Thoughts From A Former Resident

I am writing this for someone who shows up at the Shelter to let you know that there is hope.  I am not a Staff person but an ex-resident of the Shelter. 

I showed up at the Shelter in the middle of February in 2007.  I had nothing but a small bag of clothes. I was hungry, tired, and lonely.  I didn’t think that I could live another day.  I was full of fear and hurt.  I had some broken teeth that hurt all the time and some pain in my right foot.  Mostly I had a broken heart.  I was “broke.”  I hated waking up being me and I saw no end to the misery.  I felt hopeless and helpless.  Thank God for the Shelter program.

When I arrived at the Shelter I had no idea what it was all about.  I didn’t realize that the Shelter was willing and able to give me everything I needed and much, much more.  I had been self-medicating with alcohol for years before I showed up at the Shelter program. 

I started realizing that the Shelter program had a lot of connections with York County Community Health Care and I was really impressed with that.  I soon found myself with a therapist who would come on Wednesdays to help people.  She became a real life-saver for me.  Soon after I realized that every Staff member and volunteer were part of a life-saving team to one degree or another.  Each one of them had encouraged me to move on to a better place in life.  I started to feel safe.  They not only pointed me in the right direction, they

came with me.  They clothed me.  They fed me.  They loved me, even though I felt I was unlovable. 

It wasn’t long before I started feeling better.  I started seeing things in a different perspective.  After a while I found myself looking at the Shelter with somewhat of a clue. 

Of all the possessions that I ever had in my life, and I had many, my most prized material possession became a red coffee cup.  I had won it in one of the group’s education Bingo competitions (and I even cheated because I really wanted that red cup!).

As time went on, I started feeling as if I was in an eight-bedroom house with four to five bathrooms, fully-staffed kitchen/bakery, with my own gym, and with a handful of chauffeurs who would bring me to places that I needed to go.  I always had something to do - sweep the floor, wash pots and pans, etc.  For lunch, I had salad, fresh fruit, and well-balanced meals. I was given an opportunity to be part of my recovery - a responsibility.

I started feeling useful.  The rules in the Shelter were laid out.  I now realize how much “manpower thinking” went into this.  I have never seen a working atmosphere where employees were actually such a team and respected each other.  There ain’t none of them getting paid enough.  I saw many of them taking their own money out of their own pockets to help the program.

I volunteered to clean the kitchen and the common areas in the Shelter.  One day I thought it was someone else’s job to empty the trash in the Shelter kitchen. I noticed that it had not been done.  On the second day it still wasn’t emptied.  On the third day I became angry.  When a friend emptied it on the fourth day I told him that he shouldn’t do that because it wasn’t his job.  By the fifth day, I built up resentment that a fellow resident wasn’t doing what should have been done.  I decided to talk to the case manager.  I went over to the chores’ sign-up list to see who needed to be confronted about this situation.  When I looked at the list I saw my name!

I had forgotten that I had volunteered to empty the trash.  At this point instead of looking at things like this through a magnifying glass, it turned into a mirror.  I was difficult but the Staff continued to remind me that I was worthy of feeling better.

I can not name everyone who helped me.  I was dying and drowning.  I wanted to live but I didn’t know how.  I was worthy of feeling better and the Staff continued to remind me of this.  It is difficult because the Shelter Staff always wishes to take zero credit.  I do not think that they will ever realize the full extent of how much they have helped.

At first, I felt as if the Staff would never understand what I had been through.  Then I realized why most of them entered the field to help others.

When I entered the Shelter four years ago, I had few choices.  Today, four years later, my choices are quite different.