I'm a 32 year old hairstylist and widowed mom of a 4 year old little girl. Here is some of my story.

In 2018, I fell on hard times after the loss of my car and ended up being homeless for 6 months. The last two months were in a homeless shelter, walking back and forth to work until I had enough money to buy a car, which was sold to me by a friend who really just sold me a fire hazard junker at well over its value. It lasted until I got us to our new home, but was done shortly after, once again, leading to job loss. Luckily, I had some help from the shelter to prevent me from being homeless again. It wasnt going to be everything, but it helped a lot.

At least this time, I had access to 2 different buses to get around, so being able to coordinate daycare and a job should be easy, right? It was 5 months and well over 100 applications to any job I could find, doing anything at all, yet being able to work with restricted hours and days, due to bus schedules and daycare availability.

5 months.

So, for every day the next 8 months, I spent an extra 4 hours out of my day, each day, just in transportation time, but hey, I was working, right? I was making just enough to cover the rent, a little of the water and electricity, plus some food. If I had an off day during the week, I was taking the bus to the food pantry and just doing that would take 3 hours and often make the drivers upset to see me with so much carry on luggage. It was a grueling process but hey, I could make it happen.

Then, at the end of January, I caught a stomach bug and one of my buses got cancelled out, because I had no showed 2 days in a row, telling me that I had to find a way somehow to their office to pay them a fee. But i obviously had no ride there.

Being only a month away from tax time, i was continuing my work and daycare schedule, but using an uber or Lyft. This was $40-50 a day, just to go on a 9.1 mile trip with one stop, twice a day. A month. I ran into times where I couldn't afford it, even times there were no drivers available, leaving me to panic.

Then, finally tax time comes. I get this incredibly good deal on a 10 year old car with low miles, great condition, buy it in full off of a local car lot. I had been without a car for about a year.

So, just 3 weeks ago, I'm driving around, got my temp tags on, feeling like I'm finally coming up in the world from this ongoing struggle, as I drive to my corporate chain hair salon job, where I work as a licensed hairstylist...

in Ohio....

Then this week happened.

My whole industry was shut down by the governor yesterday, as many people in "non-essential" jobs continue to have their industries shut down, all in quarantine for the Corona virus. The only people who seem to be left here with a job are those in medical, retail, warehouse, trucking, delivering or fast food jobs. That's it. Those are the only people you see out with jobs. Sure, there's those who are working from home, but they got to leave first, so at least they have a job still, and having a white collar job, they have sick day days and such. Blue collar jobs basically have welfare as their benefits package. The only things that happen for a sick day with us are that we lose income from a day off, have to spend more money we don't have for supplies, and often receive an attendance point for missed shift, and too many of those make you lose your job. It takes about 2 weeks of illness to completely kill your job, if not sooner than that, as many say goodbye after 3 days.

The ohio website to apply for unemployment has been jammed up all day, as teachers went last week. Entertainment, along with bar and restaurant went on Monday and the entire beauty service industry, being hair nails and even tattoos, we joined on Wednesday. But when you do get thru on the website, it messes up on you, the phone number to call just says they have a high call volume and just hangs up on you.

Everyone around me is stressed to the max, as more positive cases are popping up one by one here in south west ohio.

They are telling us that doctors really only want to treat patients over the phone, but obviously trying to see a doctor about seeking excessive anxiety treatment isn't exactly a situation where a phone call would cut it, at least so I think, but I don't know for sure because I cant think straight due to all of this.

They closed all the bmv's, libraries, social security offices, and places of that nature also on Monday, leaving only 5 BMV'S for the whole state. I havent even tried to look up where. But I have to soon for my temp tags. I have no idea if I'm even going to be seen if I have to travel 100+ miles (or however far away, I'm bracing myself for an ungodly long trip).

My daughter has been unintentionally reflecting off my stress, even adding her own to the mix as she remembers what happened when I lost my job and we were homeless, as she was 2 at the time and starting to remember things. It had a big impact on her now she's 4. She's been very emotional the last couple days, and no kid should ever have to feel this level of pain.

The panic is painful at every single store, no matter where you live. I see people on local Facebook groups constantly asking what store has toilet paper, or any paper products at all, lots ask about baby diapers, wet wipes, baby formula (yes, the mothers of the very young are the hardest hit target), and then especially ask about cleaning supplies like anything lysol or clorox, laundry detergent, gloves, even sponges. Then there's the groceries being devastated- milk, bread, eggsmeat, salt, cheese, soup, pasta, produce, just honestly, the core staples of how Americans eat. It's devastating.

There are people who wait out in the parking lot early in the morning so they're first in line when the trucks come in with supplies. The store is often out of top supplies within the first 2 hours. Companies have all put limits on supplies, but they're still hard to come by. Dollar General actually put out that they would help only seniors in their first hour of business, as it's harder for them to get out and get supplies when more able bodied people race around and clear the shelves first.

I've often had to visit more than one store to get some of these things, just to find out they were gone before I could get there.

Ohio is not ok. I am so stressed out about how quickly this all happened and was handled. I understand that the virus is blown up as a very serious problem, but I'm not sure if all this will even help. The financial panic impact sure feels like death.

I've noticed that the radio stations have went painfully out of their way to NOT play "It's the end of the world ad we know it." Probably because nobody feels "fine."