Excellent. [you should post this at the Playlist of the Week thread...I'm sure many would like it. If you don't, I will]
I had just turned 47 in May 2000. I was working as a painter for a school district in No Cal and figured I had another 18 to 22 years to work before I could retire.
I injured my back a week later [3 herniated discs] and after another year I was evicted and homeless. My employer got out of paying me monthly disability checks due to a loophole in the new laws [they would only have to pay it...in retro...if I won my disability case. It took three months to get Social Security after that, but another year to get a settlement in my case, and that was after my own lawyers sold me out to my former employer and got me to settle for far less than i should have got.]
I lost my cottage, my car, my girl...about everything. I had been having a weird recurring dream for months about some old building I was afraid to go into upstairs in its' attic. 3 mos later, in Oct. 2001 I started getting 1200 a month S.S. and got a room nearby at the old historic Folsom Hotel. It was built in 1875, and has three stories. The top floor was originally the attic and it was converted into four more rooms and a bath. Each room had a monk's cell like of a room with a plenum that went to a small window, that looked out of a dormer on the roof.
I was given the only room that was vacant...that the owner didn't like to rent out, usually. It was room # 13. 39 steps up from the lobby...40 steps up if you count the one from the street into the lobby. It is haunted as all get out. I figured I'd probably have to live there 6 months...8 tops.
I lived there for 5 1/2 years. That was...5 1/2 years ago this month.
It was the most intense, bizarre, outrageous, unbelievable [literally] time of my life...and I'm certain many a person would've ended up standing inside a circle of salt with a tin foil hat on [literally]. I had also managed to become the focus of a local 'coven's wrath during that time [Northern Calif. has more of them than anywhere else on Earth.]...one of those of the 'Black Arts' variety. I had told it's 'Leader', [in a polite way] to stay away from my sister.
What doesn't kill ya... often comes back for a second try. As to making anyone stronger,,, well, if getting to know yourself...what your limits are, what your 'fear factor' is, what strengths you have... is considered an augmentation of strength...then, maybe so. I have a hunch most people would just feel lucky to be alive and still be mentally intact, though.