In 1999 my Thirteen Year Nightmare came to an end. January through April were particularly challenging months and I was befriended by some very dysfunctional people, some of whom tried to exploit my vulnerability. My father asked me to leave in March. In Vancouver I was going to move into a communal house full of burnt out punks but this fell flat and I ended up almost on the street but for a couple of other friends who came to my rescue.
I was profoundly depressed then and I could hardly move forward but I knew that to stand still would be tantamount to backsliding so despite my compromised emotional state I struggled on. A friend of a friend took me in for the last two weeks of April. I found a room in a shared apartment and applied for welfare.
My new living arrangements were far from ideal, but I had a roof over my head and I would be sleeping every night in the same bed. I felt like the richest person on earth. I felt drunk on gratitude, for all the small and great kindnesses I had received of friends and strangers. It was spring, the air was cool and the city was full of birdsong, newly-leafed trees, blossoms and flowers. I knew that the nightmare was over and that a new future would soon open before me.
My art flourished and I was selling a lot of work as well as finding venues for showing my paintings. My father reached out to me, rather ashamed of himself, in friendship. Having habitually despised my art, and anything else I did, when he saw my show of paintings in a local café his jaw dropped open in admiration and near reverence. I still had trouble accessing employment. I knew that I wasn't well. I felt tired, my energy limited and I needed to be alone a lot. But the nightmare was over.
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