I don't want to go.

 

I'm moving in with my mom's neighbor this weekend.  I've already done the paperwork and the address has been approved.  I'm all set to transfer my registration there.  But, I don't want to leave my home.  I don't want to leave my dogs and cats.  I don't want to leave the city where I've lived my entire adult life.  But, my ex-wife wants me out of the house.  I haven't been able to find anywhere remotely affordable to live in the area (and I also haven't been able to find work).

It seems like it's going to be a good environment.  I'd originally been intending to move into a tiny travel trailer on my mom's property, but moving into a full furnished and functional house is way easier.  It will also probably do me some good not to be living alone right now.  I'll be able to do some house/pet sitting for the homeowner while she does some travel.  She's also charging me an incredibly generous "rent," which will likely only just cover my power and water consumption.  So, it's good to have an ally like that who's willing to help me out right now.

Still, I've been low-level sad about leaving all week and putting off packing for that reason.  A couple of hours ago, (after going and filing the moving paperwork with the sheriff), I finally decided to start the serious packing.  Instead, I ended up holding my 16 year old dog and crying for over an hour.  I kept telling him I'm sorry.  And how I didn't want to leave him two years ago when they locked me up and how I don't want to leave him now.  I can also apply all of that "not wanting to leave" to the house and the city and the community.  But, leaving my geriatric dog who doesn't likely have much time left is the hardest part.

I'm also sad that I haven't even been able to enjoy my last two months in my home.  I've been too depressed (I'm getting treatment, but barely making progress).  I theoretically have a strong support network of friends who all stayed in touch with me for the duration of my 2 year sentence, but it sometimes feels like nobody really cares that I'm out of jail now.  One of my friends came to pick me up when they released me and took a day off to try to help me get myself together (it didn't really work).  Nobody has come to visit me.  I'd assumed that my friends who hadn't seen me in over two years would all be pretty eager to come visit.  But nobody has.  They all seem pretty busy.  The two I asked about either visiting or meeting up both kind of blew me off and never suggested another time.  I feel like if someone would have come to visit me, I'd have made it a point to go to some of my favorite restaurants or maybe even reach out to some of our mutual friends who are in town that didn't respond to my initial texts/emails.  As it is (despite maintaining a terrible diet), I'm not particularly interested in food and usually only want to apply the minimum effort which involves lots of junk and fast food.  There are so many places I thought I'd be super excited about going to eat where I just haven't made it in the past two months.  And now I'm leaving.

Nobody calls.  I rarely get texts that aren't in reply to something I've sent.  The response rate to my texts isn't great.  I feel really abandoned, lonely, and isolated.  I'm having a hard time believing that those feelings will get better after having relocated to the middle of nowhere.  That's also not going to help with my job prospects.

The reality of the packing situation is that I'm not even bringing that much stuff with me.  Essentially just clothes, electronics, and stringed instruments.  I already dropped off some of my hobby stuff the last time I went that way.  But, I guess I just needed to do a little grieving before pushing through to the actual physical work of the task.

I'm leaving a lot of my stuff here for now.  I'll be coming in from time to time to get stuff (I have a lot of nerdy collectibles that I need to try to sell online), so I'll get the see the animals occasionally.  But, I'm not sure if that will make it better or worse.

Sex Offender DNA Phone Scam

I received a phone call today from someone who claimed to be named "Gregory Jackson" telling me that I missed an appointment for a "secondary DNA sample" on Monday.  He claimed the state had sent me a notice by certified mail.  When I insisted that I'd gotten no such notice, he said that the USPS showed it had been delivered and said something about how they'd need me to come in and sign and do a signature analysis for court.

He went on to tell me that because I had missed an appointment, a warrant had been issued for my arrest and that if I came in to give the DNA sample, they'd have to book me.  Then he put me on hold for awhile and came back with some mumbo jumbo about how I would be able to "self bond" and could pay now so that I wouldn't be locked up.

Of course, I got really scared because it is 100 percent plausible that both the State of Louisiana and the USPS could fuck things up in exactly this way.  So, he told me I had to pay several thousand dollars so that I wouldn't be put into jail.  Then he told me I had to stay on the phone with him the entire time so they'd know where I was, since I had an active warrant.  This is where things started feeling really fishy.  Obviously, he didn't want me to contact anyone and try to vet what was happening.

I went to the bank, and withdrew some money from savings.  When I got back to the car, there was this text about depositing cash into some weird kiosk.  "Sgt Jackson" told me an address and that I was to go deposit the money there.  At that point, I told him I was going to need some kind of documentation before I deposited money in some random electronic kiosk.  He got adversarial and told me "if that's how you feel about it, I can just come pick you up."  I told him I'd already texted my PO about it and he didn't really have any response to that.  So, I put in the address on my GPS and while driving there.  At this point there was radio chatter and the guy starts talking about having units on standby and saying random "codes."  I think he said 1088.  While driving to the address, I called Lt. Moore (the local authority over sex offenders in the parish).  He immediately assured me that the call was a scam and asked me to merge him into the call.  I did, but the guy hung up right away.  I was the 5th or 6th person who'd called him about this came today.

I'm so angry.  I didn't need this extra stress.  Also, sex offenders are already a marginalized group who have to pay lots of random fees.  Trying to prey on us financially is really shitty.  I'm sure the people take some comfort in the fact that they're taking advantage of "bad people," but damn.  It turns out that having a legally vulnerable group of people who are required to post and publish all of their contact information and criminal history online makes us an especially tempting target for scammers.

Both the number above and the number that texted me about the kiosk are answering calls.  Though, as soon as I they figure out I'm on to them, they just hang up.

Apparently one of the guys who got called actually made a payment of some amount.  That sucks a lot, but the good news is that at least a crime has now been committed.  Until money actually changes hands under false pretenses, no crime has actually occurred.  Though, now that I'm thinking about crime and punishment, I'm really not sure what kind of penalty I'd like these guys to face.  I know incarceration isn't reasonable.  Maybe they should have to be on the sex offender registry for awhile.

Update: Putting these comments in a screenshot for posterity.

I'm 90% sure the person who wrote this is one of the scammers because I texted both their numbers a link to this post.  But, there are people out there who really feel this way about sex offenders.  Note how this person automatically assumes the worst about me and says that I deserve to die.

I also enjoy how they're not willing to comment from their actual Google Account and made a throwaway one under the name "Concerned Citizen" because they're actually just a troll who's into the idea of punching down.

Motivation, Updates

 Motivation has been a major struggle.  Nothing seems to matter.  That's depression talking.  I've been working on fostering a positive mindset with my life coach.  But, it's hard.  I so badly want to write, but I frequently can't even make myself do that.  There's so much that I need to have done before I leave this house and I should have already done most of it.  But, I struggle to be active for more than a few hours a day.  I feel a lot of guilt about how little I accomplish on a daily basis.  I try to cut myself slack about it, but it seems like everything is arbitrarily hard.

I finally gave up on finding a therapist in the area that accepts Medicaid.  It's astounding how little support there is for people who need help like I do.  I signed up for Better Help and meet with my new therapist in about half an hour.  I couldn't let myself keep putting it off.

I reported to my PO yesterday and again wrote on the form that I hadn't attended required counseling because I haven't been scheduled for it.  I'd schedule it myself if my PO would provide me with the information, but she hasn't.  So, I guess I'm in the clear?  Nothing makes sense.

One of the newspapers I sent my information to (so they could publish community warnings) couldn't receive my mail and it got returned to me.  When I contacted the local Lieutenant in charge of sex offender stuff, he gave me the same address I already tried.  So I tried again.  He also told me that he needed a copy of the Money Order receipts for my payment.  Apparently nobody actually checks that the community notifications happen--just that we paid the money to make them happen.  Fantastic.

I'm going to ask my PO for permission to use Reddit.  I already updated my profile with a post that says that I'm a sex offender and my crimes (as I'm required to do by the state of Louisiana).  It also links to this blog.  

I just feel so isolated all the time.  I feel like it would be good for me to engage with some kind of community.  It would also be nice to be able to write and feel like what I'm writing is being read.  Posting here often feels like messages sent to the void.  I can see that I get page views, but I'm unclear on how often those are just automated bots who are scrubbing my posts for search engine information.

I'm increasingly resigned to moving back to Montgomery and staying in the travel trailer that my Mom has.  I don't especially want to live there, but I have no leads on anywhere even marginally affordable in Caddo Parish.  And, if I have to move and pay all the re-notification fees anyway, maybe it makes sense to go somewhere where the cost of living will be relatively low.