Surviving The Fire 6

This was the worst stage of my life.  I was homeless and suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness.  And I was vulnerable to being victimized: by my father, and by the many false friends I accumulated along the way.  My father at first welcomed me into his small rented cabin on the Sunshine Coast.  We agreed that I would stay with him part time and weekends and perhaps one or two extra days couch surfing with many of the various people who now are no longer my friends.

My father became quite ugly over time.  I never was a son particularly dear to him and he became verbally and emotionally abusive.  I was dependent on his charity and feeling already too emotionally broken to defend myself, so of course I submitted to his bullying.  I nearly killed myself two nights before Christmas.  He didn't care.  Christmas morning I was deathly ill and should have been hospitalized.  He told me I was not welcome in the house, despite my fragile health, because my brother and his daughter were going to spend the day with him and he didn't want the house to feel "crowded".  He is dead now.  I am done dancing on his grave and have finally forgiven my father.

My ex-friends balked at putting up with me long enough for me to get on social assistance and find housing.  Other ex-friends tried to use my vulnerability to sexually exploit me.  Others were very eager to remind me that I was dependent on their kindness and that I therefore had to especially respect them.

I finally found a place to live in a shared apartment with an Eastern European control freak.  I tried to work, without much success.  I wasn't well.  I moved to another shared situation a year later, a shared house with four other dysfunctional males, a Pakistani slumlord at the helm, and a nasty little crack addict in the room next door.

I coped.  I coped.  And I coped.  I painted, sold art, sometimes found employment, but spent a lot of time walking everywhere, or meeting ex-friends for coffee when I could afford it.  Social services became vicious and I was traumatized by an overzealous worker whose supervisor came to my defense.

So ended the nightmare.  I found affordable housing where I have lived now for over fourteen years and I have been gainfully employed almost throughout.  I found good psychiatric care which lasted four years and now, despite the patronizing coworkers in some of the places where I work, enjoy a full recovery and, despite my modest circumstances, a rich and rewarding quality of life.

I have, by the grace of God, survived the fire.  I am sixty now.  And I have new friends.