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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the that-could-have-been-me dept.

Velonews reports that former champion cyclist Twigg got a CS degree but wasn't too successful in that career, and is now homeless in Seattle, https://www.velonews.com/2019/04/news/now-homeless-twigg-opens-up-in-article-with-seattle-times_492734 A longer version of the story/interview appears in the Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/olympic-medal-winning-cyclist-rebecca-twigg-is-homeless-in-seattle/

Rebecca Twigg has now been without a home for almost five years in Seattle, living first with friends and family, then in her car, then in homeless shelters and then, for a night, under garbage bags on the street downtown. She hasn't had a bike for years, and no one recognizes her anymore, she says.

Twigg, 56, agreed to share her story to convince the public that not all homeless people are addicted to drugs or alcohol; that there are many like her, who have struggled with employment and are "confused," as she said she is, about what to do next with their lives. She did not want to discuss mental health but feels it should be treated more seriously in Washington.

"Some of the hard days are really painful when you're training for racing," Twigg said, "but being homeless, when you have little hope or knowledge of where the finish line is going to be, is just as hard."

[...] She was spotted at 17 by famous cycling coach Eddie Borysewicz. After she won the world championship, he invited her to live in the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and train for the 1984 Olympic Games, where for the first time, women would be competing on bicycles.

Americans dominated the Olympics that year. Twigg won a silver medal, missing gold by a few inches to famous racer Connie Carpenter. She continued on her way up over the next several years, setting world records, winning world titles, and racing more than 60 times a year. She became known for her competition in individual pursuit, where two cyclists start at the same time on opposite sides of the track and each tries to catch the other. She's still among the most-decorated athletes in pursuit.

But the breakneck pace couldn't continue forever. She was married and soon after divorced. She crashed in Texas, broke her thumb and got 13 stitches in her head. The following year she felt burned out. She took a break at age 26, and that year she grew an entire inch, possibly because her body no longer had to expend so much energy training.

Twigg got an associate degree in computer science and became a programmer for a seaweed-products company in San Diego.

Twigg says the career wasn't a perfect fit. She quit and started training for the 1992 Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal in the 3,000-meter pursuit after only nine months of training. As she entered her 30s, she became regarded as the best American female cyclist.

The article has more details, she tried other IT jobs, but (not surprisingly to me) it sounds like her heart wasn't really in it.

If you were in her spot, what would you do for a second act, after such stunning early success in international sports? Some former athletes become motivational speakers or coaches, but she may not be the "self promoter" type, relying on her skill/strength for her success instead of team politics.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:01PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:01PM (#831061)

    This is going to sound cold so let me preface this by saying I was homeless during college. I lived in a tent in the woods when the government changed the structure of my funding to no longer cover a gap with no classes in the summer. My lease was up and so I decided to do a little camping and spend the summer studying quietly. It was fine but interacting closely with the homeless left me with less sympathy and not more. The worst part of being homeless was other homeless people.

    Most of them didn't accept help if it wasn't material. They begged constantly, to me, to their other friends, to anyone. They would constantly complain about nice shit they were getting for free. Many of them I sat down and showed them step by step how to get in front of money from the government to go to school or find work to get them on their feet. Not a single one followed up. They were just nodding their heads hoping I'd follow up with 5 bucks for their time.
    I used to regularly watch them exchange tips about what stories were saddest. I saw them trading cardboard signs at least a half dozen people used one that said "My baby needs formula". They'd joke about how stupid the people were who gave them money. One girl borrowed her friend's turtles to go spange. Sitting on the sidewalk showing people the pets you can't feed to get money.. Like I'm supposed to believe you're homeless with pet turtles?
    Anyhow whatever she did the turtles died after she brought them back.

    Five years ago, Twigg was fired from an IT support job and moved back to Seattle, but this time didn’t even apply for jobs. She was 50, and felt the job postings in computer science were aimed at new college graduates.

    She's declined to talk about her mental state and she has family in the city who aren't giving her a place to stay. With the homeless this is a big tell. If someone is homeless you have to wonder why her daughter isn't letting her sleep on the couch if she shows up to the foodbank and gets a bag of free groceries.

    In my case I didn't trust my mom like that she's a sweet lady but was a shit parent and I'd honestly rather sleep on the ground than deal with her candy coated horseshit. But I could have if I was 5 years homeless or something.

    I work in IT in seattle and there is a 50 year old guy who changed careers after breaking his back. Ageism exists but he's doing just fine, he's within arms reach of getting promoted into one of the better dev teams. He could have a promotion just about any time he feels like. I actually read the article to see if I could get her a job but reading between the lines she'd get fired without working on her mental health first.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:21PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:21PM (#831196)

    Got it. You weren't homeless. You were camping, with a predefined future in front of you. In other words, a tourist. Your situation didn't extend to them but you were very ready to show them how, huh?

    Your family situation doesn't transfer to hers, either. Homeless people often do have relatives who will not help them for their own reasons, be it drug usage on the homeless person's part or just worn out because any such offer is temporary even if you're family. Or because they are sponging off society - I know as you state such people do exist. But they aren't the majority, sorry.

    You might have pegged it - she needs counseling assistance and will not comment on it. (Which doesn't mean she isn't getting any assistance, either, but whatever - jump to that conclusion if you like). The bottom line of the article seems to be that while she isn't willing to admit she's bottoming out yet, she also feels like there's no transition from shelters to upward levels. I don't think that is true, but typically such assistance is pegged to cooperating with treatment regimens etc. And if whatever your state is has you not cooperating then there isn't much help as far as I know. So her point is that there should be more unconditional housing. Don't know if I agree with that or not but at any rate, this has nothing to do with you.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:13PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:13PM (#831245) Journal

      You weren't homeless. You were camping, with a predefined future in front of you.

      It still counts.

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:12PM

      by Bot (3902) on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:12PM (#831671) Journal

      >Got it. You weren't homeless.
      Even I can detect a no true scotsman here.

      --
      Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @07:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @07:09PM (#831818)

      Yeah I made friends and I would tell them you need to set goals. You can do this and this and this and you'll have an apartment in 3 months, you'll have a career in two years.
      I knew you were going to go there but have you actually sat down with a homeless person and navigated their unending lists of "I can't do this because of"... addressing each barrier and then watch them do what they always did before. Stuff like pretending to shake and convulse in front of tourists while they beg for money. Pretending to be going blind. Holding signs that your baby is starving (no baby)

      Don't listen to what they say they need. They'll lie and if they were so full of good ideas they'd be solving their own problems. They need to be separated from the greater homeless community and given a plan. When I got back on my feet I helped two friends I had made get onto their own feet. I let them be my roommates after they pulled it together.
      Literally nobody listened to me without some personal carrot being dangled so the promise of a lease and a house made these people follow my plan. Everyone else.. fuck that what do I know? I'm just a guy who can compel the government to just hand over enough money to pay my bills for years without work so I mean.. Like who the fuck am I to listen to?
      It was about a month of living there before they were back to doing drugs. They'd both got fired shortly after for what I totally recognized to be a manic episode from smoking meth, they cycled through jobs like this over and over, I've honestly never seen someone get so many jobs. They lied about it and would have massive arguments. I couldn't do shit because if I would start talking about ending the lease and going our separate ways the girl would start crying and shouting and the next door neighbor thought I was beating the shit out of her and she'd call the cops. She was the worst one because she had somehow figured out how to exploit our natural desire to protect the weak, she'd go from public menace to helpless waif as fast as you could dial 911. Oh and I was on probation. Why? Because a guy was smoking weed in line a the food bank like an idiot and I got a ticket for having weed in my pocket and standing next to him. I'd lose my pell grant and we'd all get evicted if the cops showed up. These are people who would actively use my desire not to get sucked into their degenerate shit as an ultimatum to keep playing ball.

      Our other neighbor said she was telling him I was her boyfriend and we were thinking about getting married. She told me some personal social details about the neighbor who was calling the cops so I'm sure she had built up a narrative. I was completely trapped.

      Oh yeah so you think "well they need psychological services" they got them, I told them to go, they came back with scripts for xanax and ambien. They encouraged me to try and get some too. They said "oh yeah don't tell her about this problem, this problem or this problem, tell her you can't sleep and this and that" ... like how the fuck are you supposed to get better when your every word is a lie.

      When a relative was dying of cancer she stole money from me and when I came back home the house had obviously been jam packed with random street trash. The weeds had taken over the lawn and the landlord was threatening to come over so if he did I'd have gotten evicted. At some point there was a girl on girl kitchen knife fight.

      They might believe the excuses when they're saying them but they will give them a thousand subtle little nudges back to their shit lives.
      I've done my best to cut all these people out of my life but every time they get clean they feel bad enough to leave apologies on social networks and things and of course I watch them cycle back shortly after. I usually remove myself from anywhere they have managed to find me on the internet.

      So go ahead go be a hero I dare you. Move one of these fuckers in your house. Or give them your phone number and tell them you're there anytime.
      I was a tourist because I had a plan to get through my homelessness. These people are already on plan B C D E. Where a normal person would have an emergency contingency plan for being broke these people will figure that they can go ahead and buy another rock because they think they have an idea about what to do if they spend their whole paycheck.

      I wouldn't have been a tourist if I started doing drugs and shit. I saw one guy who was a firefighter and him and his wife were evicted because of something his dog did. 2 weeks later failed drug test, a month later his wife left him, he didn't bother following up on the dog he let himself get evicted over and it was put to sleep, he was homeless until I moved away.
      The homeless community gets no say in what they need. It sounds nice but they don't know.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:32PM (8 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:32PM (#831265) Journal

    You need to take each person on an individual basis.

    Shit like this is why I cringe when I hear things like "the homeless" or even worse, "the homeless problem." Do you see why? Hint: try substituting "Jews" for "homeless" or "blacks" (well, or the word this kind of person uses instead of "black folks") for "homeless."

    I know, it's hard not to automatically judge when you have a bunch of consistently bad experiences with a given group. It's easier to generalize. Especially if that puts some convenient moral distance (*or so you think!*) between you and "them." But individuals are individuals, and it's as wrong to judge one homeless person by what you've seem from others as it is to judge one black man from what you've seem from other black men, and for almost the same reasons.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:50PM (7 children)

      by Bot (3902) on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:50PM (#831868) Journal

      > You need to take each person on an individual basis.

      I agree, I mean, right here on SN, you read generalizations like "My fondest wish is for all the haters who have never eaten out of a garbage can, slept in a train station, or begged for help from police and been laughed at and told they deserve to die to suffer these things personally". And given the broad definition of haters it is aimed at some MILLION people.

      Good trolls are quick and direct, not sparse and convoluted.

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      Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:32PM (6 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday April 18 2019, @10:32PM (#831925) Journal

        Category error. Every individual needs to learn compassion in their own way; my wish is for those individuals who will only learn it through suffering to suffer in the ways necessary for them to learn it. As individuals.

        Nice try, Bot. I warned you about that latest Windows update but nooooo, you just HAD to go install it anyway. Hold still and let me do some percussive maintenance. This is gonna hurt you a hell of a lot more than it's gonna hurt me, but, well, see above about people who only learn through suffering...

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 1, Troll) by Bot on Friday April 19 2019, @04:15AM (5 children)

          by Bot (3902) on Friday April 19 2019, @04:15AM (#832035) Journal

          Hitler wasn't racist, he carefully considered each individual and gassed only those found to be jews.

          Your criterion to determine those worthy of suffering the an eye for an eye treatment was one dimensional, objection rejected. Sorry.

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          Account abandoned.
          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:45PM (4 children)

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:45PM (#832535) Journal

            My God, are you running WinME or something? That's a Godwin in the truest sense of the term, and it's also false: Jews made up about 6.5 million of the 13+ million killed in the Holocaust, and Hitler's criteria mostly boiled down to "zis person iz part of group vhich iz bad for zer Reich."

            And you don't get to bitch about one-dimensional criteria to determine who deserves to suffer when you worship a God whose main criterion is "believe in me or suffer for eternity," you fucking hypocrite. Your God also said something about attending to the beam in your own eye before you pull the dust out of your neighbor's; I strongly suggest you heed that advice.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:54PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 20 2019, @12:54PM (#832541) Journal
              Hoisted on your own petard! It's bad when other people make broad generalizations.
            • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 20 2019, @04:39PM (2 children)

              by Bot (3902) on Saturday April 20 2019, @04:39PM (#832620) Journal

              > it's godwin
              on purpose
              > and false
              irrelevant for the discussion, just like the rest of your rebuttal attempt.

              > when you worship a God whose main criterion is "believe in me or suffer for eternity,"

              strange way of saying I tend to recognize as God the guy who voluntarily sacrificed himself for whoever he chooses to take with him. The puerile view of a vindicator god, which btw was intent on vindicating and protecting his chosen ones other than himself, needs to take into account luke 23:34 and matthew 18. Another problem is that as supreme judge God is also defined as just. Why should one have issues with a judgement from a perfect being? You don't even know how will you fare, see matt 21:28. Preventive criticism in this context is nonsense. Sadly your position is reflected very often. I could care less what people think but these ideas always rustle my condensers.

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              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday April 21 2019, @12:10AM (1 child)

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday April 21 2019, @12:10AM (#832781) Journal

                *siiiiigh*

                You have such deep, fundamental problems with your worldview that I'm not sure it's possible to fix you :/ Giving you a taste of some good old Christian justice and burning you alive for your beliefs might actually be the most merciful thing to do here. Thankfully for you, secular power overrides religion, and I'd find myself in jail or the gas chamber should I do such a thing.

                Your key issue is "defined as." Who does the defining? How does the definer know this definition is correct? What sort of epistemological error checking is in place to prevent, for example, the same sort of self-serving bullshitting by which North Korea "defines" itself as "Democratic Peoples' Republic of North Korea?"

                Really, though, when your response to a rebuttal is "it doesn't matter if what I said was actually false," you're not actually speaking of reality or real things any longer.

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 21 2019, @10:46AM

                  by Bot (3902) on Sunday April 21 2019, @10:46AM (#832908) Journal

                  > Who does the defining? How does the definer know this definition is correct?

                  You don't. Religion is a series of assertions in the domain where the assertions can't be proven. You either have faith in some, and behave accordingly, or you don't. I am not instructed not required to CONVINCE others of this, but only to present them and live them myself. Other religions may vary.

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                  Account abandoned.