I'm often asked why I got out when so many didn't. I've mentioned the high school teacher who stopped me in the hall for my assistance in a school performance. Before that man, whose name is Stan Asher, no one had ever looked at me or spoken to me as though I had value. For me, that's the key. Otherwise, I probably would have gone on believing that I was intrinsically bad, with nothing to offer. I believe that many in that house were never offered a positive image of themselves.

The first person to really speak to me was Andy, which was lucky, since he was the least crazy. He stank, but I suspected I did too. I never took off my clothes, always ready for fight or flight, needing to feel a little armoured. Deodorant was a luxury I couldn't afford, and I wasn't about to attempt a bath in a room that didn't lock, and which was always in high demand. Not to mention that there was no plug for the tub, or hand soap, or towels, or curtain, or mat.

We sat in good silence, for me relieved silence, watching the thick rush-hour traffic and the jammed streetcars -- all leaving us behind, leaving me feeling cast off and useless, remembering when I too hate somewhere to go, something to do.

There was an inevitability about our kind of illness, a knowledge that lurking over the next hill was our private monster, which would grab us, shake us up and eventually deposit us in a hospital bed, doped to the gills with anti-psychotic medication, not remembering much of anything and not caring that we couldn't.

And it still goes on. And we still turn away.

...nothing could easily erase the vision of Alice, crawling with lice, or Mama, eyes clenched shut under one more indignity, one more reminder of who we were, and what we had lost.