At the end of the last Chapter [171] our hero, The James, had just triumphed by replacing the front driver’s side drive axle returning his automobile to a functioning state and escaping from his abode.

From earlier Chapters habitués will know that being entrapped in his abode, without any means of escape, places our hero at great risk since it leaves him trapped in his own mind without adequate adult supervision, a predicament that places his Wellness in great peril.

As this Chapter begins our hero finds himself once again entrapped in his abode unable to escape, to flee in search of distraction from the thoughts coming into existence, forged, spawned, conjured, devised within the confines of his mind, by the incapacitation of his horseless carriage.

One again our hero’s automobile is the avenue the Universe has chosen to launch a new assault on The James’s Mind …..

When, on my way home Tuesday, I found myself speaking words of encouragement to my car about how it could make it home, a lot of words of encouragement as we chugged up the hill on Blueridge and the words “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em; Know when to fold ’em; Know when to walk away” started playing in my head I knew it was time to park the car until I could get the clutch repaired.

Talking to my car encouraging it to make it home, ‘The Gambler” lyrics was my minds way of telling me not to risk blowing the clutch or transmission even if parking the car trapped me at home.

It is Friday, three days trapped at home with myself without being able to get in my car go someplace with people and use socializing to get myself outside the confines of my mind and my head is processing my life as though it is one of the old movie serials [i.e. Perils of Pauline]. Only, instead of ending up tied to the railroad tracks, I end up trapped, grounded, at home with myself.

When you live with mental illness your Wellness depends on practicing good mental hygiene. The tool I use to organize my mental hygiene is my Wellness Recovery Action Plan.

The key to your WRAP is knowing yourself and planning how to deal with your mental hygiene on a daily basis and how you will deal with triggers and early warning signs before they drop you into a dark pit.

There is good reason that my WRAP requires me to get out of my residence EVERY day and spend time with other people. On days I want to pull the covers over my head and shut the world out my Plan calls for me to seize myself by the scruff of the neck and drag myself to the car and somewhere with people – and coffee.

So when my clutch began to slip and I knew my car and my ability to get out of my place [myself, my mind] was threatened the first thing I had to do was ……. not panic, to not shoot myself in the foot.

Fortunately ……. or should that be Unfortunately? ……. I had a built in  distraction in the fact that repairing the clutch required hundreds of dollars and I had none, zip, zilch, not a [literally] single dollar.

Between the fact that the clutch was slipping but the car could still get from point A to point B, albeit slowly and carefully, and the need to secure funds for the repair I manage to avoid catastrophizing, panicking or any other of a frightening long list of bad choices.

And then I glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel. My car was still semi-mobile and I had secured hundreds of dollars in funds for repairs and perhaps a tune-up as a reward to  my car for staying mobile. So I – slowwwwwwly – set off to one of the locations recommended ……. and the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a train.

My car has a manual transmission. I was not lucky enough that it was one that could be adjusted. Rather there is a hydraulic cylinder that needed to be replaced. Continuing down the path of ‘if it weren’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all’ it seems that replacing the hydraulic cylinder on my 2000 Ford Escort Zx2 is shown by ‘The Book’ to be a close to a 7 hour task.

All those hours puts the cost at $1,000.00, slightly over $300.00 more than I have.

Which leaves me looking outside the auto repair shops for someone who can repair my car within my budget.

Which another joy of being on disability, pay the rent and live without a phone, makes much more of a challenge.

Leaving me to put these words together and cast them adrift on the internet , hoping some who can repair the car or knows someone who can will send the information my way.

Otherwise at the beginning of the new week I will have to take a cane, some pain medication and journey down to the meal centre, eat and see if there is any reply to the inquiries I sent out Tuesday asking about dependable, affordable auto repairs.

Should all else fail I will face creating a sign and go panhandling to raise the difference between what I have to do the clutch and what  an auto repair shop will charge me.

Life Lesson; Life Reality Check

I do not know what others see when they look at the homeless camp on Gladys Avenue.

Being trapped at home in my own company and in my own head because my car needs the clutch repaired, unable to escape to the company of others leaves me dependent on other tools and coping mechanisms to survive until the clutch is repaired and I am one again mobile.

It was not all that many years ago that not having those tools, coping skills and strategies mental illness put me on the streets, homeless in Abbotsford.

Losing the use of my car, even for a short period, and being trapped, isolated with myself raises the boogeyman of sliding downward into homelessness.

It is a Reality that underscores reality for the residents of the camp.

Looking at the homeless camp on Gladys Avenue I see the cost of bad and ineffective coping mechanisms and I am reminded how thin the line between coping and housed and being unable to cope and homelessness is.