I was fired from the homeless shelter at the end of January, 2004. I wasn't the right fit for the job. I was too kind to clients and since all my training occurred in the small hours of the morning when my body cried out for sleep I just wasn't learning fast enough. I seemed to be really disliked and for reasons that were never made clear to me. I was given a peer evaluation that wasn't just negative but downright abusive in tone. There was rather a tight clique that seemed to be running everything and if you weren't liked then that was your funeral. I sometimes joke that working there taught me some very valuable combat skills.
When I got the phone message from my boss that they wanted to meet with me I knew what it was all about. Instead of seeing them I sent him an email saying how unfairly I had been treated there and to top it off I was not going to allow them their victor's justice for which reason I turned down the meeting and chose instead to move on.
Following two and a half months of an intensive job search I noticed on a page in the local directory of social, support and health services something about peer support training. I was still seeing my psychiatrist and had a bona fide mental health diagnosis (PTSD). I faxed them a resume and cover letter with generous references. I was called in for an interview. They accepted me for the subsidized training which began in May and went on, fulltime, throughout the month of June.
In those days I did not buy a monthly bus pass. It seemed rather expensive on my modest income so I opted to walk everywhere even if it meant five miles or more. The peer support training was occurring seven miles or so away from where I lived in a former abortion clinic turned art studio for mental health consumers. To arrive at nine am for the training I would have to leave my apartment no later than six-forty-five.
Despite the length of the hike it was an aesthetically beautiful route I always took. I would walk over the Granville Street Bridge, then up through Shaughnessy and various parks, the cemetery and eventually I would arrive. In one park I would pause and marvel at a plane tree in the glory of its early June foliage lit up from behind by the newly risen sun. I did a painting of this tree and named it "Tree of Life." I didn't always walk back and often opted to take the bus. The weather was beautiful, warm and dry.
The training classes themselves were informative, insightful and sometimes intense. One presenter began her talk about anger management and violence by screaming and hurling a chair across the room. A mother gave a moving talk about her son, severely ill with schizophrenia and the importance of never giving up hope. We talked about boundaries, confidentiality, medications, worst case work scenarios, and we also did exercises in team work.
I spent the balance of the summer doing my practicum in a mental health team in South Vancouver. They decided they wanted to keep me, and hired me a month later. I applied to work in other places but was almost always turned down save for one. The pay was and still is low in this kind of work and since unlike other peer support workers I don't have the safety net of a disability pension I have to work full time. I have had to cobble together a living with six twenty hour contracts in four distinct worksites. I also find it interesting, in retrospect, that I usually am turned down in job interviews, perhaps because I don't lie about my experience and credentials. But when they see how I work they are generally eager to take me on. For this reason I seem to do best getting in through the back door.
In the meantime I was still involved in fundy church and was even working with them at planting a new church in the east side while helping the pastor look for a new house. When their homophobia became impossible to ignore I eventually left. Dull Ass, my building manager, continued to be a problem. I seemed to be running out of friends.
On the balance of things, I was finally stably employed and safely housed and well on my way to mental health recovery.
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