Candela Place 1

I liked my new apartment.   I like it still.  I face the back of the building and not Granville Street which makes it quiet but for the she-elephant on the ceiling.  It's a concrete building but the floors aren't insulated so it could still be worse.  Living downstairs from that lead-footed cow stomping around upstairs in a wood frame building would be untenable.

I was busy during my first year.  In August I enrolled with the encouragement of Isabella my awesome employment counsellor in a pre-employment program.  It was a bit of a struggle but by December I was employed for the first time in five years and I could finally go off of welfare.  Thirteen years later I am still welfare-free.

I spent all of 2003 and a wee bit of 2002 and 2004 working in a homeless shelter.  It was a difficult and challenging job, usually involving night shifts and dealing with troubled and sometimes dangerous individuals and horrible burnt-out coworkers.  The pay was decent and despite the unstable hours my bank balance was nicely built up.  I lost my job at the end of January 2004.  There were horrible people who did not like me and I found it difficult, given my complex PTSD symptoms to keep up with the pace of the work.  I also did most of my training and work in the middle of the night.  Not a good time for learning things.

In the meantime I adjusted to my new building.  The managers were well-meaning fundamentalist Christians, but very conservative and annoyingly homophobic and right-wing.    I became averse to their community program.  It was too difficult having to work for a living in a difficult occupation and be expected to deal with difficult neighbours with mental health issues in my building.  I became resented by management.  They saw me as having a lot of gifts to offer.  I saw myself as being fed to the sharks if I didn't stay either locked in my apartment or completely away from the building at all times.

In the spring of 2003 I began attending the church of our building manager.  I lasted all of two years and left promising myself to never let myself be persuaded to go anywhere near a fundamentalist church again, and Gentle Reader, I sincerely solicit you to hold me to this promise!