Voice for the Houseless: Christmas in a Tent
Raelee Childers, houseless and with a substance abuse problem, is writing a sometimes column for us. She says she hopes to open the hearts and minds of those that are so quick to judge a book by its cover. Comments will be monitored for civility towards the author as well as other commenters.
Disagreements are fine. Personal attacks are not.
Let me begin by saying a “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” to everyone. I know that most people will probably be celebrating the holidays with their Families. And to those people I’m envious of, because I wish I had Family to spend the holidays with. But unfortunately all my loved ones have passed. So for me this is usually a really bad time of year for me.
My Grandmother (Idonna Williams) and Great Grandmother (Lucy Stipek) are the ones who pretty much raised me. Both of them had birthdays in December.
“I will always love you Dad. Merry Christmas.” [Photo of Raelee Childers and her dad, Bob Childers, hugging.provided by Raelee Childers]
Now let me be the first to say that if it wasn’t for my dog Fatboy or the Meth, I would have killed myself along time ago. The meth, keeps me busy just so I don’t sit around and dwell in my own thoughts, or wallow in my own self pity. And my dog, Fatboy is the biggest thing that keeps me alive, inside and out. He gives me a reason to smile again. He gave my life a purpose, a reason to wake up each morning. He needs me just as much as I need him. He is my Family.
Me, I know where I’ll be at this Christmas and that’s just sitting in my tent with Fatboy doing nothing. For me it’s just another day of the year and not because everyone, I think, has forgotten what Christmas is really about. It was never about having a tree with colorful lights or little figurines on it. Or decorations on homes. And it definitely was never about presents or gifts or even Santa Claus.
It was about actually spending time with the people you care about the most. It’s about unity and togetherness–reminiscing about the past and remembering the ones that are no longer with us. It’s not about who has money or a house to live in or who doesn’t have money or a place that they can call home. ‘Cause what it all boils down to in reality is that we are all the same no matter how you look at it.
So when you are all spending Christmas with your Families or loved ones, just remember that somewhere out there, there is someone who doesn’t have it as good as some people do. Or have no Family to share the holidays with. This is the time of year that a lot of people will take their own life for a lot of reasons but the main one is depression. Thank you……
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
I’m sorry you lost me when you said if it wasn’t for fat boy or the METH you would have killed yourself, so as a drug addict on METH you fell alive? It’s the reason your homeless and without anyone… Geez what a bunch crap!
Thankyou for sharing your honest feelings. I send prayers up to those that yet understand the need to self medicate, “What you thought you knew about addiction is wrong”. Speaks of connection. On you tube.
tweekers are thieves. thieves are tweekers
I hope for a lighted path for you. A warmer future with support and care. I also wish for you some healthier ways to stay busy. Addiction and pain doesn’t always allow for clear headed choices and SOME people are fortunate to not know that and should be grateful they aren’t being nominated to walk in another’s shoes.
Are you sure christmas isn’t about an oppressive religion co-opting an existing Roman solstice holiday to try to make their delusions seem more palatable?
Also, maybe if you stopped with the meth, you might have friends and family?
Santa is an Amanita Muscaria.
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/578959/shaman-santa/
Religion or no religion, some humans are obsessed with enforcing their own opinions on others. And are blind to everything but their own impulses. Bach would have likely been a music maker everywhere but his opportunity was as a composer, church organist and all around difficult personality with a religious bent. Centuries later, his defects are overlooked in favor of having the utter enjoyment of hearing his music. Which might not exist without both his religion and the opportunities it gave.
As people are never wholey good, their practice of religion is equally spotty. It can save some from their own personal demons while exacerbating the misery of the personal demons in others. Under either circumstance, it is not all about any one individual. Especially it’s not all about an individual who can not believe that it is not all about themselves, religious or not.
As long as you rationalize your addiction you will never be free of it.
Raelee:
Honestly, what are we to think? You just sit there and make excuses, “my father died”, “I take Meth to keep busy”, etc…
You don’t appear to want to change, but you persist on presenting yourself as “needy”, and “pathetic”…
What is it you would have the rest of the world do for you? We didn’t create your situation. You have options.
If you won’t change, won’t give up drugs, won’t look for help, how can anybody expect to make your life better?
Get some help, go to rehab, move the heck away from the source of your problems! Year in and out, it’s the same with you.
Meanwhile, if the citizens of Humboldt County want to help Raelee Childers, don’t give her money, take her to a funeral home and show her what will happen, where she’s going, which is into a box, or into the incinerator, if she does not change.
Raelee, I hope you recover. Start by hitting some N.A. meetings. Leave the meth, somewhere else.
Hang in there, but do something to help yourself…
It’s really sad to hear someone think that meth is actually helping them psychologically. Please get real help.
Start a ‘family” with ex meth adicts.. Stay strong and clean.. Help people like yourself… That is a family … Not just old memories and a blood line
You lost me at ‘sitting around doing nothing’. If I were homeless there is no way I’d spend any second doing nothing. I’d clean toilets and hustle my ass off before I’d just accept those circumstances.
If you have no other place or option, I happily invite you for a Christmas dinner.
Wow you 2 commentors are exactly what grinches are about. Thanks for reminding us of what’s been lost at the holidays. I have no option but to hooe you both end up homeless as it seems compassion is only felt when one has to experience the harshness.
I bet youre puttin back some booze at nite, you think thats better? People on alcohol are way more agro.
Have you ever been homeless? Ever had nowhere to stay and no food?
If you actually take the time to talk to any homeless person about their life they’ll tell you that the worst part is having nothing to do. Everyone wants to feel useful and most meth users want to have a job. You probably live or work with a user, they can just hide it. In my early 20’s i went to work on meth all the time and got raises for my fast hard work. No one knew except my co-workers who did it too.
Ever walked on the street by the eureka library? There’s usually 2 dudes sweeping the street literally with brooms. We should be paying them to clean up trash. In Switzerland homeless folks are paid to sort recycling.
I mean what makes your statements even worse is your ignorance that your tax dollars produce new formulas of meth weekly in our military. They desugn different variations of meth for pilots to see how long they can stay awake and be functional. Its been in time magazine, its no secret. Then these formulas make it to the streets so yeah, tjis person is actually using it for the exact reasons the military made it. That ought to be what pisses you off.
But no, its so much easier to point fingers and judge. Most folks on the street are sick &/or disabled.
Read the series the LA times did on homelessness. Every person they talked to did meth to stay awake at night so they didnt have their stuff stolen nor were assaulted while they slept.
Watch the documentary called “methland”. Meth creates community for folks, sad but true.
To the person who wrote this piece, thank you!!!
Im so sorry for your plight. I hope you can find a way to get somewhere warm and know that we will be sending you love for whatever thats worth. Im so sorry we live in a world where people would rather judge and be mean than have compassion. Who would read your honest account and attack you. Please know there are some of us who care!
We all ought to be saying “there butfore the grace of creator go I”.
I actually say, “There but for the Grace of God, my choices, and my refusal to accept those circumstances go I.”
You have no way of knowing what the two commentors you have so royally shamed and chastised have been through.
“…any homeless person, the worst part is having nothing to do.” Talk about a generalization.
Booze is legal.
Maybe new meth formulas are produced weekly. Do you believe the government is the only one doing that particular thing?
“Most folks on the street are sick &/or disabled.” Funny thing about that — quit putting God-knows-what-they-are-made-of drugs in your system and you feel better. Can’t undo the brain rot that it has caused, or undo the physical damage it has done. But get it out of your system and enjoy feeling better.
And I especially like the comment about pointing fingers and judging…kinda like you are doing.
Really, in your eyes METH that destroys lives daily is a community drug… Wow the delusional thoughts that go through your head is amazing… Quit meth life gets better period! Yes I’ve been homeless, yes I’ve been addicted and yes I’m none of those things now… And life is way way better, quit trying to justify a drug addicts life as ok, it isn’t ! Quit drugs be part of a productive life and help other off the downward spiral that only ends in homelessness! Oh and by the way your the one without compassion or you would help get them clean not hold the pipe, or give them excuses.
Until a simple, formal, regulated Tent Camp is created, with a bath house& super simple kitchen, things won’t change. The county & state spends way more for homeless people than it would need to spend for Camps!!
We need to petition the county to take care of this- If they have the funds to send out & act on all the Abatements , then they have the funds to set up Simple Camps. Period.
So how do drug addicts get well regulated? It is not the camps that need regulating but the people using them. Is there any limit on what some expect others to work to provide to people who turn around and bite them? The demands only start at housing. It goes on to health care, life skills training, utilities, drug supplies, food, etc. Even veterinary care. That Is like saying that more money is spent on treating disease than would be spent on preventing it. True but useless when it is so many people resist prevention.
Working on a safe camp❤️ If you are interested in helping in this process contact me at [email protected] Thankyou!
Would you please tell us about the work on a safe camp?
What stage is this in? is it just a thought, or has there been some actual progress?
Please tell us this right here in the comments… people are likelier to help if you give some info.
thanks
Or they might say “There but for working hard each day, go I.” We are not talking a war or natural disaster depriving someone of a home. We are talking about drug addiction, which might or might not have been made more likely by mental illness. Under that circumstance, having sympathy for a person is not the same as being supportive of the awful choices that created the situation in the first. Nor does it mean honoring screwing up in order to have “real” sympathy the misery of another. People who get themselves to work most days for decades, depressed or not, have a perfect right to wonder aloud why someone else who hasn’t seems to feel that this fact disbars them from criticising. That these workers did such a difficult thing shows that they understand what failure to do it means while apparently those who fail keep looking outside themselves to blame others.
However they got there, it is clear that their choices are not going to get them out unless they decide to choose other things. That opportunity to choose differently can not come from honoring the rationalisations of people who want only not to suffer the consequences of their choosing while still choosing the same ways. No one could rationally think that using “to stay awake at night so they didnt have their stuff stolen nor were assaulted while they slept” is a solution to being in the position not having a safe place to sleep. There are plenty of people using meth who sleep off the streets. So the first step is to stop using because, even if the fairy godmother comes along to shelter them, she can it magically make meth use inconsequential. And because its hard, choosing other things will be honored where continuing using meth can never be.
I’ll assume I’m one of the commentators you’re unhappy with.
I don’t drink.
I do have a coworker that I suspect is using stimulants. I’d rather he didn’t. It makes him really unpleasant.
I have been homeless. I fixed it by getting a job.
I had plenty to do. Because rather than sit on my ass and do drugs, I spent my time looking for work and doing other productive things. Having nothing to do is a decision.
The people trying to steal their stuff were also on meth, which is why they were up at night stealing stuff.
No, we all not ought to be saying your religious crazy.
I’ve had parents and many close relatives die. I’ve witnessed many traumatic things in my childhood. The difference is I fight every day to not become a victim of my circumstances. Everyone in this county has an excuse for why they can’t get better, be better, do better but no one is willing to say trauma be damned, this is my life and I’m going to succeed. If you can’t find employment or housing here maybe it’s time to hitch it to a different place and give it a go there. Being homeless and having no family there should be nothing stopping you.
This is about Raelee, a not so frequent contributor to this site. This is not about delusional ideas that other commentators are using alcohol, or being heartless “grinches”, or crazy notions about the formulas of Meth…
Raelee is a victim of deception, the deception of drugs, which are stealing her life. Raelee is also a victim of self-deception, which is telling her that she can evolve, somehow, to a better life, by telling her story, impinging on the kindness of others to somehow solve her problems, the problems caused by intractable lifestyle choices.
For, it’s a choice! People choose to stop struggling, stop working, stop being sober productive citizens! Homelessness finds it’s own level, wherever being homeless operates for a time. Bring homeless is a process of floating on the tides of life, and too often, there are drugs to quell the existential pain, the angst of anxiety…
For drugs bring a replacement lifestyle, and the focus of life becomes obtaining and consuming those drugs, which feeds the delusion and self delusion anew…
Look here, I don’t drink, I worked a straight job for 50+ years, invested, saved, and, now, I reap the questionable reward of existing on what I have until death. I exercised a sustained act of will that built a stable lifestyle, a stable home, a moderately secure future…
And anyone can have this! It starts with the will to move forward! Your life may look like it’s all wreckage, you may concede that “this is all you will ever have”, but, a series of focused, simple changes, can make your life better.
For Raelee, and for you, if you are struggling with Meth or homelessness, or whatever, taking the first step, admitting you are powerless and extending your hand to others, can lead to changes that may just amaze you.
Drugs exacerbate hopelessness, they never improve anything at all. Meth is everywhere, but, you don’t have to take the Meth, if you don’t want to, and, I have met 75 year old men who gave up meth after 40 years… Look at it like this: As Neil Young wrote, “Just another mine in the field of time”. You can escape, it just takes not using, one minute at a time, one day at a time…
Raelee, don’t just sit there and suffer, go to an AA meeting, a NA meeting! When you hit the bottom, you don’t have to die!
For everyone else proximate to this woman, take her to a meeting, help her find rehab. There are people and places who will dispense these services, but the NA and AA model is the most successful and widely used program, in history. The participant, has to want to participate, so keep that in mind!
The best love, for an addict, is tough love. It is difficult to turn your back, to lock that person out, but in the end, tough love is the best tool. Go to AlAnon, learn about codependency. Enough said.
Raelee, I said it before, you are not helpless, you appear to be educated, you know you have to do this yourself. Get help, get to a meeting. The future may open up to you, when you get clean. It’s hard, but what is easy about the struggle you face currently?
Sobriety is worth the effort. Good luck.
Sorry, you’ve lost your loved ones. Suggestion, meth is a liar and is not helping but further the problem. Redwoods Rural offers help for free. They also have counseling, which may help you deal with the loss of your loved ones. From there they can help you map out a plan to find a home and stay busy. Good luck. Xoxo
Get off drugs and get a job.
Hard drugs and alcohol may take the pain away, but when they where off the pain comes back worse than before. Life is a struggle for all of us, I’m sure it’s harder for you without a home. The meth won’t help you , get some help.
Bless you. May you find your way. Putting the White Light around you and FatBoy. Just a thought… maybe if instead of spending a lonely, cold holiday inside your tent, you and the boy take a walk and see where you can help voluntarily. Giving of yourself like that brings happiness all around and in that love, you just might find family again.
I’m sorry for your situation, but it doesn’t sound like you’re even TRYING to change. I’m a sober alcoholic, and I’ve struggled with mental health issues my whole life. I’m glad to hear you have a dog to love and care for as I’m also a huge dog lover. But really honey? Stop the Meth- Humboldt has great recovery – AA and NA meetings all over! Meet some clean & sober people, go to Open Door and ask for mental healthcare. You should be able to get Medi-Cal?
You DO have choices… There ARE jobs out there. Stop putting that shit in your body. Good luck- I sincerely hope you make it. However, nothing changes if NOTHING changes.
Everyone deals with pain differently. Some of us can’t deal with it all. A pain so unbearable (for some of us) like losing someone you love. Meth numbs the pain. It keeps you busy (many of you call it tweaking… I call it running) so that you don’t think about things that hurt. It keeps you “running” from your feelings.