FibroXpress

~About me~

Hi how are you. thanks for stopping by and visiting my page. i am full of hope that love can last forever, i believe in love, and i believe there are all different kinds of love. i love everyone just in different ways. its nice to hear the words "i love you" altho seems so hard to find forever love with that perfect person just for me, my soul mate. i too would love to find my forever person, but when i begin to think about going into a serious relationship i step into it very careful, im tired of peoples feelings getting hurt. since i was diagnosed with fibro i have had a really hard time establishing a long term relationship becuz its hard to be around someone who is always in constant pain. when i first meet someone and explain to them what my life is like they think they can handle it to later realize that its too much for them, so i pretty much stay to myself and ive found a really nice online life that has been very fulfilling

when it comes to friendship i am wide open, and i believe all relationships should start out as friends, and love should grow as it is suppose to grow, flowing gently down the river, not paddling up-stream against the wind.

I have been known to take huge leaps of faith and never knowing whats on the other side. sometimes things turned out quite well, sometimes a bit bitter/sweet, but always interesting and something to learn from. now in my life i am taking it easy and reflecting on all my journeys putting things into perspective and waiting for the next journey, obsorbing the one i am in now. im the kind of person who wants to find good in the bad things thats happened to me (and others), my so-called fibro diagnoses has enabled me to slow down and smell the roses, it has forced me to take myself out of the world and get to know myself, to change things in my life that were way over-due, it has humbled me greatly, taught me patience, and caused me to live alone for the first time in my life, and without a man in my life. i have met many challenges in my life and lived many different lives, i have learned i dont have to fear the unknown altho i have to face the consequences of each step i take.

My Favorite Things

I think my most favorite thing in the world is water, i dont care how i get in it as long as its clean! I even love it frozen! I love to drink it, play in it, or just watch its beauty and the tranquility it gives me. I love fish aquariums, I love the rain, and I appreciate how it keeps us clean and nurtures our bodies. I think water is one of the most amazing things we have on this earth, it covers most of our world, it flows thru each of us, its in our air, and we are brought into the world by it!

you know, if you take a fish out of water, they are still a fish but they cant act like a fish, and indeed they will finally die. if you take the wide open spaces of an eagle away from him and put him in cage so he cannot lerk and roam, he is still an eagle, but he becomes further and further away from who he really is. yet, if someones a hammer and they are acting like a screw driver its gonna be difficult raod for the hammer. it makes sense to me that who we are inside is who we are, and we never forget that deep inside, and once we finally realize that and begin the journey back to who we truly are then we find that which lies deep inside, and brake out of the box of the teaching that have been brought apon us.

I want to meet all kinds of people, nice ones of course. i love alaska, most of all i love the state i am in. i appreciate people when they are funny, we all need to lighten up and laugh. i also appreciate our serious times. i love intellectual stimulation, gotta keep my brain cell motivated! i love people from all walks of life, so glad we are all different! so whoever you are, wherever your at feel free to message me or IM me no matter what stage in life your at, or what mood your in, no telling maybe we might be in the same emotional state of mind at the same time!

Music:

~My Fibro Journal~ End of 1998

its been about 8 1/2 yrs since i first got sick. it was in november 1998 when i first started feeling bad. weird part is i was fitter then i had been since i was young. by december i had to cut my hrs at work, january and february knocked me down completely to where my boy-friend had to be my care taker. i went to several doctors for tests and stuff, but everything was coming up normal. in one way that was reassuring, but then i still didnt know what was wrong. i was put on a bunch of meds. i didnt know what none of it was, i thought if the doc wrote you a prescription it was surely suppose to be taken, and would eventaully fix me, i sure had a lot to learn didnt i? i ended up in mental health cuz i thought i was going crazy, and they wanted me on all kinds of meds for depression and stuff. the whole mess was causing me mental problems, and my boy-friend didnt help, he was just making things worse. he saw me go from super woman to pitty-puddy in no time flat.

by march of 1999 i had to give up my apt, i had gone thru all my savings and couldnt work. i lost most of my things cuz i didnt have the money for a storage. i packed what i could in the back of my truck and hit the streets. i stayed with a few people for a few days here and there trying to figure out what i was gonna do, but i didnt have a plan. so many memories of things that happened back then go thru my mind as i write this, too many things to recall all at once.

i had been dating a guy for about 8 months now, we seemed to do alright until i started getting sick in november, then he was cold, impatient, began drinking a lot, and was making me feel everything was in my head. his drinking was making him mean. he was my care taker while i was sick. he would give me my meds cuz i was too weak to even open the bottle. in the month of april 1999 i ened up in the ER 3 times almost dead under his care, so a social worker finally convinced me i wasnt safe with him anymore, and they sent me to another town to a battered womens shelter (DV Shelter), where i had time to rest and figure out what i was gonna do.

this was the second time i was in a DV shelter, the first time was in 1991 when i left my husband. shelter life was foreign to me. i had seen new doctors in this town too, but no one knew what was wrong. since my son was with his dad now, california dropped my medical insurance since i didnt have a kid, so i had to leave. i ended up in northern california for awhile recooping from my surgury staying with my step-dad. after about 3 months resting there, i called my brother in oregon and he said for me to come up there. i didnt have any luck in california finding out what was wrong. my body was weak, it hurt from my waste down, i was having pains in my chest and nothing was showing up wrong, so off i went to oregon in october 1999.

it didnt take long after i got there that i had insurance again, and the first doc i picked told me i had fibromyalgia. he ran tons of tests on me and finally was satisfied this is what i had. he put me on a bunch of meds, trying to find a dose of sleep meds to keep me asleep, and meds to help the pain. my arms were beginning to get weaker and weaker to where i had to ware slings to hold my arms up when i drove. it took this doc about 5 months and he got me walking again, and the pain was half way managable. the swelling in stomach had gone down, i didnt look 8 months pregnant anymore, and i stopped gainning weight. i had gained about 30 lbs by now, which put me at about 150 lbs, bigger then id ever been except when i was pregnant. there was a lot of stress in my life at this time which didnt help my progress. my brother was trying to get off drugs and alcohol to get his son back, and i was needing to go to louisiana to get my son back. the pressure of not having my son with me was making me sick. but as soon as may 2000 hit when school let out for the summer, i packed what i needed, sold all my jewlery for gas money and headed for louisiana. my doctor told me it wasnt a good idea to go, but i had to, and he knew it, if it was his son he'd have gone too.

it took me 6 days to get to louisiana. i slept in the back of my truck on a mattress and the wheather was nice so that helped. i had stocked up on a bunch of my meds to take with me, cuz i knew once i got to louisiana i wouldnt be able to get anymore. they have cherity hospitals there for the poor, but it doesnt cover meds. my doctor in oregon told me that i couldnt just stop taking all my meds at once, so if i ran out to check myself into a hospital for a med check, which i ened up having to go to a psycho ward to get help when i eventaully ran out. i didnt get any help in the psycho ward for meds at all, they wanted to change my meds up, take some away completely, which i didnt stand for, cuz i trusted my oregon doc more then i trusted them, my oregon doc is who got me walking in 5 months so i was gonna stick with his treatment. i saw so many things going on in the mental ward, so many people were trying to get out, they had gone in for med checks and stuff like that, and were there like 2 months and longer. i realized that since this was a pay hospital they were keeping these people in there for the money, it was plain to see they were stable and ready to go home. im no doctor but i have learned thru the yrs dealing with the medical profession, that many of us know whats going on with us more then they do. so i eventaully got kicked out of the psycho ward for being too confrontational. o well, cant win'em all huh lol!i guess that should be expected since i do have a social work degree, i am usually on the same educational level of many of the psycho docs when id visit a place like that. and what can i say, they were nice enough to pay for a taxi to drop me off at the local homeless shelter where i could stay for 5 days, that was nice of them. i wasnt in any condition to be on the streets as sick as i was or even in a shelter life. i was with-drawling off meds and couldnt harldy walk again. i knew it wouldnt be long and i would have to return to oregon for medical attention, especially since i wasnt getting anywhere with the courts to get my son back.

i still have out standing medical bills from those days. i get notices in the mail all the time that they are gonna sue me. there are several times i didnt have the gas money to drive to charity hospital for help, so i had to go to a pay hospital, i wanted to get some different opinions on my health problems anyway. i never believed i had fibro, i guess becuz no test showed i did. i began to understand my diagnoses a little more as time passed, a diagnoses with no sign it exists, an invisible illness that only i can feel, this was very mysteriuos to me, and it was hard for me accept i had fibro based on that information.

my health finally gave out and i couldnt hold my own. im glad i found some homeless people to help me get back to oregon, cuz i didnt have any money for gas to get back to oregon. it took me about 2 weeks to get back under the care of people we picked up on the side of the road hitch-hiking and in other homeless shelters along the way. i had to hit many ER's along the way, in texas, new mexico, arizona, and california. once i got back to oregon i saw my doctor again, i was a mess, i wasnt on hardly any of my meds except what id pick up along the way at ER's, and my mental condition had deteriated completely. i hurt everywhere on my body, i was sick i had to leave my son in louisiana, he felt so far away from me now, i was falling into despare, my will to live was deteriating, my faith was low, and i still didnt have a plan as to what i was gonna do short or long term but keep finding homeless people on the streets to hang out with so id be safe and not alone.

since my meds kept being stolen by people i was hanging out with on the streets, my doc cut me off my pain meds. he said i had to check into mental health and get checked out before he felt safe to give me anymore. a long string of events happened after this, my truck got impounded for no insurance, no more meds, no place to live, and i was very ill. my mental was getting even worse, partly cuz of physical pain and also living on the streets, and i was worried about my kid in louisiana. i stayed with my street buddys and we eneded up in portland which was a scarie place. it was full of evil on the streets, drugs, and illegal activity. it reminded me of los angeles in many ways. i was beginning to worry if i was gonna end up in jail for guilty by association or something, but i didnt know where else to go. i was fortunate that i didnt have to participate in illegal activities to survive, everyone else did that, cause i had the truck and i had to rest in it a lot. i saw quite a few docs in the ER room in portland and told them i had fibro, many of them gave me a pain shot but that didnt last long and i was hurting again. i started smoking marijuana again and it seemed to help, but that was only when someone else had some. i didnt have the money to buy it. one doc in the ER room asked me if it helped my fibro and i told her yes. there are a lot of doctors who agree that marijuana can be used madicinally and i have to say after all this i agree.

the hospitals dont like to release a sick woman on the streets with nowhere to go, so they had me transfered to a local respit home for me to recoop. i stayed there for several days, but had to go, i wasnt in any shape mentally to stay put. i called my homeless buddys to meet me down town portland and we found a horrible homeless shelter that was so full we had to sleep on the floor in a dirty place. it saddened my heart greatly to see how people had to live. yes, many were there cuz they were hooked on drugs and stuff, but not everyone was homeless cuz it was there fault, and in my belief system i dont feel addiction should be treated any different then an illness, they need help off drugs in order to get their lives back on track, just as i had a illness and needed help too.

the medical arena didnt seem to have what it took at the time to help me. being homeless and moving around so much, how could i find one doctor to stick with, i was hoping bouncing around so much would enable me to find a doctor who could help me. different thoughts went thru my mind about so many people in the usa who didnt have a resting spot until their disability came thru. mine took almost 4 yrs, and during that time it is a miracle im still alive. what are folks to do when they are sick. not everyone on the streets who are sick are lazy bums who dont want to work, many of them had just given up after so long not getting anywhere. i guess in some ways i had given up too, so who was i to judge. i saw a new world, one i had never had to live before, one that i wanted out of bad, memories that i treasure now dearly cuz i do know and feel the pain of those on the streets sick and dont know what to do. i know all the things i had to do in order to survive, im thankful that survival sex was not one of them. my shelter buddy from louisiana was my street boy friend and he looked after me good. he was the ring leader, so i was the ring leaders girl friend lol i guess. hey nothing wrong with starting off at the top lol. even at my lowest time i seemed to be at the top lol! thats one way to look at it i guess!

i have to say that i got more sympathy from my street people then in the medical arena. i had a few awesome doctors, dont get me wrong, several doctors fought like hell for me to figure out what was wrong. my one doctor in dallas oregon even prayed with me during our visit and she sent me to a lady in her church who was a faith healer. most doctors saw my pain, but some looked at me like i was only there for pain meds, which was not true, pain meds never really helped me a lot, is all they did was MAYBE took the edge off if even that. pain shots helped most of all, but not the pills, i guess thats why i didnt fret too much when they got stolen all the time.

my journey went on into 2001 and i was in oregon bouncing around from shelter to shelter, getting more of the same advice from new doctors i found along the way, same o same o. i was getting stronger in my faith claiming id be healed by now. another trip back to louisiana to fight for my son didnt help my health at all. one thing it did do is get me off all meds, cause i finally ran out. i gave up on doctors completely. i didnt want any of them to even touch me or put their man-made diagnoses on me.

i met one doc in lake charles louisiana for the first time to hear that he didnt believe in fibro in 2004. i was so defensive at the time that i didnt read between the lines well. if id have listened to him, maybe he'd have been able to help me, to find out something. it would have been hard for me to get treatment tho, cuz my medicaid didnt cover many things. as i look back i can see that he wasnt trying to tell me that my fibro was all in my head, he was trying to tell me that it wasnt fibro and lets find out what it is. i didnt see that back then, my medical journey was played out, i didnt believe in them anymore, and didnt believe they would do anything but put me on a bunch of meds, and call me non-compliant if i didnt take them, so i pretty much stopped going to doctors. i figured since they werent helping me, why cost tax payers money for medical care that didnt work.

then in 2004 i got into a minor wreck and that started the spiral of me gradually getting worse. it sprained the right side of my body. i got a lump on my right shoulder that added much more pain to my life. soon after that i came back to oregon to learn cause it was an auto accident no doc would tend to me for that cause of our special auto insurance laws, so that left my condition getting even worse. i knew the wreck caused me additional problems cuz i never had a right sided headache before. finally a yr after the wreck my entire right side of my body went numb and stayed that way for 8 months or so, and gradually began to get my feeling back, and the left side was stressing out from me compensating using it. you cant win for loosing.

soon after this i married a man from england. i was starting to hurt again a lot and decided maybe i should take something from the doctor to help me, even if it was for awhile. i guess i needed a friendly reminder on how bad meds effected me. i was put on an antidepressant that was new and suppose to help with pain receptors in my brain, so i gave it a try to learn that an imaginary friend popped up about 3 weeks after taking them, his name is "Goerge". i have no idea who "George" is lol, but he kept popping up. i stopped taking the meds cuz of that, but it took awhile for it to get out of my system, so it got pretty bad before my system was clear. and it caused my marriage problems. it was a new marriage and the stress of my pain and the side effects from the meds scared him, i was crazy minded, and he ended up leaving when his visa ran out and went back to england :(. of course that didnt set right with me and began a spiral of anxiety attacks and suicidal tendencies. as i look back on all the times i took antidepressant its the only time i was that bad, to find that when i got off of them i was better. i tried this new one cuz i needed help, but i will never take an antidepressant again.

so here i am, 8 1/2 yrs later on my medical journey, in the same boat except one difference. my granny, new mom, and dad encouraged me to move closer to them to see a doctor they all see for different reasons. she has the fibro center of oregon but she doesnt take my insurance, so my granny paid the intial visit for me to see her, and the doc set me up on a reasonable payment plan for treatment. that was about 2 months ago and i am gradually improving. my doc does her part adjusting my body and leading me to the nutritional things i need, my part is to do the simple exercises to strengthen the muscles around my hips, back, and shoulders so the treatment will stay in place, and keep stressors out of my life.

as each day passes i can feel my hips trying to take resonsibilty back, my jaws are good now, but my shoulders are still struggling, but once my hips take on their full job, my shoulders will get a brake and heal properly. i am so excited about all of this. it has given me hope again, has showed me that hanging in there does work, that all my tears and suffering will come to an end.

theres been a few times i have stopped in my tracks with overwhelming reality of everything that has happened, and everything thats happening now. i have so many pent up emotions from a decade of oppression from being sick. under-neith all the pain and twisted body parts, the memories of being homeless, and a lot of emotions i havent been able to express or process cause i have been hurting too much and i couldnt get to the psychological side of what has happened to me. dealing with the physical pain has kept me from dealing with much psychological, so i have much to express about these past 8 1/2 yrs.

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~My Spiritual Journal~Me and my Sis Mary Early 1998
Once apon a time in a far away land called louisiana lol i met Jesus, i was 38 yrs old and hadnt been exposed to religion before. i dont know how religion was kept from me so deeply but it was. when i entered Christianity i didnt know a thing. i remember the little baby in the christmas story each yr, but i didnt know He grew up and did stuff. i didnt know what a denomination was, and i had the worst time learning the difference between faith & religion. when i learned there were different denominations within one religion of christianity i was amazed cuz each had different beliefs which confused the heck out of me. that confusion eventually turned me away from the church for answers and on my own to learn who God was, which eventually lead me to the native indians way of worshipping.
Mom in the Nuns Home
im gonna back track a little here and go back to my early yrs with God. my mom was brought up in a catholic nuns home from the time she was 5 until she was 18. she must have really gone thru some bad experiences there cuz she made sure i was'nt touched by religion growing up. as a child, i remember her giving me "God", and i do believe it was the God of Abraham in the bible, but she left Jesus out. she would always tell me that God made all the flowers and the trees, the ocean and the stars in the sky, and that He made us. we'd blow out dandilions and made wishes, she filled me with majical hope and that miracles do happen. she told me that everything natural and beautiful on earth or in the skys and waters were made by God! we made wishes on rainbows, that was my mom's favorite, she said there are wishes and a pot of gold at the other end of the rainbow, you just gotta keep following it and never give up. my step dad was an atheists, he raised me from the time i was 1 until i was 12 with evolution. i remember him always trying to teach me evolution when i was in elementary school, and i remember not liking the idea that i came from a polly-wog.
Here's Me back then when i was a Teen
i began running away from home at 11 which landed me in juvinile hall and a girls home off and on from 11 to 15 yrs old until i got emanstipated. one day as i was walking down a back city road in san diego i came apon a church house. as i began to pass it, i felt it calling me to look around. no one was there but me, so i found a cool spot to sit with my back against a rod iron railing with a huge stain glass picture in front of me with a man & lady holding a baby and 2 angels on each side of them with their hands on each of their shoulders.
i was about 15 at the time living with my boy friend. i had about another mile to make it home so i stopped at the little church to rest by the stain glass picture, when suddenly as i sat there indian style with my eyes closed, i felt someone touching each of my shoulders, so i opened my eyes to find no one there but me. i looked up at the 2 angels in the picture and i sware their eyes were looking right thru me. it spooked me so bad i got up and took off and ran all the way home looking back to see if they were following me.
i got to the apt to find i didnt have a key. it was so cold, so i laid down on a chair by the pool and fell asleep. i woke the next morning in my own bed wondering how i got there. my boy friend told me i was there when he got home. dont ask me...i still dont know how i got from the chair outside to my bed lol. guess its one of those mysteries we go thru when God sends angels down to protect us, it really was way too cold for anyone to be sleeping outside.
during the same time period in san diego something else happened to me. i was walking down the main street in national park close to where i lived and i came across a lively church house along the street with their doors wide open. as i walked by i peeked inside to see what was going on. people were dancing and singing, looked kinda like a party to me. i started to go in but changed my mind for some reason when a little old man popped up. he must have come from behind me, cuz he didnt come from inside the church and he wasnt there a second ago. he looked up at me and handed me this little black bible and said "do you know the most important things about this book", and i responded with "no". he said either you believe it or you dont". then he turned around and started walking down the street. i turned around and started walking the other way to look back and see the man was gone. theres no way he could have disappeared that fast, there wasnt an alley there for him to slip into. i have never forgotten that man, and something inside has always told me that i will see that man again one day. i can see him in my mind right now as i speak of him just as clear as i saw him that day.
i finally got thru my teens and into my adulthood with no church affiliation, but when i was about 22 yrs old i had a new boy friend in florida. i wanted to travel so he bought an 18 wheeler and we hit the road for a yr or so. on this journey i did a lot of writing, and he brought his bible and id read from it and he'd tell me what it meant. he picked the books out of the old testement that had strong woman in it. i believe he was trying to build my self-esteem and give me some good role models. i remember reading about queen esther and how she saved her people. my heart belonged to saving my sisters from the abuse they lived with growing up, the very home i left at 12 yrs old. i had tried many times to get custody of them, but i was too young and didnt get anywhere. i lived with a lot of guilt all my life leaving them behind, but i had to go or i knew i wouldnt make it. i dont think any of my siblings really knew why i left, i was the black sheep and always in trouble with the law for running away. its a bitter/sweet story to look back on.
anyway, during my trucking journeys my boy friend and i stopped at this little church house for a sunday visit somewhere up north on the east coast. there were only a few people there, the preacher, his wife who played the organ, and his few kids who sang in the chiore. as the service bgan i kept feeling something pulling me to the front of the church, i didnt have a clue what was going on. i remember it just like it was yesterday. i stood up and sat down several times, then i finally just went to the front where the preacher was. the entire service shut down and the preacher man took me to the back room and gave me all kinds of pamphlets. weird thing was, after i left his sight, i couldnt remember anything he said to me. it was like my ears were plugged, as if he was talking in a distance. i have always thought that to be odd thru out the yrs as i look back. so whatever he was telling me i didnt hear it. come to find out after we left and hit the road again, they had just opened the church house, it usta be a whore house and dance hall. the preacher and his family turned it into a church, and stayed in the attic above the church. just something interesting to ponder on! why would my ears be bound from hearing the word of God, i dunno, i just know what happened! the bible did take a hold of me, but i didnt go to church to learn it. i still didnt know who Jesus was in the bible, i was mostly reading the old testement stories about the battles they went thru and the victories they won. Heres me back then, i was about 22 now
a yr or so went by and i met the man i was gonna marry. he met me at the holiday inn bartending in houston texas and eventually brought me to louisiana to live. i tried to go to church a few times to find out that my husband forbid it. i had always been head strong and did as i pleased, but not this go around. my husband had so much control over me i fell right into his trap, and decided it was too much trouble to go to church. it was 1984 now, i was 24 yrs old, and had my first child at 27 yrs old. my marriage wasnt a very good one, and when my son was 5 yrs old i knew i had to leave my marriage or someone was gonna die. i was half way thru college, so i dropped out, got a job, and saved money for a divorce.
right before i filed for divorce something odd happened concerning my 5 yr old son. one day we were home alone and he began preaching on the corner of our L shaped couch. i walked into the room to see what he was saying. he gave a full hr in a half sermon in which i could ask questions. i never had preachers on the TV or went to church with him. i found it to be quite interesting. as he rambled on about heaven and hell, angels and demons, i asked him questions about what they looked like and where was heaven and hell at, stuff like that, i was very impressed with how much sense he made. i decided to turn the recorder on and tape him. the next evening when i went to work i took the tape with me to share with some of my customers at the bar. when i turned the recorder on to play it, it was blank, but i had listened to it before work and it wasnt blank, i didnt understand that at all, but...many yrs later, in 1999 after i had accepted Christ into my life, my son asked me if i remembered that tape. i told i did remember it, but when i went to replay it for my friends it was blank, he replied "you know the reason the tape was blank momma? it was becuz the message was meant only for you". now that blew me away. when my son was 5 yrs old God used him to give me a message about heaven and hell, angels and demons. i still have the tape and it is still blank the last time i listened.
several yrs after my divorce i was still living in louisiana. mental health issues were pleaging my life bad, everything from my childhood was coming back and haunting me in my dreams and in my day world. its was 1996 when the dreams began to change. all my life night tares took over my sleep world, but one night i had a dream, it was the very same angels that i had seen in the stain glass window at the church house that evenening when i was a teen. both angels touched my shoulders in my dream as they did when i was a teen, it was the same touch as i felt before, and they told me that i had sacred & secular work to do in grant parish before i left. i didnt know what they were talking about, but my dream world began changing after this. i began learning how to go into my dreams and change them into a better ending, especially the dreams that were reacurring ones.i learned how to make up my own ending to my dreams. to go inside my dream and face what was haunting me. i was told a few yrs later that its called lucid dreaming but i didnt pay it no mind, i wasnt gonna go check out a book and read up on it, i already knew how to do it, and that was fine with me.
another few yrs went by with the dream thing. i had been living in the deep south now for 16 yrs before the Bible Belt finally got me lol (thanks my spiritual sister mary, i love you)! i was finally divorced and living on my own with my son, back in college, and trying to make my way. my life wasnt really all that great, it was all about taking care of business, not much fun, altho i did honky tonk when my son was visiting with his dad on the week-ends. i was 38 yrs old now, 1998, living in a very very small town in the back woods of louisiana when it hit me.
it all began one morning i woke to a really bad dream that scared me so bad i couldnt come out of it or changed it, so i walked to marys house down the road with my coffee pot and dumped everything on her. the dream had everyone in it that was currently in my life all mixed up with snakes and evil things. then in my dream i was sitting on a dark gray cloud all alone, and the people in my life were wandering around the other clouds like it was a maze. the clouds began closing in so there was no longer a path thru the maze, and the people began moving farther and farther away from me. i felt darkness and the worst feeling i had ever had. when i woke, the dark clouds had almost completely covered the space in my dream except for where i was sitting. i felt darkness surround me, and i was all alone, so i woke and ran to marys house.
as i shared my dream with her, we both realized we had so many demons to face from our childhood abuse that were haunting us both now. this one event had bonded us to this day. during the course of our visit, somehow i cried out for a preacher. now this was strange, i had never done that before. is all i could think of at the time is i usta watch vampire movies and when the evil took over they always held the cross up or ran to a church for safety. i guess i was feeling like the evil was moving in on me like that, so i called for a preacher.
it didnt take mary 30 minutes and a preacher man was at the house lol, brother freddy and sis gene. they spent several hrs with us talking. it had been 7 yrs since mary had been to church, she was married to a preacher's son in the deep sount for 16 yrs, and when their divorce came about, she was pretty much ignored, so she went on about her business, to find that 7 yrs later i would pop up and bring her back into that world again.
as i explained my dream to the preacher man, his wife began going thru the bible to show me where the different parts of my dream fit in. the darkness taking over the world we live in was the dark clouds moving in around me and taking over. but the cloud i was on actually had a light shinning on it, i was not sitting in darkness, and the light apon me was stronger then the darkness. Jesus was calling me, He made me call for a preacher, He was constructing the whole thing going on. i began seeing it, and decided to give all this a chance.
the hard part for me was everything the preacher was saying sounded like a fairy tale, people flying thru the sky into clouds and stuff. i just didnt know if i believed in all that stuff. so mary came up with the idea for us to camp in the woods (i took my marijuana with us becuz we both smoked at the time), and we found a safe place in the preacher's back yard in the woods with a camp fire and all, and this was my time to see what Jesus had to offer.i think the biggest things that fasinated me about the christian faith was all the gifts, i wanted to have some too. i had spent a life time being controled and fighting thru the jungle of life, and i wanted to have gifts to help me and others, after all i was a socail work student, isnt that what we do, go into the world and help people? the 2 gifts i asked God for right from the start was the gift of healing hands, and casting out demons. i had spent a life time being haunted by demons in my sleep, and when i say demons i mean it, there was nothing normal or ok about the things that came into my sleep world, and i wanted a way to be able to fight that. in my new walk with Jesus, i began my journey into the bible learning weapons to fight the devil. i was adviced many times by christians to start with Jesus, but i have always been back-asswards!
i remember telling sis gene that i wasnt gonna be a phoney about this, that i didnt bond with all this stuff yet, but she said is all i have to do is tell Jesus "i would give Him a chance" and He would do the rest, and He did. that 2 weeks in the woods proved to be very enlightening. i guess some could say the mary jane had something to do with my perception, but as i look back now, it didnt lol! i have always had a sharp sense of feeling things around me, some call it empathy, christianity calls it decernment, at the time i called it quite amazing. mary and i took current issues we were having with others in our lives, and we prayed and wrestled with it, and she taught me to pray and give it to God, and as our time passed in the woods, the truths of the issues began to surface, and i began seeing my situations that had been ailing me more clear, and then i smelled salt water not long after that...the kind that only comes from the west coast ocean. thats when i knew i had to leave louisiana and go back to west coast and face my demons there that i had ran away from 1978 when i was 18. it had been exactly 20 yrs since i had seen the west coast ocean, a place i said i would never return to.
at this time i graduated from college and set out for the west coast, california, for my new beginning in a career in social work as a new born Christian with my 11 yr old son brad.
i remember one day inparticular i was talking with mary on the phone. she was hurting so bad from her illness and we prayed together and finally hung the phone up. after we hung up, i began praying on my own to God that i didnt want her to die. so many unexplained things were going on with her and we were both scared. i asked God that day to spare her life for my life's sake, that i needed her in my life, i didnt want to loose her. i told God that i would bare 1/2 her illness, take it apon myself, and she and i could bare the sickness together instead of her dying and i wouldnt have her anymore. someone told me many yrs later that you should watch out for what you pray for, cuz it wasnt no time after that that i became sick with the same thing she had, fibromyalgia. this always made me believe during my sick journey that i became sick as a spiritual attack on my new born faith. i never thought God made me sick, but i did believe that He allowed it to happen for a reason. i also believed that i would overcome it and gain control over sickness. i asked God so many times to bless me with healing abilities to overcome my sickness and help others who are sick.
i got sick about 6 months after i moved to california, some luck huh! my faith is the leading factor that has kept me alive thru fibro, thru the emotional turmoil i have gone thru with it and the physical torture it has put me thru. it has challenged everything inside of me that i could give, it broke me down to nothing, and my faith kept me holding on.
i had never really been sick in my life before. i had a flu bug once in awhile, but i had been blessed with very good health up until this hit me, i didnt even have an asprin in my cabnet at the time i got sick. my son was the same way, he seldom got sick either. before i got sick i thought if you get sick you simply go to the doctors and get a shot and get better, or you die. i didnt realize the world a person lives in on a daily basis being tortured in agony by pain and suffering, not counting what the medical profession made me feel like. i was beginning to wonder if i was crazy or something since nothing was showing up on tests that i was sick, like it was all in my head, and doctors told me over and over it was all stress and depression. i then began to realize the world my sis mary had been living all these yrs. i had known her for yrs, yet didnt have a clue what her life was like living with fibro and other illness. well, i know now, now i can relate. and, as a socail worker i can go into the world of people who live with chronic pain and sickness and relate! mary and i spent so many hrs talking on the phone. she prayed with me all the time, her prayers brought tears to my eyes. she taught me about God's healing powers and how to claim it, and to never give up on it no matter how bad things looked. she began showing me where our faith can save our life, and also the lives of our loved ones. it wasnt a very good time for me at all, and i had no clue how bad it was gonna get, but her prayers and love kept me going thru the yrs, she will be blessed with many crowns for what she did for me.
when the fibro first hit me it knocked me down hard. i couldnt work anymore and all the medications they had me on flipped me out, some made me suicidal, they changed my personality, and i couldnt make proper decisions in my life. first i became ill, then i lost my job, then i lost my son to his father, then i lost my apt, then i began loosing my mind.
i remember reading from the book of Job. since it is in the middle of the Bible i opened it one day to that book and began relating to Job in all his trials. this is where my true journey into the Bible began, relating to the oppressions of God's children. all the talk about your faith being low or your sick cuz you sinned is not necessarily true, Job was perfect in the eyes of God and he went thru hell and back. i knew i wasnt perfect by no means, but i did claim i was washed clean when i accepted Jesus, and Job became one of my spiritual mentors for many yrs.
i had not claimed my healing yet, it all hit me so suddenly, i was caught up in the moment and couldnt see anything but what was ailing me. i really didnt know what God's healing was at the time, but i was about to figure it out or die. i knew something bad was wrong, and i began blaming the devil with anger, all my anger pent up for a life time came out toward the enemy. i felt a spiritual attack apon my entire being and i didnt have the spiritual tools yet to fight with!
heres one of the passages i first related to. my pain was so bad and the doctors couldnt figure out what was wrong with me, this is how this illness made me feel within a few months of getting it: "Job 3:1, After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake and said, "let the day parish in which i was born, and the night in which it was said. there is a man child conceived. let that day be darkness: let not God regard it from up above, neither let the light shine upon it. let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell apon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. as for the night, let the darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined into the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months... Let them curse it that day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hide sorrow from mine eyes. wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; which rejoice exceedengly, and are glad, when they find the grave? for my sighing cometh before i eat, and my roaring are poured out like the waters. for the thing which greatly feared is come upon me, and that which i was afraid of is come unto me....
about a yr or so later things didnt get any better. i became homeless, sleeping in the camper of my truck on a mattress. i had lost most of my material things, i took just enough stuff to fit in the back of my truck. i had applied for disability but it sure wasnt coming anytime soon. i didnt have any family in my life at the time, we were all separated at young ages due to divorce and other family issues, and i was separtaed from my real dad when i was 1 yrs old, and didnt know where he was. my mom had problems of her own she was trying to live with, so i was on my own. i learned a whole new way of living, the life of the homeslessness. i grew closer and closer to God on the streets as each trial hit me and i had to overcome. i felt as if i was failing each trial i was going thru to find out later that i did quite well under the circumstances. i learned what it felt like to be in the desert wandering as moses and abraham did, i began relating more and more to the different old time bible saints as each day went by. i felt their pain and oppression, they were someone in my life i could relate to, they understood my pain, they went thru it to, they became my friends and my life-line. i called apon them often in my prayers. this is where i grew closer and closer to God, and didnt even realize that is what was going on. God was using my trials to grow me closer to Him. we all are different/unique in the ways we learn and grow, each person has their own path to take, their own cross to bare. the way it was looking, almost all of my christian journey had been dealing with my sickness, and homelessness. i read a passage in the bible one day that said to sell all your belongings and go into the world and make desciples of men, well i felt just like that only the one becoming a decsiple was me, and i suely didnt have anymore worldly possessions to hold onto. i always tried to find something spiritual going on with my despare. it was in the pages of the old testements where the pages of the bible became alive, and the characters became real to me, and they helped me thru my times
heres a passage in the bible that i hung onto for a long time once i claimed my healing. claiming my healing in the name of Jesus Christ was all i had to hold onto anymore. how could i go on living like this any longer. i just knew my days were numbered:
Psalms 6: O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasen me in thy hot displeasure. have mercy apon me Lord, for i am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed. my soul is also sore vewed; but thou, O Lord, how long? return O Lord, deliver my soul; O save me for thy mercies sake. "for in death there is no rememberance of Thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks? i am weary with my groaning; all the night make i my bed to swim; i water my couch with my tears. mine eyes is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies. depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. "the Lord has heard my supplications; the Lord will receive my prayer. let all my enermies be ashamed and sore vexed; let them return and be ashamed suddenly.
it was during this time that i was weak that anyone who wanted to hurt me had free reign, i felt like a sitting duck, and believe me in the 3 1/2 yrs living homeless i learned a book full of ways one can be conned by the people i met on the road. i didnt have any energy to fight back with. what i didnt realize at the time was God was grooming me for a different way of fighting my battles against my enemies that had nothing to do with my mouth, yes i had a really quick tongue all my life. i was told many times that i needed to learn tackfulness, i spoke the truth but it was very sharp. i began learning spiritual tools. the most powerful one didnt come until yrs later in 2003, the power of forgiveness. but, God started by curbing my tongue, humbling me, and trying to draw me closer to Him. i was so use to doing everything on my own, no parents to turn to or family members, i was exceptionally independant and didnt have to ask others for much if anything at all, i was the giver, and didnt like the label attached if someone was to give or do something for me, seems there was always a hidden agenda behind the peoples motives who id met thru out my life.
first i was introduced to the basic of Christianity which i didnt really understand, then strait into the hardest trial i had ever endured, sickness, then i began learning the bible saints, then Jesus, then a spiritual family. God was introducing me to a different kind of family, His family, my spiritual family. He was giving me a family i never had, all doors were closed for helping me except for prayer. i finally learned many yrs down the road that God had not abandoned me in my time of need, He was trying to get my attention thru my illness to listen to Him, and He would take me from there!
i guess i never realized how bad my life was in so many areas until it got sick, then i had something to compare it with. i hadnt slowed down enough in my life to really understand that the high stress life style i had lived all my life was gonna catch up with me one day. i didnt eat the right things, i didnt know much about nutrition, my body had been beat up in so many ways and i never took thought that there might be long term effects for auto accidents or domestic violence, the wrecks i had on my roller skates and bike when i was little was as bad as some of my auto wrecks lol. all the times i was bucked off my pony or fell off the barn in the dirt. plus all the emtional junk added onto it! well, it all caught up with me at 38 yrs old, and when it hit me it didnt play around, i was down, and i went down fast too, and now it is 8 1/2 yrs later and hadnt gotten any better until i found Dr Sunny a few months back.my faith kept me hanging on emotionally, now by the touch of dr sunnys hands i am seeing my miracle i have been waiting for for a long time. i never gave up that God would heal me, my faith wouldnt allow me to. there were times it got so weak i tried to take my life, yes i did give up a time or two. as i look back now at the times i gave up, i see that is where God saved me, cuz theres no earthly reason i am alive today.
on my journey learning about my christianity i encountered a few problems. becuz my homelessness brought me to many towns, i was always new in church, no one knew me, and i could never stay long. i couldnt stay at a church for more then a month or so, then i had to move to a new shelter/domestic violence shelters mostly. i learned a lot about the different denominations, and i also learned differnt belief systems each christian denomination had. i heard everything from i was posseed by the devil thats why i was sick, that my faith wasnt strong, i didnt pray right, i hadnt received the holy spirit yet, i wasnt saved...you name it i heard it, so when my disability was approved in 2002 and i got my own place, and decided to find God on my own, and thats when i found online christian groups. my biggest part in groups besides directing the activites in the group and friendship was i always did morning prayer and prayer requests. all that went great for yrs until the pain became so bad again that it was affecting my ability to pray, and i wanted God to come get me and take me from this earth. when i got to a mental brake down state, seems my fellowship turned against me and i heard the same critisizum as before, so i eventaully dropped out of them cuz it really ticked me off this time.
i knew i needed spiritual fellowship so i opened an account with myspace to find a new group of people to worship with, and i found my native indian family. not just the haida, the tribe i belong to, but other tribes. i have found myself growing closer to God again but different then the fundementalist way. the native indians are closer to nature in their spirituality, all the beautiful things that God has made for us, this is where my heart longs to be. so i am on a new journey with my spirituality now, one that allows my abilities to grow, for my energy to flow, and thru my treatment with my doctor, she is helping my body to be able to function at its best so that i can receive and give to my fullest!

Television:

~Journeys on the Street~ i was homeless on the streets as a teenager in the 70's, but thats nothing like being homeless on the streets as a sick adult in the later 90's and 2000's. when i became homeless at 38 yrs old when the so-called fibro hit me, i found myself drawing off some of my old survival skills i learned when i was a teen. and, the same spirit of freedom re-emerged. i felt kinda like a hobo looking for some railroad tracks so i could hitch a ride on a train and see where it took me. the only place that really mattered to me on the map was louisiana becuz of my son. i knew i had to get there and be able to survive long enough to get my son back with me. louisiana isnt an easy state to live in with no job or money. its very hot in the summer and the winters are hard for someone with no home. my homeless journey began in california, thru oregon, and back and forth to louisiana for almost 4 yrs. i still have my traveling map from those days. all the routes i took from the west coast to louisiana several times, brings back many memories, some i cherish and wouldnt trade for nothing, and some better left forgotten.
it all began in california in the beginning of 1999 and finally ended in december of 2002 in louisiana. almost 4 yrs of "training" on the street. being sick on the streets ended up having a few advantages for me, becuz my homeless buddys did have sympathy for me, they saw how sick i was. it also put me at disadvantages becuz i had a lot of medication for people to steal. its a double edge sword, my pain meds and tranqualizers etc made me a desirable candidate to always fit in the group so i wasnt alone on the streets, as long as i had that i eventually learned i would have followers to help me. and also having a truck made me desirable. those 2 things actaully helped keep me stay safe, becuz i was desirable enough to keep around!
i always knew that drugs were destructive and addictive, im very thankful that my prescription drugs never took over me, partly cuz off and on during my homeless journeys i was always getting them stolen lol! i didnt know the homeless life yet, and how medication was so popular amunst drug addicts, this is where i learned it. guys would want to be my friend cuz i had meds.
early 1999 my son went to his dad's in louisiana to visit and never returned. during this time i became ill with this fibro stuff and couldnt travel to louisiana to get him back. after not working for several months i finally went thru my savings and lost my apt. i had a jerk for a boy friend at the time, the state of california ended up sending me to santa maria to a safe house becuz i kept ending up in the ER with mysterious things happening to me, social workers from the ER convinced me he was trying to kill me. after i endured that, i ended up in oregon at my brothers who i hadnt seen in 23 yrs. we both needed each others help at the time, so i was happy for the new reunion. i stayed there for 8 months helping him get his son back from the state, and i found a doc who diagnosed me with fibro and got me walking again. it took him 5 months to get me walking again, and when that was over i headed for louisiana to get my son back. it had been a little over a yr since id seen him. i was too sick to travel before. my doc told me not to go, he said that my health wasnt good enough at this point for this kind of deal, but my son was first on the list. i didnt want my son to think i had abandoned him, i wasnt sure if my in-laws were brain washing him against me or not. i knew the stakes of my son living with his father, hed be left alone a lot, no one to supervise him in the home, and confusion of his mother not being in his life and not really understanding why. is all i knew is he needed me and i had to get to him. it took me 6 days to get to louisiana in my little nissan truck. i slept in the back of it on a mattress, the whether was great so i had that on my side.
once i got to louisiana i learned that my X wasnt gonna even let me see my son without his mom supervising me, even tho we had joint custody. i raised my son exclusively the first 12 yrs until his dad stole him in 1999. i was never a bad mother, child welfare would never take my child away and after 3 custody battles in several yrs the judge gave my son to me to raise, i couldnt believe how my X had turned the tables on me this way. i never kept our son from his dad before. i couldnt do anything about it at the time until i took it to a judge for contempt, and this is where i learned how powerful money and lawyers are, its called the "extention game". if ya got enough money you can extend court dates for yrs, if not indefinately, so months went by and i still didnt have access to my son. i wanted to bring him back to oregon with me and file for custody for him there and my X was legally suppose to let me have summer visitation, but he didnt. oregon would pick it all up and keep us safe from him dad. his dad was very abusive to the both of us, but i couldnt get anyone in louisiana in the system to listen to me, not child welfare, the school, cops, detectives, my lawyer, i couldnt get to a judge to hear my story cuz of the extentions. it was apparent my X's money was buying people in the legal system again. after a few months i was starting to get sick again really bad, my pain was increasing, and i was having a hard time walking again. after many bad happenings on the streets trying to get a court date to see my son, and 2 phycho wards, i ended up in a local homeless shelter in louisiana which gave me 5 days of rest. it didnt take long and i met this guy at the homeless shelter who saw me as a ticket for his way out. becuz i had meds and a truck, he stuck with me like glue for 3 months and got me back to oregon so i could get medical attention.
it took us several weeks to get from louisiana to oregon. my destination was astoria oregon. we were always picking up hitch hikers and others along the way. between us all each had something to offer to the trip. on a rainy highway in texas we picked up a young man who pan-handled in front of small stores along the way to get us gas money. most of our trip we were $5 it along, then wed have to stop again to get more gas money. thats why it took us so long to get to the west coast. of course id always have to stop at the local hospital along the way for more pain meds since mine kept being stolen, and i never knew who did it cuz there was always more then just one person present when they came up missing. but i guess i knew i had to make a choice whether i wanted to get to oregon alive or not, and if that was my price i had to pay then so be it!
once we reached arizona the game changed. there were many resourses to help us, but no money for gas. at least we finally got to a place where we were fed, the whether was nice, and we were amunst many others who were homeless. we separated with our pan-handling buddy and he sent us in the right directions to get help. first place we went to in arizona was the bus station. it didnt take long and my shelter buddy hooked up with a guy going about 100 miles who hadnt bought his ticket yet, so we ended up getting that money and we took him to phoenix. but, before we left we picked up another guy who was strung out on heroin in the park. my shelter buddy had a nack with this. i didnt have do anything but drive. my shelter buddy and heroin buddy had it all planned out. they knew exactly what to do to get money, its called "exchanges" or "returns". the heroin guy would steal stuff from the store, he knew exactly what to take to stay under $100 bucks, and we would return the stuff. it gave us $300 that day. we had food, cigarettes, gas, everything we needed to set out again heading to los angeles. we were in and out of arizona in less then 24 hrs.
we finally made it to california, i cant remember what town, but the state put me in a hotel for free for a week since it was winter. the guys had to sleep somewhere else, so i let them take my truck. i didnt stay there for the whole week, the guys were out husseling money while i rested. i wasnt doing very well at all. after several days of rest, and the guys gathered up enough money for us to move on, we decided that our heroin buddy needed help or he was gonna die. he was that strug out, so the 3 of us went to the local ER and helped him fill out the papers, and we left him there. i have always wondered how he was doing, if he remembered us, if they could save him, if he was sad cuz we left him, if he was mad cuz we didnt stay with him. what i didnt know at the time was my shelter buddy was doing the heroin with him, come to find out they were shooting it, so even tho we left one at the ER, i was still with another one hooked on it.
after we dropped him off at the ER we set out again for los angeles. along the way we picked up another straggler. he stayed with us for a long time, almost to the end of our venture. he was faithful and loyal to us, he would do anything we asked. he slept in the front seat of my white nissan which was a stick-shift and never compained. he was like our watch dog, he kept an eye out for strangers while we all slept.
los angeles was a whole nother world in this game. we were at venice beach mostly. we also took a tour of the roughest part of down town LA. i rode in the back of the truck which had dark tinted windows so no one could see me, but i watched out the windows from the inside as we drove down the street of LA. it was just like the movies, ghetto, drugs, sadness and sickness. it was all clear the troubles within this city walls.
we spent most of our time on the beach, but my first night wasnt very good. my shelter buddy took my truck and split while we were washing clothes at the landry-matt. he left me with ole faithful. when we learned he wasnt coming back, we took our clean clothes in the basket and headed down the alleys toward the ocean. along the way he looked in peoples garages and pourches to find us blankets to stay warm. by the time we got to the ocean front, we were beat, so we found a spot in the alley, laid newspapers down, and curled up in our blanket and went to sleep.
we woke the next morning at day brake of course. there were people wandering around enjoying the sun rising. we couldnt leave our clothes so we were pretty much tied down to this shopping basket. i felt like a bag lady pushing a shopping cart down the street with my belongings in it lol. we found a place to hide our stuff so we could walk around freely. i was tired and hungry, hurting and upset about my truck being gone. i decided to lay down on the beach in the sand and take a nap when i was woken to my shelter buddy kicking sand all over me lol. he was back with my truck, he had a long story of what had happened, i didnt know whether to believe him or not, i was just glad he was back. he had money and food to eat, so we went to the truck and ate and was trying to figure out what our next move would be.
there was a lot of help for us at venice beach. they were set up for the homeless big time. we found a place to shower, it was the greatest feeling to finally get a shower after days. they gave us a voucher to eat at a local restraunt along with others who needed food. this restraunt catered to us like we were kings and queens. as wore out as i was, this was very welcoming.
at the out reach center place where we showered and stuff we met a lot of new people. my truck was full, we couldnt fit anyone else in the back. i have to say i really had a good time. we roamed the beach and sat down with groups and partied, everyone was so nice. what one person didnt have the others did. we all put our resources together, and we felt like kings and queens of the street lol! but after about a week of that it was time we headed up north into the state of oregon, my destiny, where i could get settled at my brothers in astoria, and get some proper medical attention.
i learned a lot on this venture. i learned that if you have a vehicle while your homeless, you are at the top of the list. i spent more time talking about God then i ever have in one period of time. i learned that in my hopelessness, i found hope. i could feel God protecting me, i knew angels were guiding us. i wondered what purpose all this would serve me one day. would i work with the homeless one day, was this my training ground, on the job training for a social work job when i got better. i got sick 6 months after i graduated from social work school, so i thought maybe this could be another form of on the job trainning for me. was i being trainned to help people come off drugs, i did know that my horizons were being broadened as each day went by.
it was an interesting journey thru the state of oregon. i was so glad to finally reach astoria. i finally found my brother jimmy and we settled there. is what i didnt realize at the time is since my brother had back slidden into drugs again, he joined up with my 2 street buddys and they did a lot of illegal activity that i didnt know about until later, and it landed my brother in jail for 3 months. this is something that thru me over the edge, i began getting weak mentally and started going into a nerves brake down state, and finally ended up in another psycho ward. they got my truck empounded by the police for no insurance, so i had no vehicle now, and my doc cut me off my meds cuz they kept getting stolen. so i had no meds and truck now, the game was about to change for me.
my shelter buddy had to find someone with resources since mine were all used up. i had introduced him to some of my astoria friends who he ended up targeting. i didnt know exactly what he was doing, but he was playing some kind of con game against me, to make it look like i was stealing their stuff. he was a master at that, planning it all so he didnt look guilty. thats why my brother went to jail, my shelter buddy made sure his butt was always covered when they did something illegal.
it didnt take long and he ditched me one day. when he did that it pissed me off so much that i left town on foot. i hitched hiked out of town heading for a local turck stop. i usta be a co-driver in an 18 wheeler when i was 21 yrs old, so i knew truckers would help me. i felt safe on that route.
a trucker picked me up and took me to a big truck stop. is all i had on me was 2 back packs with paper work and a few changes of clothes. i didnt have a penny to my name, but i was fed and showered when i got to the truck stop, and no one tried to play any games with me to sleep with them and stuff. i was treated with much respect, and one of the truckers got on his radio and got me a safe ride to medford where a battered womens shelter was waiting for me.
the trucker who took me gave me a few dollars to get me by and left me at a bus stop where i could get to the shelter. once i got there i was welcomed with open arms and safe. it was a good shelter, and i knew i had least 6 weeks to get my act together.
i was there for about a week and i had already met a friend, her name was marlene. she became a life long friend after all this was over. we stayed in contact thru all these yrs and i considered her a sister. she had a car so i wasnt cooped up in the shelter. it didnt take long for my shelter buddy to find me tho. im not sure how he did but i did leave a letter in my friends mail box before i left town telling her where i was going. he left a message at the shelter for me. of course the battered womens shelter cant tell him im there, but they do leave a message on the board. he was at the gray hound bus station waiting for me if i wanted to head back to louisiana with him. i thought how admiral for him to think about me lol.
like a dummy i called the number back to talk to him and told him i wasnt coming, so i assumed he left and went back to louisiana which was a comfort to me. within 2 weeks of being at this shelter a car was donated to the shelter and i got it. i was without transportation for about 3 weeks and now i was back in business. i was feeling in high heaven about this time. i knew i did right by leaving this guy behind, new doors were opening, and old ones closing. maybe i was on my way to a better standing on the homeless front.
after a month being there i felt it time to go back to astoria and get some of my stuff since i now had a car, to find when i got there my friends thought i was dead. my shelter buddy staged my death. one of the ladies at the shelter told me that he was probably gonna kill me cuz i knew too much so he staged my death so no one would miss me for awhile. so the shelter took me back for another round, but that time soon ran out and i had to go again.
i went to the local mission for women and stayed there for awhile. it was quite interesting as well. i was still too sick to work, so is all i was doing is buying time until my disability came thru. it was now the beginning of 2001, so much had happened already in 2 yrs living like this, and i didnt yet know that i still had another 2 yrs of street life to go.
me and marlene became very close with another lady at the shelter, verna. she was a heroin addict and the courts placed her in the shelter to get her help cuz her husband was abusive to her, i dont think they knew how bad her addiction was, but verna was such a good sight for sore eyes. she was beautiful inside and would never rip me off for drugs or anything. she helped me a few times when i was sleeeping in my car at rest areas. she found a guy who needed a live in baby sitter to help him with his 2 yr old daughter whose mother died at birth, so here i was once again on another journey into this mans world.
i stayed there for about 5 months. he took all responsibilty for the baby, thank goodness, cuz i was really to ill to handle a 2 yr old, but i cleaned the house for him, his place was wrecked, but it looked really nice when i left.
after 4 months or so and the guy began to trust me, he left me alone with the little girl while he ran an errand, thats when i discovered he was molesting this baby. i dont even want to describe in words what i saw when i changed this child diaper. my car was broke down at this time, i had very little money to my name, and i was scared. i was making my plans to leave but i also had to secure this childs safety on my way out.
i confided in marlene and we went together in prayer for help with it. i could have called the authorities, but if i did i would have had to leave my car on his property way up in the mountains where i couldnt get back to it. i couldnt escape with the child cuz my car was broke down and he seldom left the child alone with me. i found out later from him that another baby sitting did steal the baby and went to her parents house with her, but he showed up before cops got there and took the child back. i dont know if there was an investigation about that or not, but he was parinoid about her being out of his sight.
well it only took a few weeks and it all worked out for me to leave (thats another story lol ill share later), but i got my car fixed and went strait to mental health and turned him in. i never got an update on the little girl, but i remeber her eyes staring at me as if she was telling me something so sad as i walked out the door to leave her. something deep inside told me that she would be ok for now on.
i found a few women i had met at the womens mission and they invited me to stay at their house until i could get on my feet to go back to louisiana to try and get my son again. it had been 9 months since i left louisiana, and i was gonna go for a second round, hoping this time my health would hold up long enough to get my son back. marlene introduced me to a man in central point who owned mountains in oregon, so i had a good time for a few months before i headed back to louisiana. the whether was beginning to get really nice now, it was getting close to may, and my mountain man paid my gas money back to louisiana for me, so here i was again heading back to the deep south for another round with the courts.
from here things got really wild. as always i ended up in the battered womens shelter cuz i knew i wasnt safe on the streets with my X knowing i was in town now. i met a woman in there whose husband was in jail for beating her and her son up. she got a job but had no car or sitter, so heres where i came in. i had the car and i tended to her kid, she got the job and apt for us to live in. that didnt last long cuz her husband got out of jail and she took him back. he didnt want me there, and began playing all kinds of games to turn her against me. well, it dont take much for me to get the message. i told my sis mary what was going on, and she had an idea, her brother just moved to louisiana from georgia, his wife was in a goeoria prison pregnant, and he needed someone to help him with a new born when she had the baby, which was due anyday. so i took him up on the offer. interesting part about this is, it was in the same town as my son and X, where money buys your way thru the system, i was about to go for the ride of my life.
me and butch headed for goergia to get his new baby when she had it. it was a trip to have lost my son for so many yrs, and it was like God was giving me back a child to love, even if it wasnt mine, it fulfilled a place in my heart for the time being. only problem was, butch had a bad reputaion with the cops, and within a month the cops showed up at the door at midnight to arrest him and his buddy leroy. i was sleeping, but finally woke. they took leroy to jail for questioning but left me and butch alone.
2 weeks later they came and arrested me. i knew then my X was behind it. the cop reminded me of a sherlock homes character lol, with suspenders and a funny hat lol...anyway, they wanted me to bare false witness against butch and leroy saying that i saw them rob the little store down the street of cig and lighters and beer. well, i just couldnt do that. the cops said if i did that i would be considered a primary witness, if i didnt i would be a defendant. well as the story goes, they sent me to a womens prison as a defendant. after 3 days i did get out, cuz i had just met a friend in town diane who was with me when the robbery happened, so she knew i didnt do it, and she put her house and property up to bail me out. odd thing was, the cop transporting back to my town said my paperwork didnt say i was a defendant, it said i was a promary witness, so he was confused why i was even in the prison, and we found out there was no record of me even being in that place lol, amazing huh what money can do! i moved in with diane for several months trying to get my legal problems taken care of. bad part is i couldnt leave town with robbery charges against me. i knew i had to get out of town or id end up being framed for something else. i went for my arreignment and pleaded not guilty and then i left town heading for the homeless womens shelter in a neighboring town for help
there i met a young woman who had 3 kids and needed a baby sitter. her dad had an extra bedroom, so he offered for me to stay in the extra bedroom as payment for watching the kids, plus he gave me a little money to have in my pocket. he had been tending to the kids for sometime and he was too old to handle them. that lasted for a month or so and the old man wanted more then just a sitter for his kids. he even sabatoged the electrical system in my car so i couldnt leave. i promise i never lead this man on lol, it was all him, HE WAS NOT MY TYPE. i ended up loosing my car over that cuz i couldnt take it with me, and he had it towed off. he was scaring me, so i left and went to the battered womens shelters again.
i stayed at this one for a few months, and they tranfered me to another one a little further away with max security. they were really trying to help me cuz they knew i was sick and unsafe on the streets, but when they got full and needed a bed, i had to be shipped off to another one that had an opening. pretrial came for the robbery charges, and the charges were dropped. the woman working the night of the robbery never mentioned a female at the crime scene, so there apparently was a mix up lol, ya right, tell me anything ill believe it. either way, thank God that was over! from there i went from one battered womens shelter to another until my disability came thru, i believe i was transfered to 3 more shelters before i finally got a check from the government to get my own apt.
as long as i was in a battered womens shelter i was safe and taken care of. the homeless shelters expected you to work, and put you on the streets all day to find a job and i couldnt handle that. i appreciated having a safe place to go during this time, it meant the difference between life and death to me. in the beginning of this journey i would tell my stories to the battered womens shelter's staff, and i could tell many of them really didnt believe my story. some people even told me that i probably lost my son from abuse and didnt want to admit it to anyone. many people didnt believe the danger i was in and thought i was story telling. during this time i learned to not care about what others think of me. this is where my patience grew cuz everything i wanted was soooooo far down the road i couldnt even see it. at this time i was holding out in louisiana so when my son cried out for help, id be close by to come get him, and not 3/4 way across the map sick unable to help him. that was my new plan now, since no court date had come to see my son yet, i just had to wait now, there was nothing else i could do.
i finlly got my first apt off the streets in december 2002 and i was so glad to be off the streets i havent spent much time out side of my apt since. i got a computer with my back disability pay and decided to put my relationship back together with my son online, somewhere his dad couldnt track me down and cause me problems again. i moved 4 hrs away from them in a town i hoped he didnt have any connections in the legal system. those 4 yrs of being homeless were enough, i had no desire to return to the population again, altho i knew that God would return me to it one day!
as 2003 hit i finally figured out how to send an e-mail lol. i didnt have a clue what online was! i began putting my relationship back together with my son online. me and my son would chat online for hrs. he was beginning to open up and talk to me again, but it took awhile. i kept my pc on 24/7 in case he came online. this was my mission, this is what kept me alive and gave me hope. i lived each day for when my boy would come online. i tried not to bug him too much cuz i know kids like to play on the pc, but i thought about him every day, every minute for the past 5 yrs, and now i had him at my finger tips, and i wasnt taking any chance of loosing him again! i didnt have a phone, so this was my only way and it proved to be very successful. by november of 2003 i got the instant message id waited for for 5 yrs, my son called my sis mary at home, and she found me online. he was ready to come home. i cannot tell you the feeling i got to hear those words. it was time, my son was coming home. little did i know the trails we were gonna have to endure for the next 2 yrs. yes more battered womens shelters. the local one wouldnt even take us after they learned the details of my X's history. they said it would put others in the shelter in danger us being there, so they wanted to send us out of town. but with no car and little money, we had courts dates for protective orders and custody, my son came home to me hooked on hard drugs, i had him in treatment, he had school, it wasnt gonna work being in a shelter out of town, so we fought the fight together the best we could, and in the end we won. we won much more then our freedom, we finally got attention for all the abuse we had gone thru for my son's 18 yrs of life, and the 20 yrs that i had known his dad. i was granted sole custody and $1008 a month child support garnished to get my son some help with. and i did. my son graduated from high school 5 months after the court stuff was over. he was 2 yrs behind in high school when he came home to me less then 2 yrs ago. my son packed his bags when he graduated and joined the national guard! and thats when i decided my time in louisiana was over, finally i could leave this place, and i came back to oregon where i have been ever since.

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~My Journey in Oregon~
i guess ill begin where i left off above on my street journey, but im gonna back track just a few months before i departed from louisiana may 2005. around the beginning of the yr i got a phone call from my youngest sister that my mom wanted to talk to me. i hadnt been connected to my siblings since i was a teen, but my little sis wanted to help me and my mom put the pieces back together. i had not spoken to my mom for 12 yrs. she was in a nursing home very ill, and the doctors didnt expect her to live much longer. after all this time was i finally getting my mom back in my life? it was only 1 1/2 yrs earlier i got my son back, so now i had my mom and my son, and my little sister on the phone.
my mom was living in texas so i took a gray hound bus to visit with her, and when i got back she talked me into trying to find my dad again. my dad and i had been separated when i was about 1 yrs old, and i had tried to find him many times to run strait into a brick wall. well, this time i didnt, first name on the net i found was him, and within a few weeks he drove to louisiana to come get me and bring me for a visit to oregon to meet my new mom and 90 yr old granny
i stayed for 2 weeks to learn when i got home that my son wanted to go into the national guard. he was gonna graduate in a month or so. thats when i decided to sell all i had and leave louisiana and return to oregon for medical attention and to be with my new family. everything was happening so fast, it was amazing, just like clock work! a few weeks went by and my mom received a phone call, it was my adopted sister grace in california. my mom had put 2 of my sisters up for adoption at birth, and one of them just found us lol! talk about timing. now i got my son, my mom, my dad, my granny, a new mom, and my sister in my life.
my health had gotten so bad while i was in louisiana, and the humidity sure didnt help, so me and my sis mary got brad off to the national gurad may of 2005, and i had a yard sale and got rid of all my stuff, and off i was to a brand new world.
when i got to oregon i stayed with my granny until i could get settled. i had to move to a different town in order to qualify for housing, so i was an hr away from my dad, and my mom was still in texas. my new sis and i began talking and we were concerned about our mom being in texas with no family in her medical condition, so we came up with an idea. my new sis grace came up with the money to send mom here with me, and id look after her. once mom agreed, it took an act of God to get her here, but we finally did.
by the end of 2005 my mom was finally settled into her own apt here in oregon and her health improved. she didnt even need her oxygen tanks to breath in oregon, texas is so humid its not a good place for people with breathing problems. i got to spend the next yr with my mom mending a life time of problems that separated us all those yrs. it was a very bitter/sweet time for me, especially to watch her in so much pain from her illnesses.
during this time my new sis grace came to see us. it was the first time i got to meet her. together grace and i decided to find the other sister my mom put up for adoption, and we did, we found her as a team. its such a beautiful story us finding each other and coming together. so now i got one more sister back in my life. but soon after things would take a turn for the wild side again, the end of 2006 my mom died. her death brought all of her children together at the same time. all my siblings would be here in my town to say good-by to mom. siblings i hadnt seen since my teens, and they were all so little then. i am the oldest so i remember all of them. i remember when my mom was carrying them in her belly. i remember when my mom didnt come home from the hospital with 2 of my sisterts. i used to pray so hard that i would find my 2 adopted sisters, and that i would get my other siblings back. i have missed them all so much, but life didnt seem to have much compassion on us getting back together until now.
it was the first time any of them had met grace, and i had only met her once the yr before. i hadnt seen none of them for decades, and none of them had seen each other for decades either. now i can say the circle is complete, i have all my siblings back in my life, my dad and granny, and my son...altho it is sad i had to loose my mom in all this, i have been blessed with a new mom at just the perfect tim e(thanks dad for picking me a great mom).
so now i have recently moved closer to dad and family, so im not an hr away anymore, i am only a few blocks away from them, and they introduced me to an awesome doctor who is fixing my health issues. seems i am getting all that has been stolen from me back! it sure didnt come fast, and sure didnt come easy, but the journey of it all is mine and their's, it is our story, and i wouldnt trade it for nothing. i love happy endings :O), dont you?

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What is Crisis Healing?

Our Thoughts Become Our Words

Oprah 2-16-07 One Week Later: The Huge Reaction to The Secret

The Secret Movie

Oprah Show - The Secret - February 8, 2007

Oprah After The Show - February 17, 2007

Oprah After The Show about The Secret -PART 2- March 17, 2007

SNL parody about The Secret show on Oprah~lol

~Fibromyalgia & Chiropractors~

Cranial Motion