How can I get some help without having a support network?

That's why I said "After a few weeks." If you do it every day, then yes, you will be seen as pushy. Everything in moderation. However, if you hear nothing for two or three weeks, then it's actually a good idea to make sure that it didn't simply get lost in the shuffle.

SECOND update: Food Stamps gotten, and I'll be having 2 appointments next week—one to determine my eligibility for Cash Assistance, the other a mental-health eval to determine whether I might qualify for SSI (which might actually determine whether I might actually not be able to get a job at all).

But Food Stamps are gotten, and my first month is $146, which means I can EAT!

Good luck shopping. Specifically, plan your shopping list, and plan that you'll deviate from it a little bit, just make sure it's not too much.

Hmm, I wonder if Costco takes food stamps.

Another update: Cash Assistance is gotten, and now I'm getting $40 twice a month next to my $150 of Food Stamps.

Still trying for SSI Disability, but I'm hoping that turns out okay.

Yet, even as that situation's getting better, my home situation's getting worse, with mom basically once again saying I'm a worthless do-nothing and threatening to kick me out. Just great.

(I better not hear any "you gotta take the bad with the good" because for most of my life all I got was the bad, and the medicaid, food stamps, and cash assistance was the first good I've gotten in a VERY long time)

I'd suggest the following: 1) Send a lot more job applications out, even to places that wouldn't be your dream job. Fast food, retail, cleaning (most cleaning firms take ANYONE), babysitting, security firms et cetera et cetera. Mc Jobs aren't oodles of fun but you'll rack up work experience and stuffing for your CV. Also, financial independance. 2) Start building support networks. Go out, meet people, make friends, get to know your coworkers, volunteer and meet people that way. 3) While jobhunting, do something productive. Take some courses, go to the library, volunteer (volunteering is especially good because it can lead to a job), ask your neighbours if the need any help and do odds jobs like mowing lawns, babysitting or bringing groceries for grannies. Most importantly, don't live 24/7 in front of the computer but be active and try to keep a steady daily routine so that once you do get a job it won't be so hard to adjust.

"Still trying for SSI Disability, but I'm hoping that turns out okay."

You know, to be honest, as a fellow New Yorker, I do not particularly cherish the idea of my taxes supporting you because the jobs I support myself with are too beneath your highness to consider.

Not from New York but I agree. Your simply being lazy, and I'm lazy as all hell though I'd take the damn job.

edited 20th Nov '11 6:00:25 PM by PinkHeartChainsaw

edited 20th Nov '11 6:03:37 PM by USAF713

I have two BA degrees, speak four languages, and teaching experience. I am in grad school now because I can't get a job. I either hear over qualified or under experienced. But I have a child to feed so I even put in an app at Mc Donalds.

Seriously, I promise being able to be independent and financially stable will be more healthy for your issues than to keep on government assistance. If you want something bad enough, you'll get it. But I assure you, you will need some more schooling or at least an apprenticeship to get into the job you want.

I've never had food stamps either. So pool your newfound resources and plan your next leap forward.

Not really an update, but something: I'm gonna be trying to make some mental-health appointments over the next week, see if something pans out.

BTW, Kashchei and Pink Heart Chainsaw, I get your drift, but that was incredibly rude and insensitive a way to put it (I wouldn't turn down the job if I got it; and back between June/July, I'd applied for 15 jobs—ALL of them minimum wage stuff—and got outright rejected by 4 of them, 4 said they weren't hiring at the moment, and the rest never contacted me back).

And for your edification, I'm not lazy.

I'll make sure that the next time I respond to a poster who states fairly clearly throughout the thread that he prefers to rely on government handouts rather than accept menial jobs in the city in which I'm paying taxes, I'm incredibly polite about it.

Chummer, only 15 job applications over 2 months? Back when I was looking for a job I made a point to put in at least one application at a new place each day. And of course the rest of them never called you back, they are swamped with people looking for a job. Call them up and ask them about it a few days after you put in an application, ask to talk to a manager when you do apply. Just do something to make them remember you as the applicant who really wants a job.

There are places that are always hiring, even if they do not specify it, just because the turn-over is so immense: AMC, Trader Joe's, Zabar's, Whole Foods, Abercrombie and Fitch, Starbucks (you'll have to find the specific locations, though), Mc Donald's... Stores will also be looking for last-minute seasonal staff. 0 out of 15 is bad luck, but it also means you need to be applying way more often, at way more places. I run into ten "now hiring" signs just walking ten blocks in the city. Try harder.

kaschei, I never would've pegged you for one of those horrid "get a job ya lazy bum" conservatives.

Especially since I know you're not, generally, conservative.

There is a difference between protesting welfare programs, and criticizing individual able-bodied people for leeching off the government, but I'm sure you can make a case for just how fucking horrid doing the latter is.

Mo there isn't a difference? If you object to people "leeching off the government", than you object to welfare, seeing as the point of welfare is specifically to allow people like Metalitia to "leech off the government".

You're essentially going into Metalitia's advice thread and saying "get a job, you lazy bum". Which clearly isn't that easy, you know? Otherwise he (is that right? I don't think you've ever told us your gender) would've already by now.

(Not to mention I think you vastly overestimate the extent to which a depressed person is "able-bodied".)

edited 26th Nov '11 10:08:22 PM by BlackHumor

I think the objection is less "fuck you, you want welfare," and more "fuck you, you want welfare because you're too good for a job I do freely because I don't turn my nose up at an honest day's pay."

/unsubstantiated estimation of kash's opinion which should not be taken as fact

That's exactly it, thank you.

Yeah, sorry, I worked for Wal Mart pushing carts for two years when I was 16. I hardly got a cent of my own paycheck because everything else was being spent on bills and getting the rest of my fairly large family by. It's hard to sympathetic with you, or DJ Yellow. Personally, I find all this "internet come help me I'm in a crisis" to be a bunch of bullshit. We're all pulling through our personal battles, to be picky and ask for help from a bunch of strangers as if you're honored to it is down-right insulting.

I know getting a job is tough but the answers are pretty obvious and I'm sure you're aware of them. Take a second to really think about your options and something is going to pop up. If you have to work at Mc Donalds or Wal Mart or something "demeaning," then do it. You're gonna have to work hard - welcome to the real world. Happiness isn't a guarantee, the pursuit of it is. I thought that was established rather clearly.

@OP

You could at least try Mc Donalds out. It's not like they'll chain you to a fryer or something like that...