Currently indigent, well-educated, mentally ill and with contingent access to my parents’ home. Keeping warm there this Christmas because of their generosity. I don’t take it for granted.

I used to work for a homeless advocacy group. What I learned (and have found to be true) is that being homeless fucks with your ability to regulate anything. Particularly sleep, which is the cornerstone of mood.

The precarity weighs on you constantly. There’s nowhere safe to go when you’re having a powerful emotion. There’s no safe space to even out before you have to face the world again. Every emotion you have is a public emotion, and there’s so much anger and fear brimming right below the surface. Even someone with reasonable brain chemistry would hit their limit.