[hunter]

Week 3 or 4 is crisis time. You learn to adapt after that. Often during the crisis you end out hospitalized and the clean bed, safe place to store your stuff and regular meals give you the opurtunity to reevaluate and problem solve, before you hit the streets again. Many people bounce back from the shelter and hospital for the first few months, while they learn new coping skills and where to find resources.

It's very important to learn to self-soothe and to aquire the props to do so. A deck of cards to play solitaire. A bag of Dum Dum lolipops will soothe those around you as much as you. Art supplies. Notebook. Poetry instruction book. Many people find an overwhelming urge to be creative, even if they have never experienced it in the past. Children's art and writing books are good to start with. Sudoku Puzzles are popular. A harmonica. Be aware that hospitals take away wire bound notebooks and pencil sharpeners, and radios with cords. Twistable crayons (or other plastic, not wax crayons) are your best bet for portable, non flakable, no smudge color that doesn't require a "sharp" and contains all the basic color wheel colors. I like composition books with graph paper pages for a notebook. Mechanical pencils don't need to be sharpened.

Throw away phones are used mostly as pagers and voice mail, if you cannot afford to use the minutes. You can use a free phone to check the voice mail instead of the cell phone itself.

Finding a free place to get mail isn't hard, but splurge on a P.O. box for $42.00 for 6 months if you can to ensure that you can forward your mail. The post office will not always forward mail from high volume shelters, after you move on and essential papers can get lost, never mind your lack of privacy.

Due to safety issues with my ex, I could end out homeless again in a moment's notice. I'm still problem solving to ensure my next time will be smoother than my last fiasco, attempting to relocate to a larger city. Instead of giving up, I'm preparing for the reality of a city that doesn't even have enough shelters, and relies on drop in centers with just chairs, even for disabled, domestic abuse victims.

For now, I live in danger. Yes in an apartment, but...I cannot stay here permanently and expect to recover from my Post Trauma issues that really are not POST yet. I've learned I cannot depend on DV services, but need to do this on my own. I now look at my last attempt as a scouting mission, not a failure.