Chapter Eight: Falling

Not surprisingly, I fell flat on my face. I didn't know how to cope. I think I had a nervous breakdown, not a good thing when you're trying to convince a new employer that you can be a strong and reliable manager. I had only been working as a coffee shop manager for six months when I requested a month off to get my head straight. That was the end of my career with that company, only I was too stupid to realize it. I took the thousand dollars that my ex gave me for my truck [I had paid off about half of the 24,000 dollars that it had cost] and took back my old car [Toyota Tercel] that I had given her to drive. That way I would have transportation minus the payments. Then I went on a long road trip, zig-zagging my way through the California desert, Arizona and New Mexico.

I was ready to excel as a manager when I got back, but my employer would have none of it. It took them a month to find three bull crap reasons to get rid of me. I knew they were bull, I'd eventually appeal my application for unemployment with an administrative law judge who agreed with my arguments. I took my last check and small severance pay and took to the road again, this time winding my way through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma before just about running out of money. I met up with a friend who was visiting family, and we caravaned back to California after a week long stay in the OK. With nowhere else to go I ended up living at my grandmothers house, which I wasn't all too happy about.

It was at her house that I was assaulted as a child. There were other instances of abuse, those at the hands of my grandmother, that made the house a much less than desirable place for me to rebound. In fact, I started to drink heavily. I gained a lot of weight and started to suffer from extreme depression. I told my friends at the beginning of my stay that the experience would either kill me, or I'd be better off for it. I was sleeping next to the bathroom where I had lost my innocence as a child. The memories were vivid; I could still feel what it was like to be assaulted and penetrated. It seemed like I was falling down a hole of despair from which I would never climb out. Then I had a dream.

Next up: Coming Face to Face with a Monster.