Many bipolar sufferers out there in the world find themselves homeless at some point in their lives. The challenges of the illness combined with the pressures of life can be too much at times. Bills pile up, depression sets in, family difficulties result and you end up on the street.
Though it’s common among those who suffer from mental illness, homelessness is still heavily stigmatized in our society and often results in a vicious cycle of poverty that makes it difficult to get back on your feet. While I have news for you!
Though there may be a societal divide that makes homelessness tough to rebound from, the digital divide doesn’t discriminate.
A Wired.com article, “Laptops Give Hope to the Homeless“, written by Jacob Ogles detailed some of the success stories that easy access to technologies have allowed the homeless to achieve. Check it out for some inspiration! In the meantime, here are 10 steps to achieving success as a homeless person (by the way, this post is not meant to humorous in any way for those of you who are wondering. Utilizing technology is one route to successfully get back on your feet):
- Set up an email account at your local library or another location where you should be able to access the internet for free. This will allow you to maintain contact with your friends and family, and also gives you a place to be contacted by potential employers if you don’t have a cell phone.
- Start a blog. Just write about whatever you choose too. Kevin Barbieux, featured in the above mentioned article has maintained The Homeless Guy for 5 years now. At one time it was mentioned as one of the top 10 new and notable sites by Yahoo. This is a great way to express yourself, work through your emotions, and if done right, give yourself online exposure that could lead the way to future successes.
- At first, unless you’re incredibly innovative, your blog will be your key to getting exposure for your talents rather than your lack of accomodations. Set up a social networking account on a site such as Facebook and then link your blog to it. Everyone from Bill Gates on down has a Facebook account these days and you can connect with people you’d never think you could.
- Spend some time figuring out what contributed to your current situation.Â
- Determine what steps you have to take to overcome those contributing factors. I currently use public transportation for my mobility needs. Being in public, often downtown, has given me the opportunity to talk with the odd homeless person and I’ve found that often they don’t know how they got to where they are. I wonder how they’re supposed to fix their bind if they don’t know how they got there in the first place.Â
- If the last 2 steps aren’t working for you, then determine the steps you need to take to get off the street, and then find the problems for those solutions. Basically you’re working backwards in order to find out what issues you need to deal with to avoid the street life in the future.
- If you suffer from a mental illness, take your medication and stay in contact with your medical support team. Do not drink or use drugs! I don’t care how cold it is outside, you’ll be much colder when you’re dead! Also avoid the crowd. I don’t mean this in any sort of condescending way, but the street isn’t the best place to develop positive, supportive relationships.
- Set some goals and develop a plan to work towards them once you’re back on your feet.
- Take others with you. If you’re trying your best to cross that societal divide back into regular life (regular is subjective; I’m using that word from the point of view of the majority of members of our society), take some well-chosen people with you on the path to recovery. Service and helping others will be fundamental in feeling like you have your dignity back.
There is a such thing as a successful homeless person. With the digital divide taking down barriers everywhere, it’s much easier for someone without a home to have one in no time. I would also advise you to Google “bootstrapping”, especially if you feel you have a great business idea but not the money to make it a reality.