My Story.

 In 1999 I suffered a mental health crisis and admitted myself into the hospital where I live, in which I was given a mental health diagnosis. I didn’t want to receive medication at the time, but unwillingly accepted it. I was in the hospital for about two months, when I asked my doctor if I could go home, and he said yes, even though he thought it would have been better if I stayed longer. 

I was glad to be home though, but at 25, it took some adjusting to feel truly at home. One of the problems I was having at home was it was hard for me to eat the food in the house. I was having a psychosis where I felt the food wasn’t mine, and I literally had to go out to eat, or buy bread from the supermarket and take it home to eat it. Eventually this wore off, but I don’t remember how long. 

I was now on ODSP and had a check come to me every month in order to have financial support. I would occasionally have a crisis, and ask my mom to drive me to the hospital, but eventually the crisis would end, and I would feel safe again. Looking back, I was having anxiety attacks, which made me feel I had to be in the hospital. 

My dad had a business which eventually closed, but before it closed, there was a fire at his work, and he was never able to move back into that building, but had a trailer outside. We had to move from our family home in the year 2000 because of some circumstances that forced my parents to sell the home, so our family ended up renting a home that was similar to that one in Milliken Mills. My doctor told my mom to try to find a home that looked like ours, because my recent mental health diagnosis and a completely different environment might be bad for me. Thanks mom.

We weren’t in that home for very long, when the world was plunged into a crisis when 911 hit. I remember feeling and sensing the change in the world, and even wondered if the world was going to end, and Jesus Christ was coming back soon. I began attending church regularly for the first time since my diagnosis, however I didn’t attend the Catholic Church I grew up in after 911, but I attended a Pentecostal church. In 2007 I was baptized in that church, so it was quite some time after the terrorist attack in New York. 

After this, I sort of church hopped to the Salvation Army church in Markham, which is no longer there, and got a taste of what a simple country church was like. My mom attended with me. We all got a surprise one Sunday when our pastor announced that the Salvation Army was closing this church. I remember being sad, and felt for the first time the pain of a church breaking up. 

I ended up at Harvest Bible Chapel York Region, (now Hope Bible Church Markham)

where I really felt at home. I was there from 2010-2016. Unfortunately it ended up on a sour note after I posted something on Facebook about mindfulness meditation, and fell out with an elder, who warned me about causing division. I left and began attending the Catholic Church where I grew up attending, and where I am now. I currently live at home, singing in a choir, and feel really good about my life.