July 15, 2024 Self-Care in HOA Hell

I’m sure that my readers and followers will have noticed that I took some time off for the first few weeks of July. I’ve received some touching notes and messages from kind people who were just checking on me. It is incredible that people who are just a little more than strangers, who have never met other than through some social media correspondence, would take the time to reach out to each other. That is true humanity, and it just makes the experience of HOA Hell ever the more poignant because it is in such contrast to how abusive actors behave towards others.

I will be forthright and say that my time off was suggested to me by a health care provider. Being an academic, I know that I only have a few precious weeks in summer to do anything that isn’t related to my career. I have been pushing myself to build and launch the Resident Evil HOA Lectures before I have less time for it. There is also the factor that there is a problem at hand, and I want to solve it—to end the horrible situation I’ve been trapped in. To be free.

I suspect that many of you in HOA Hell are having a similar experience in your push to fight, to act, to do something, anything, to end the torment you are going through. It gave me pause when a health care professional told me to stop. Not to give up but to just put it away for a time. How many of you might benefit from the same thing? I’m guessing your first reaction is resistance. You don’t feel that you can because somehow that will let them win, that it will make you vulnerable somehow, that it will be the first step to giving up the fight for your very rights and human dignity.

A pause doesn’t have to be that. In fact, it can serve to re-orient you, to refresh your perspectives and goals. It can also give your mind the freedom it needs to regenerate and come up with new or alternative ways to approach your strategies. It will also give your body time to heal from the damage that the stress of HOA Hell causes. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to just switch it off. It will be there, but for a time, it doesn’t have to be a dominating force in your waking (and sleeping!) life. When it comes up, you can tell yourself, “Oh, yes. There is that. I’m taking a break right now. I will get back to that on Monday” or whatever day you select for the end of your break. It does help. What you do then is have a pre-determined list of things to think about in place of HOA Hell. Anytime you find yourself on that dark, well-trod road, tell yourself you’ll get to that ahead, and change your narrative. Easier said than done, I know, but with enough practice, it does get easier.

I've been using coping skills like these that I’ve learned in the past for dealing with anxiety and stress in my academic journey and career. It’s always good to be open to learning more techniques and practices as well. I always encourage those I meet in HOA Hell to seek professional counseling. It is not a sign of weakness or that you’re a little whiner that can’t put on their grown-up pants and deal with it. Those are all lies that the bullies of HOA Hell tell you to tear you down. I cover that in my presentation on the psychology of assHOAles and their victims if you want to know more (Lecture Three: “But I AM Napoleon!).

This also illustrates what a severe social issue HOA Hells are. Future research would be rewarding in determining the cost that abusive HOAs create not just mentally and physically but economically in health care costs as well as in unnecessary fees, legal fees, and costs for home improvement or repair work that doesn’t actually need to be done. What all this does is create conflict, stress, anger, frustration, anxiety, depression, and a slew of other effects for the victim of unjust enforcement. It has been said on numerous occasions in the HOA advocacy world that HOAs are causing a health crisis, and it is true.

I have in mind to create and present an interactive workshop that presents some of these strategies and walks participants through a few of them. I’m not a therapist, of course, but I’m someone who has walked that road and seeks to help others who are struggling and suffering. Unfortunately, we live in a society that has some leftover hangups from an uneducated history with regard to mental and emotional health. We’re working through those stigmas, but in the meantime, consider your mental and emotional health as important as when you need care for other physical ailments as well. Our minds are just as or perhaps more important than the rest because if our minds are not healthy, it causes a slew of physical problems as well. Not to mention how it negatively impacts your relationships with friends and family, your work life, and your day-to-day existence. All humans struggle at some point in this way. Anyone who denies it is lying to you and/or themselves. It isn’t condemnable or preventable any more than is needing physical therapy for a ligament injury or taking insulin to control diabetes.

We are in for a long, hard battle, friends. I hear from many people who have been fighting for years, decades even. This is not to discourage you. That doesn’t happen to everyone, but this is a time-consuming endeavor. Even the most dedicated and fine-tuned athlete must schedule times of rest in the midst of their training and during events. We must do so as well. Our exertions aren’t as visibly obvious, nor are the injuries we sustain, but we have a similar experience, and we must care for ourselves in just the same way.

I welcome you to share your own coping strategies on my Facebook page, or you can message me. I will also be asking for ideas during the presentation I am planning, and I will be adding resources to my website for self-care. Help from others is a major key in finding and achieving positive, lasting practices that give you the health you need to continue. You are in this position because of negative things that others are doing to you, and it is hard to overcome that alone. Fortunately, there are others who will give you positive energy and support. They can give you the strength you need to keep up your fight against the negative. And you can give that positive to them as well, even if you just write a quick note or send a text to say, “Hey, I’m thinking of you. I haven’t heard from you in a while. Are you okay?” That one little message can give someone the hope they had almost lost. One of my mottoes is “Together, we can do this.” I despise the conditions that have brought us together, but I am so very glad that I have been able to meet such wonderful, kind, caring, interesting, and determined people as yourselves. Be well, friends.

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