Hello everyone,
I'll just get down to brass tacks. I'm a 27 year old heavily depressed individual living in Chicago as a pizza delivery driver with no health insurance. (Can't afford therapy) I moved here to chase my dream jobs, all related to being creative and working in any type of art form. (Working on a film/stage set, acting, playing my music live, doing improv comedy, videography, video editing, the list goes on.) I have over 8 years of skills built in audio/video production, but I know absolute no one working in any part of those industries.
Now it's important to point out that I barely make my full rent/bills every month due to the job I have. I pay an extra $250 a month for a 7x7 music rehearsal room so I can finish recording an album I've been working on for three years now. That's the one thing keeping me going in life and I would find it immensely difficult to give up. Being creative is everything to me, I can't break myself from it.
I'm scared. I know you can't trust on your dreams coming true, even if you put everything you possibly can into it. Not only that, but my depression has been mentally and physically destroying my energy to even walk, let alone live. I don't know what jobs to pursue outside of the typical restaurant/bars/retail work I've been doing my entire life. They have all made me feel meaningless and depressed, a common thing in my life.
Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I know I can't change everything in one day, but I could use some seeds to grow in the future. Thank you.

I’ve always been a night person, I feel like my brain doesn’t properly “kick in” for deep thought and focus until about 3pm every day, this means I’m pretty much doing my whole days work between 3-9pm which I’d rather not do
I sleep from around 12am - 8am most days and take vyvanse at 7am. I have no issue doing other things during the day once the vyvanse has kicked in like cleaning the house etc but I just can’t bring myself to sit down and properly focus on work until the late afternoon
How can I fix this? I want to be able to finish my work by 5pm so I can properly enjoy my nights
Can you become a morning person?
Any tips greatly appreciated.

Hey folks! I'll be travelling to Sydney from India in late July for work. I'll have 3 days to tour (Fri, Sat, Sun) before I'm busy with work for the next 4 days. And then one leisure day before I head back. It'd be great if you could help me plan my itinerary out!
Few points I'd like to plan around:

1. Working/staying near Darling Street. Evenings (post 5pm) are completely free on my work days to go around the city. I'm planning to use these evenings to check out as many tourist spots as I can within the city, and leave my free days to whole day activities
2. I live by the coast so I'm not too particular on checking out all the beaches, just the major tourist spots and then spend some time at a quieter place.
3. I would love to spend a day just for surfing, diving, whale spotting, or basically any water activity (I love the sea). Will the weather in July will allow this? Any recommendations and bookings I need to make in advance?
4. I'm comfortable renting a car and driving around, maybe a spend a day or two outside of Sydney. For e.g., I saw that Canberra can be done in a day trip. Also some national parks I could visit as well.
5. I have people in Brisbane. Is it worth flying to spend a day there? I don't want to miss out on a lot of stuff in and around Sydney by doing that.
6. I'll mostly relax on my last day after finishing work, checking out the markets, shopping for souvenirs/gifts, sample some nice baked goods, etc

Also have some general questions:

1. What time does the city usually sleep and wake up? For tourist activities.
2. Is the city safe to walk around late night? Any areas I should avoid?
3. Any car rental agency recommendations? How much should I budget for rent and petrol?
4. Any tourist activities that I'll need to book well in advance?
5. Does July see a lot of tourists? Also how cold is it then (couldn't get a straight answer from Google)
6. Is drinking water good straight from the tap?
7. Does public transportation run 24/7?

Would love to hear your recommendations and suggestions!

My girlfriend and I are moving from Virginia Beach to Chicago next march/april, I plan on packing everything I can fit in my crown vic and selling it once Im up there for 5-6k, other than that I have 2k saved for the move. We plan on renting rooms as a couple, shes a pipefitter and I'm a line cook. Any advice for shoestring budget people moving up here???? I'd rather not part with my car bc I love it but I'm not against it just bc I need moving money and chicago apparently has great public transport. Anybody here move to chicago with barely any money???? Just any advice would help us out tbh, thanks.

Hi everyone.
Just looking for some advice for my friend who has recently separated from her husband. For context, they have 2 kids and are both currently named on a mortgage for family home. Mum and kids live there, dad renting elsewhere. Kids primarily at family home with some overnights per week at dads. Dad pays towards kids and mortgage. Nothing official has been set up and until now this has just been an arrangement set up when they separated. No divorce or separation agreement was made.
Now, arguments have begun and my friend is looking for a longer term option to take over the family home by her own and fully separate. However, she is unsure on what steps are available and how things can be done. Neither of us knew if the following questions would be suited to a solicitor, a mortgage advisor, both, or someone else so any help from you guys would be appreciated.

1. As it stands, if she took over the home, she would he unable to pay her ex out until she was in a position to remortgage. Can she commence divorce proceedings or seek a separation agreement, that stipulates that she will take ownership etc now and then agree to pay him x amount upon releasing equity? Or should this be done first and then divorce/separate?
   
2. It’s unlikely that she will be in a position to obtain a mortgage based on her income for the home (value £450k, mortgage £250k). Is it possible for her to arrange a joint mortgage with her dad? He’s 68, retired, no debt, no mortgage, substantial savings and income through shares in a business. Is this likely to help?
   

Thanks for any help. Appreciate it.

My ex owes 20k in child support arrears and is selling his house in a few months. Can I file a CS lien to obtain any proceeds from the sale? Are there any other avenues to get a lump sum payment for arrears?

I (35f) have recently found out that my “mother” I have been dependent on due to mental disability is a psychopath who may have intentionally tried to kill me by driving me to suicide attempts by intentionally aggravating my mental health. Let me explain.
First this is gonna be extremely condensed.
I won’t go into how she raised me and all the cruel and horrible things she lied about as being love and that I was the problem. That would be a books worth. I will just say after college I worked for a bit before my depression became too sever. Due to that I ended up moving back with my “mother”. I should say she had been putting on the nice and caring act for years after I left for college and I had bought it.
I ended up developing late onset psychosis and paranoid delusion. This involves thinking people were after me and breaking in and stealing items and moving things along with placing cameras and bugs(spying) everywhere.
I told all of my symptoms to her while I was experiencing them because I was scared out of my mind and thought I could trust her despite her reverting to her old self by then.
I realize now she perpetuated my condition. For instance I asked her to help me look for bugs. I was in another room and I heard the voices saying that she might find them and that she almost broke the dresser drawer looking. I went and told her what I heard and she said she did pull pretty hard to open the dresser in that room. This led me to believe what was going on was real as I did not think to suspect she would do that.
Another example is me trying to stop the people from getting into my room. I would tape the door at night and try to stay up because the voices were saying they would break in while I was asleep. She convinced me go to sleep saying no one would get in with the taped door. The next morning I freaked out because the tape was peeling. When I told her she told me she did kinda hear someone walking around in the room but she thought it was me.
During this initial onset period she never told me to get help or took me to a hospital and I never went myself because I thought everything was real.
To make a very long story short again. When I finally did go to a mental ward because I had tried to cut my throat with a knife (She finally said I should go to a hospital. I had stopped myself and came to her crying). I was finally diagnosed and confirmed mentally disabled. The whole time I was in the ward she would come every day available and stay for the full visitation hours. She became my representative payee after I got out and on disability. It was SSI since I had not worked long enough due to depression to get regular disability.
So I became completely dependent on her. Even diagnosed she would say things like how medicine was poison and tell me stories about people with schizophrenia made it without medicine. And heavily implied I was dumb if I took medicine because “I was smarter than to take the poisonous medicine pharmaceuticals put out to make money and they don’t even work”. She was so convincing because the first med I was put on didn’t work well and gave me bad side effects so I tried to go without. She also told me it was best I didn’t tell anyone in the family because they would be afraid of me.
To make another long story short and get to the point. I left the house she lived in and she convinced me to let her go and stay with me because she could help me and what if I had a bad episode I would need someone.
I found out recently thanks to years of therapy and finally being on meds awhile (which she said was “too bad”) That she has been doing serious lying to me. She lied about her house being broken into three times yet there was no sign of being broken into and she just didn’t know how they did it. I had used what I was learning in therapy and wrote it off as random acts rather than people now targeting her too. Me and my therapist were confused about it.
That she was a psychopath did not cross my mind because she was so good at acting like she had some kind of love for me despite her cruelty mixed in.
The first break in she said her expensive plates were stolen along some of my jewelry I had left there along with some other things. The next time she told me a lot of her expensive clothes she had brought were stolen. The final time she said they had taken her expensive shoes (she had a lot).
Fortunately, recently due to some circumstances and a new therapist (my old one left) I went as low contact as possible with her while living with her due to her getting too comfortable being cruel with me. My new therapist encouraged me to stay that way despite how she began to act after I went low contact (she had immediately gone into nice and caring mode when I started hardly talking to her).
I wanted to find a journal I had written in that was in that house to read to my new therapist. I had had enough therapy to not fear as much returning to the house my condition started in. I wasn’t talking with my “mother” so she did not know I was going back. I discovered all the stuff she claimed was stolen while looking for the journal.
That is when I finally started to realize how much she was lying. I told my new therapist this and she suspected she suffered from generational trauma and some mental disorder but was not sure. She encouraged me to keep low contact and work on becoming independent again. This is what I have been doing.
About her trying to kill me in the past.
I tried to kill myself from two bad episodes. (I should mention I had gone off my medicine due to side effects and did not have my old therapist because she left out of state). I didn’t want another therapist right away because I had become so attached to the one that left and my “mother” was telling me about how I should try natural medicine to cure my condition. (I was dumb I know).
The first attempt was kicked off because I had started hearing voices from right outside the house. I told her. A few days later I find the door unlocked and cracked open. I ask her and she says she doesn’t know why it was open. Cue my total break down thinking they had gotten in and my therapy had only convinced me it was not real. When I was at my worst my “mother” just stepped back completely. She didn’t ry to stop me. She didn’t suggest treatment. Just let me rip with my condition. I ended driving over an hr to drive of a bridge to kill myself until I realized I might not get thru the guardrails and driving into a tree. I survived it and only ended up with a broken leg and fracture to my back. During my hospital stay “Mother” would come for the full visitation hours. She did the same when I was moved to the mental ward due to the suicide attempt..
Yet, my “mother” told no one in the family what had happened.
The second attempt was kicked off because I had gotten into religion (Christianity) to protect myself. I have always been atheist. What can I say I was off my rocker and convinced now It was more reality than me being sick due to the very real unexplainable door incident. I used a bookmark I had bought to keep place during my reading. There is a reading room in the townhouse we are renting so I would leave the book there. I wake up one day and go to read the book to see the bookmark is gone. Of course I am freaking out and tell her about it. She just says that it’s “weird and maybe I misplaced it”. At this point I think it’s the people after me yet again and think It’s hopeless because no one will believe me due to my diagnosis. I fall into really deep depression as well with the schizophrenic episode. I tell her I am thinking of suicide again but she doesn’t really react.
That time I decide to try and get hit by traffic to be killed. I drive to the freeway and on it awhile before I pull to the emergency lane and get out. I guess I still had some self preservation in me because I was feeling fear about doing it. I kept moving to step out but would step back. Some cars would blow at me I remember. Luckily some guy probably saw a lunatic was thinking about running onto the freeway. He pulls up in front of me to block me and I tried to run away from him but couldn’t due to not making it over the concrete median before he grabs me. He holds onto me while his wife(?) calls the cops. Cue me being taken to the police station handcuffed and then the closest hospital handcuffed, staying there awhile before back to the hospital with the mental ward.
Again “Mother” would come to the mental ward each day and stay for the full visitation hours asking what I wanted her to bring me and what I did in there.
I realize now at all the mental ward stays she never asked how I was or said what she felt. It was just general conversation. I just figured she did not tell anyone because she felt ashamed of me and I felt ashamed too due to my condition and no one else I knew in the family trying to kill themselves.
I didn’t see it then because I had some form of hope or delusion that she had some form of love for me she just didn’t show it well. The only reason I figured everything she said was a lie was because she used her “sweet and nice” voice while being domineering and manipulative to me yesterday. She had never done that before ever. It was always an angry yelling or frustrated voice she used. So I had always assumed her using that voice was her having some form of sincerity.
After figuring this out just yesterday I looked back at all the “real” episodes of my condition and even a lot of the things that were off about her behavior, such as not telling anyone about my suicide attempts or condition.
She also had not bothered to call the police on either of my suicide attempts. When I first asked about it, since she said she didn’t know I was gonna kill myself despite me telling her I was suicidal, she told me she was praying for me at the house. When I asked again a few months later she said she didn’t suspect because “ I leave the house alone a lot” even though I was clearly having a severe episode when I went to kill myself.
I have had many negatives feeling regarding her. This is the first time I am fearful being around her. Unfortunately, my new therapist left the practice before I realized all this. My last meeting was last week and I don’t have an appt with her replacement until next week.
I have a small independent catering job now. A job that could pay enough to get me away from her, but unfortunately it requires a car and it’s her car. I also still depend on her financially to help with job costs. So even if I could afford enough to rent a place I would not have a car or probably finances to continue the job anytime soon.
She apparently does not like me having this job, even though she was so eager to help, because she has started to become her real self with it and is stealing items I use for the job while saying she doesn’t know anything about it. She is also doing things to try and trigger my conditions symptoms again.
At best I would not be able to save up to have a car and enough profit to run things on my own and be able to leave until midway into next year.
So how do I survive living with this psychopath that probably tried to make me kill myself twice? At least, until I can get my therapy appointment next week? I am assuming I should not act like I have figured out her behavior and what she did/is doing because that might escalate it.
I am scared but able to control myself so far from freaking out.
I really don’t know if she would directly try to harm or kill me. I assume she is capable of anything. Especially if she knows that I know what she is now.
Other family are not an option as they live on the other side of the coasts. On top of that no one would believe me. They all think she is a kind and loving person. I have and know no one near here.
I should also mention my father divorced her and has been gone with no contact with me since I was about two years old. I don’t know anything about him. The irony is that she always said he was the monster.

Hi guys, I need some clarity lang. I'm an OFW and single. My parents are in PH and I have isang kapatid who still lives with them.
I have been abroad for the past 5-6 years and its been a struggle pero I really prefer to stay here. I am not very well off but sakto lang and my parents still work so I am not obligated to send money every month, but I still do send.
Present time, my brother got an opportunity to go for work abroad din but different country from mine. He booked his flight and currently waiting for his papers etc.
Now it so happened na yung father ko ilang beses na palang na-papapunta sa ER without my knowledge, my mother telling me na pinoprotektahan daw nila ko at huwag mag alala. Pero itong latest na punta nila sa ER, pinaconfine na si daddy at iprinep for operation. It went well. But he still needs another one to completely heal.
The supposed date of the operation will be this August, same month as alis ng brother ko for his new opportunity.
Now, the dilemma lies here: my parents wants me to pack up my life here abroad and go back home for good kasi dalawa na lang daw sila dun. Para may kasama. I said no. Kailangan pa daw bang magmakaawa sa akin para umuwi ako? Hindi naman daw ako yumayaman dito bakit ako nag i-stay? Marami kaming not-so-good history ng mother ko, and I can say I only felt trully free and found myself when I left the house.
I'm actually not sure what to do. Go home? Stay? Kasi either way, ako pa rin ang masama.

I’m considering starting dog walking/ pet sitting but I also can’t spend the $35 dollars for the background check without knowing it would make me money in my area. I live in a smaller lake side town, with other lake subdivisions around that have houses well into the millions and up. I’m also willing to drive to Ann Arbor or Jackson michigan as those are the closest to me. Is it likely to make money? I’m not looking for a full time job just some extra cash on the side to help.

Hey everyone!
During Feb 2023 we got a lease renewal offer with a 30% rent increase due to rate rises, insurance/cost of running a rental increasing. This new lease/rent price started 24th of May.
On Tuesday we received an email from the real estate stating that our property manager (partner of owner) no longer works there and we have a new property manager. No big deal.
Today (Wednesday) we receive an email from the real estate stating that the owner has decided to no longer use a real estate and our lease will continue directly with the owner effective close of business 31/5 (today).
The issue is as of right now, we have no way of contacting the owner. We have no new lease, no way of contacting them regarding property concerns, no payment info for rent etc. I understand and hope we will eventually have this information, but it doesn't feel right that these changes can be made immediately with no further information being provided to us that ensure our rights as tentants is upheld.
A few takeaways:
We would never have signed a lease as a private rental due to previous experiences. If we had known that a week into the new lease it'd get turned into a private rental, we would not have signed it.
We feel like we've been taken advantage of (like everyone in this market) as the excuse for the rent increase included the cost of running a rental. But if they aren't paying a property manager anymore, why is our rent still going up so much?
Has anyone had experience in this space? Do you have any advice?
I will call the RTA and QSTARS tomorrow, just wanted to see if anyone had experience/advice in the meantime.

Looking for a bit of advice here.
My brother has been approved for SIL & SDA funding and I am looking to move him from medium term accommodation into a permanent space shortly.
One snag that has come up is that he has been funded for 1:3 SIL support, however the 2 other residents he will be moving in with, spend most of their days out of the house in 'day programs'. This is unlikely to be something my brother will want to attend.
His SC reviewed his OT assessment and found that he is had been incorrectly funded for Community Participation and asked the NDIS to investigate. They did, and they have upped the CP.
His SC wants to the CP to bridge the 1:3 funding gap for the time the other residents are out of the house, but it appears there is not enough to cover that entire period, leading to a situation where either he will need to be left alone in the house with no supports while they're both away for a period of hours per day, OR he will need to spend time out of the house while there are no supports available. Literally the only person who can support him during these hours is me, we have no other family, and my partner is due to give birth to our first child later this year, so my time is going to be limited at best.
I feel as though my brother is being penalised because he does not attend day programs. The SC is suggesting we can potentially try and ask for more funding, but not until he has been in the house for a few months.
Does anyone have any suggestions on resolving this issue? It's not that I don't want to spend time with him, it's more, that I can't always be sure I can be available every weekend for a set period of time, and I feel like I am going to be forced into a position where I have to do so.

Hello, I'm looking for a furnished place to rent for a long period of time for 1 person (1 bedroom apartment)
If anyone knows a place suitable within walking distance of the business park please tell me I need it before Sunday and my budget is 300 monthly.
I tried looking in open souq and hagzi and didn't find anything suitable or close within walking distance.
Thanks in advance

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