A 60-year-old from Freiburg lives on a disability pension and housing benefit. She is happy that she was able to leave her old apartment. But the new one is considerably more expensive.
The fact that she was finally able to move was a huge relief for Sigrid B. *: Before that, she had barely been able to sleep through a night for years because her neighbors were constantly noisy due to addiction and violence problems. She is very happy that she now has a quiet apartment. But due to double the monthly rent and other moving costs, she owes a total of 1,600 euros. In addition, there is another 600 euros for the vet bill because your dog was bitten by another dog. Sigrid B. is 60 years old and unable to work, her pension is small.
Fortunately, she has that behind her: the many terrible nights in which she called the police because there was simply no other way. Especially when the couple kept yelling overhead. She was always worried about the woman, says Sigrid B., the man was very aggressive. But the woman wasn’t grateful to her when she got help; on the contrary, she claimed that everything wasn’t that bad after all. Otherwise she experienced disturbing things in her environment, there were quite a few neighbors with alcohol and other drug problems.
Only as a teenager did things get better
All of this was even more unbearable for Sigrid B. because she had to go through far too many difficult experiences in her life before that. She has post-traumatic stress disorder: “My childhood made me sick,” she says. As a baby, Sigrid B. ended up in a nursing home and then in a Catholic children’s home. There it was normal for children to be locked up in dark rooms and muzzled as punishment.
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She had become a shy, intimidated, fearful girl, her will had been broken, she had no self-esteem. It only went uphill as a teenager, at that time she was able to move in with an older woman. That was not always easy either, but it was then that Sigrid B. saw for the first time that someone was interested in her.
She moved out at the age of 17 and became pregnant after training to be a nurse. In total, Sigrid B. had four children and was married twice, but most of the time she raised her four children alone.
Illnesses prevented them from working
In addition, she has continued to develop professionally, including becoming an occupational therapist and doing several other artistic and educational trainings. To show that she can do something is all the more important for her because the nuns in the children’s home have always conveyed to her and the other children that they are all failures, she says.
But although she has constantly gained further qualifications, she has never been able to work permanently in the respective occupations. First she struggled with the consequences of an accident, then with severe high blood pressure and the consequences of trauma. Nine years ago, Sigrid B. had to quit working life after going to clinic and rehabilitation. Since then, she has only been left with her small disability pension and housing benefit. How is she supposed to pay the moving debts?
And when her dog had to be operated on, which was attacked by another dog and has been her loyal companion for many years, she was completely at a loss: the vet’s bill costs 600 euros. Since then she has asked herself: “What am I doing?”
* Name changed
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