"at rock bottom" stories

Scrubby · Mar 13, 2009

Ok here goes:

When I was 19 I had left school, was unemployed and really hit rock bottom. I turned to drinking and for the next year or so I was drunk almost everyday, my friends at the time were alcoholics, I had no life at all except drunken parties and waking up in strange places, but I knew at the bottom of my heart that I had to do something or I'd just end up on welfare and probably dead from liver failure etc.

So I stopped drinking and hanging around with my alcoholic mates, I went to an adult college and finished my high school. I didn't get the highest scores but I did well enough to get into nursing.

I wonder what happened to the people I used to hang out and drink with. I hope that they managed to do something positive with their lives.

mom35 · Mar 13, 2009

Scrubby, Thanks for sharing your story!! You should be proud of yourself, I'm proud of you!! :yeah:

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 14, 2009

i moved halfway across the country for my husband's job. i didn't know anyone in the city except my husband and my new co-workers, most of whom seemed to hate me. i was miserable. then i found out that not only was hubby cheating on me, but he had been since before we were married. in fact, he had cheated with the roommate of the nurse manager who was interviewing me for a different position . . . long story. i kicked him out of the house, then found out i had cervical cancer. i could neither divorce the ******* (word that means north end of a southbound mule) nor could i leave the job that made me so miserable i cried all the way to work every single day. i needed the health insurance and in those days it wasn't portable. i needed hubby's to carry me for the six months until i could have my own -- and then given that the cancer was going to be a pre-existing condition, i may continue to need his insurance. my folks were too wrapped up with their own problems to notice mine, my sister was a female canine then much as she is now, and my best friend was awol. besides, they were all half a continent away. my boss made me find a replacement for every shift i needed to have off for treatment. i had very little sick time, and i burned through it real fast, then took leave without pay -- every hour of which was deducted from my seniority and made health insurance and independence that much further away. and i had no support system of any kind.

the cancer was treated, i made friends in my new city, i got health insurance and i divorced the philanderer. i'm happy with my "new" husband of ten years, happy in my current job, and have a nice life.

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Mar 14, 2009

I can really feel for all those who've lost homes due to the recent recession. I lost my beautiful 4 br Cape Cod on one acre of land back in '92. We lived in a tent at the KOA for a couple of weeks before moving into a trailer that was basically uninhabitable until it was completely fumigated. Three times.

That wasn't even rock bottom, though. Rock bottom was when I finally got a job as a CNA and scheduled myself for 6 12-hour shifts per week so I could catch up. One morning, I lifted a little tiny lady who was so bent, I couldn't lift her correctly and bam, blew my back out so badly I was out of work for months. The worst part was when my back was in such horrible spasms I could hardly catch my breath, and the doc *company paid for* said I was faking. I couldn't get workman's comp because we had a car with a stick and every time I tried to shift the car, my back would start the spasms again.

As soon as the back was healed, I was back to work. I even took a job in a nursing home kitchen for a few bucks less than I'd have made as a CNA so that I wouldn't have to stress the back too much. Eventually I was able to go back to work as a CNA and then I worked my way up to RN. I worked double shifts on the weekends while I went to school so I didn't have to carry any debt. My cars were always super-used -- one of them was so rusty, we had the back bumper held on with a bungee cord and duct tape.

Yeah.... good times. As you can see, I can laugh about it now.

I bought this house the year I graduated. DH and I just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. I recently got a desk job that makes about as much as the floor nursing job. And now DH isn't working because he hurt his back. But you know what? I got rid of my new car and found a great bargain car -- looks like heck, but only had 60,000 miles on it. I paid $1000 and it runs just fine.

I'm happy, I feel blessed. I have a good job and everyone's pretty healthy.

And I have a nice lil 2 man tent in the storage shed, just in case....

Multicollinearity, BSN, RN · Mar 14, 2009

Let's see. In high school, I was in a bad home situation with a verbally abusive step-father and a mentally ill mother who had zero backbone. I wanted desperately to go to our local community college after I graduated from high school. My step-father found college to be a very foreign thing, and said absolutely not.

He said I would join the military or be out on my 18th birthday. So I decided to plan my escape from this home, and I graduated from high school early. I tried applying for financial aid for college on my own, but the colleges would not accept the application without parental information. I appealed this and was denied by the colleges' financial aid offices. I was told to come back when I was 24 years old and could apply for financial aid on my own by law. I tried to find my father to have him sign the financial aid paperwork, but I couldn't find him.

So back to age 18. Right before I graduated from high school, I had been working in an ER as an admitting clerk two nights a week. True to his word, my step-father kicked me out when I turned 18 because I wouldn't enlist in the military. He said since I had been working 16 hours a week, I should have saved money for rent. I was lucky I had a car. That's what my money had gone for.

The first few days, I slept in my little Pontiac Fierro. I'd park it in different places. Anyone remember those little two-seaters? I remember one night a cop tapped on the window and scared me half to death. I made up a story about falling asleep while waiting for someone and drove away to another spot to sleep.

I should have asked someone to stay with them, but I couldn't bear to tell anyone. Truth be told - I had been quite isolated from others and was depressed at the time. During that first week, a lady, a clerk, from the hospital business office figured out I was washing up in one of the public bathrooms in the hospital. She was a single mom with three kids. She took me home that night. I stayed with her for a month, in her little trailer. She was poor, yet she took me in and fed me while I saved up money for rent and a deposit on a place of my own. I will be forever grateful to her.

I picked up every shift I could at the hospital, worked my butt off, and got hired full-time. I got my own apartment, a little studio, and thought I was on top of the world.

As I was working over-nights in the ER, I'd watch the nurses carefully. They were like Gods to me. I was in awe of them. That's when the seeds were planted in my mind to become a nurse.

But back then, when I was 18, I was just on top of the world that one week I was sleeping in my car, and the next month I rented an apartment of my own, and lived on my own. I remember I was so poor - my weekly splurge was to go to Jack in the Box and get a hamburger. That was living large, LOL!

Over the next couple years I worked very hard and did better and better. Two years after that, I became a new car salesperson, and self-employed insurance agent at the age of 20. I was a scrappy little thing. I was very proud.

It took me years, too many years, to come back to the nursing dream. Here I am, graduating from nursing school this year.

marmsgirl · Mar 14, 2009

I too had a fierro. I loved that car but how you slept in it amazes me. Congralutions for bringing your life around -- take pride in your self for all you have done.

When i graduated i worked for a while then traded my car in on a pontiac solstice..it is like a grown up, updated fierro. it was my present to myself for overcoming so much and making my dream of being a nurse come true!

yoshiki56 · Mar 14, 2009

Yes, just in case!

caliotter3 · Mar 14, 2009

And I have a nice lil 2 man tent in the storage shed, just in case....

The same sleeping bag that kept me warm in my "nap in the car" days remains in the trunk of my car.

Multicollinearity, BSN, RN · Mar 14, 2009

It should probably be mentioned that one does not need to have a rock bottom story involving sleeping in cars or tents to post here...:)

There are many types of rock bottom experiences.

dreamon · Mar 14, 2009

Thanks to everyone who has shared there story. I will be grateful to return to this thread on the days I feel like giving up. I know these stories will help me to stay determined in fulfilling my dream.

mom35 · Mar 14, 2009

Well, since I started this thread I should tell my rock bottom story. I was pregnant at 17 Boyfriend 6 years older than me and I grew up in a very conservative christian family. Had a beautiful baby girl, our Audrey. Mark, her father, and I married six weeks after her birth. I had very supportive, highly academic friends that spurred me on and I graduated on time with them. We bought a nice little house and Mark went to college, I stayed home with daughter. About third year of marriage, husband become verbally, mentally,, emotionally abusive. He was a tyrant. One day I came home and he had thrown my clothes in the backyard and our dog was happily playing with them. He did this because he said I didnt fold them fast enough. He locked me in the garage, punched holes in the walls. One night he was in a rage. Our daughter was at my parents, thank god. I had left some dishes in the sink, or something and Mark's face was on fire and his veins were bulging. He went into our closet, I heard the rustling. I was in the hall and then there he was, gun in hand. Mark pinned me against the wall and pushed his nose against my face. I swear that his face was so vile and hellacious. He held the gun to his temple and said that he was going to kill himself and I was going to watch. I thought that he was going to turn the gun on me and commit a murder-suicide. My lord the pressure was unbearable! Then he left, I heard his truck tires squeal. I called police, told them he had his gone and that he would kill himself. He didn't. That was the end, I could not go back. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I had not divorced him. I think that I would not be here today. I worked in customer service for six yrs. and finally I am fulfulling a dream. All the times Mark told me I was nothing, I was worthless, that I would never go to college. Here I am with all A's and applying for NS. I have learned how to control my thoughts, I have learned that life is what I make it, I am in control!! I am Woman and I will succeed!!!!!!!