Need to Know on PBS

Another viewer responded to our call for stories:

I’m Patrick. I’m a 40 year-old college-educated graphic designer and artist with a lifelong ‘functional’ physical disability. I lost my full-time job of six and a half years in May, 2008, and have been unemployed since then. Up to that point I had worked continuously for fourteen years and was completely self-sufficient. In November, 2008, I was evicted from my apartment due to missing two months’ rent payments. UI benefits, while life-sustaining at its nadir, were never ‘truly’ sustaining at the rate of less than $1200/month. I stored an entire apartment’s worth of belongings and reluctantly moved in with one of my sisters and her husband and son. I contributed as much as I could while still trying to make car, credit card, storage unit and other bill payments. Eight months later I wore out my welcome with my brother-in-law and moved in with a friend. I paid/pay a reduced rate for rent and was/am limited in space to one bedroom, which also contains some of my friend’s belongings. It was a much-needed move to a larger job market from Mankato, MN to the Twin Cities, but I soon found I was “up against it” here, too. I applied for jobs. I followed up. I applied to temp/contract agencies which specialize in creative positions, and soon discovered they weren’t replying to my calls and emails, likely due to so many other graphic designers looking for work. In the span of a year and a half I had one interview… over the phone, which lasted all of two minutes when they informed me the position was in Ohio.

Between the fall of 2009 and winter, 2011, I earned money from three freelance projects, totaling less than $1500. When my UI benefits expired in February, 2010, I began selling my personal belongings, whatever was worth a modicum. My entire CD and DVD collections, minus a few ‘must-keeps’ (while I needed to eat, I also needed to stay sane), baseball cards, furniture, and any electronics I had left. My family helped me as much as they possibly could without devolving into neediness themselves, and we all came and are from a very humble background. In the winter when I was twelve or thirteen we lived without heating for over a month. In Minnesota. Just as one example. But if not for my family and the incredible group of friends I have I can say with a strong degree of confidence that I’d not be writing this email to you, or anyone else. I started visiting the local food shelf, applied for and received food stamps (EBT) at $200/month as well as MinnesotaCare, and it was difficult to understand the bureaucracy (coming from a much less populated county) which took over six months to navigate. Six months I went without my prescribed medications for chronic pan and depression. As my last resort, I applied for SSD in June, 2010, very begrudgingly. I was denied. I appealed, and was denied again. I’m too disabled for the average manual labor job, but not disabled enough for SSD. My depression which I’ve had since my 20’s was progressively getting worse. My car was repossessed in April, 2010. Being disabled and unable to walk very far, my car is like my legs. My independence. The following month the bank closed my checking account and had me locked out of opening another account in the US for five years. In July, 2010, my friend Eric, one of my oldest and closest friends, committed suicide. Things began to blur together after that. By January of this year I was running on empty, emotionally, financially, morally… (only slightly kidding on the ‘morally’ part). I hadn’t had a steady income in a year. My friend/roommate Tad let me stay rent-free the entire year. When he bought a new car last year he gave me his old car for free. And he had been unemployed for well over a year himself between ‘09 and ‘10. I couldn’t pay for insurance, so for a few months I relied on blind faith when driving to look for work or to buy groceries, and kept selling what little I had left, or ‘bummed’ off my family and friends to buy gas. I don’t remember consciously giving up, but… It felt pointless to look for non-existent jobs. It was work just getting out of bed and out of my one room on a daily basis.

Nothing positive seemed possible, except for the continual moral support of friends and family. Then, this past February, I received an extremely generous and totally unexpected gift left to me by my recently-deceased friend in his last letter. Eric, in his last act of being the Eric I knew my whole life, made sure his family saw to it that his friends who needed the most help were “taken care of”. To this day I’m still dumbfounded. I paid off ALL of my debts, bought a ‘new’ car which enabled me to pay forward the car given to me by Tad, to another close friend, Paul, whose car had just completely died only days after I received my gift. I then helped out as many people as I could who’d helped me so much. I looked forward to my future again, was completely debt free for the first time in my life, and felt confident I would/could find work before the money ran out. I enrolled in some web design classes and tried my best to make myself more marketable. I was actually smiling again. It felt incredible, to have that weight off my shoulders; that howler monkey off my back which had been there so long.

It’s now nine months later. I’m still unemployed. The money has run out and I’m now on the verge of selling the car I just bought in March. I’m unable to pay rent again. There are still no jobs available. But not all is hopeless. The money allowed me to buy a much-needed new computer and camera so I can work freelance again. I have the tools to succeed, now I just need the opportunity and/or the inspiration to find work or create a job for myself. I’m working with state Vocational Rehab Services which is helping me search for work and afford me further education and training. The process is slow, but steady. At least, more steady than it was ten months ago. I’m having to relearn how to simply function again. My depression is now under control and is no longer anchoring me down, but after three and a half years with no structure, no self-discipline, I’ve turned feral. I’m now a “feral artist”, and even founded “Feral Art Productions”, which is a fledgling creative catch-all venture for all my interests like graphic and traditional art, music, movies, and more. This year I made and directed my first short film ever, and entered it in the Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Project, all inspired by Eric, who was a comedian and played the main character in a 48HFP movie in 2008. I had planned on a long-awaited road trip/documentary shoot on how other Americans I would meet on the road were coping and surviving this past summer. That trip was once again shelved due to “real life” getting in the way. And while I’m currently still unemployed, have an empty wallet, a hollow bank account and may have to sell my car, I’m incredibly fortunate. Just unimaginably fortunate, to have the friends and family I have. But I’m mostly fortunate for the fact that it’s just me; no wife or children to go through all the sh!t I’ve had to go through (pardon my colorful candor. I swear a lot now). To imagine that scenario is truly frightening to me. I have another sister who recently lost her job due to her company closing. She’s a single mother with a six-year-old boy with Down Syndrome and they will have to scrape by on unemployment and a modest Social Security stipend. And I can’t help them. And it hurts.

My friend killed himself… and it saved my life. And while I have hope, there’s also a vein of uncertainty and doubt permanently rooted in me. What else do we have to do to survive in this economy? My story continues… for now.

No vacation 2010. Home improvements came to a screeching halt in 2009. United Way contributions halted. Seething resentment flourishing.