"My counselor said: ‘You need a crisis bed.’ And he did the greatest thing for me. He introduced me to the Jordan House on North Capitol Street. That’s part of SOME, that’s a big part of SOME. And when I went in there it was Sunday. They were doing my intake and they asked me two things that I had been waiting for years for somebody to ask me. They said: ‘James, what’s wrong with you? ‘

I broke down and started crying. And I began to tell her the deep things that I was feeling, and they were so old. I was mentally and sexually abused when I was a child. When I was young and strong I could combat it. I did a whole lot of different things to keep my mind off of it. But if affected me, it affected my marriage, it affected my family.

All I had ever wanted to do was be married and have a lot of kids. That’s all, nothing out of the ordinary. I used to walk around the street going, ‘It must be great.’ Looking at everybody else other than you and thinking, ‘It must be great to be normal.’ I said, ‘What would that feel like just to be normal? Just to be normal?’

I owe SOME so much. They care about you. They actually care how you feel. That’s what SOME gives me every day. The counselor in the Dwelling Place, Mrs. Doris Furr, there were some things that she told me that I really never, ever thought would happen. When you have so many disappointments in your life, everything that someone tells you that you know is good for you, you kind of reject it – ‘Oh, that will never happen.’ But everything she told me, happened. SOME has helped me find a place to live with enough room. So I can make the half room an art studio. And that’s one thing, when I came, she said: ‘James, you’re going to get housing.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, right.’ It happened."