It has not happened to me personally, but it has happened to a number of people in my group. Most recently, a good friend was arrested at his house by fifteen cops. His wife had apparently been very effective in convincing them he was a threat.
He went to jail until he could get bailed out. He lost some teeth in jail. He lost his home. He lost his wife. He lost his son. He lost his income.
In the past two years, he has won the case and gotten a divorce, which is a good thing. He has not managed to see his son, though, and he doesn’t know where they are living. The big thing is he got an apartment with another member of our group. Then he got involved in a political brouhaha at city hall, which led to him being picked up as a commentator. He is writing a blog that gets seen by 2.3 million eyes worldwide, enough to allow him to move into his own apartment and start to pay off some of his debts.
I think you just do what you have to do. What amazes me is that even people who are depressed still manage to keep it together. I know that when I was depressed, I was kind of hoping to commit suicide by homelessness. I felt I needed to suffer a lot before I died. Fortunately, there were a lot of people who cared about me when I didn’t, and they kept me from doing myself in.
But even if they hadn’t been there, I wonder if I really would have wanted to die as much as I thought I did. I think that even when one is sick, the urge to survive runs strong, and eventually, I would have done something I could have felt good about, and maybe forgiven myself for my sins, and allowed myself to take care of myself. I believe I might be able to recover from losing everything. But I don’t want to try it.