Start From One

I’ve been getting help from Crisis and Connection Support, and Asylum Welcome. I had a friend, Crisis was helping him out. When he heard my problems he said, ‘Come on, Crisis can help you.’ They connected me to Asylum Welcome, and Connection Support. So one help become two helps, you know?

I don't know how I can explain it to somebody else. If we're not in his shoes, you can't feel how hard it is. But these organisations, they've been everything for me, thank God, they've been helping. Connection gives me a place to sleep now, they pay my rent. I had no job – I was going to sleep on the street. But now they pay my rent, they give me some money for food, they pay for my bus ticket. I survive. My depression is calming down. If Connection didn't come, I was gonna be on the street, that was madness. But I was lucky and I got help now, thank God.

It's not easy. If you don't have nobody, it feels so hard, you know? Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to talk to nobody, I switch off my phone, I want to be on my own. You feel like you don't belong anywhere. But help like this keeps you going. You believe that maybe something will come. I didn't know I was gonna get the place to sleep, and I got it, so maybe something else will come. That's what I keep believing, that something can be good one day.

I was so depressed, I used not to sleep. Where I was living before, the lady downstairs couldn't walk. She had a dog, so the dog peed in the house. The house smelled. This smell, you've never had a smell like this. She can't walk the dog, so the dog shits in the garden. If you put your clothes to dry on the line, they smell! I don’t know what I’m stepping in. This house it was killing me. So when they gave me a place, I was so happy, I couldn't believe it. It was a Christmas for me. Now I sleep like a baby every time. Since then, I've been feeling better. The place where I live now is a nice clean place, it has a kitchen. I’m near the park. Sometimes you want to be on your own without nobody there, just in a quiet place like the park, and you sit there on your own, that's helped me a lot. Even my depression is calming down now. It's getting better.

If somebody like me has nowhere to sleep, nowhere to go, and people who don't know you, they help you, if you don't appreciate that, there has to be something wrong with you! Because where would I be? Without organisations like this life could be harder. And if you don't have help, you think too much, you think a lot of stuff, you know? Stuff like, ‘If I die tomorrow, nobody gonna feel sorry.’ I was thinking to do something to myself. I was fed up. I thought, ‘If I die now, nobody gonna be sorry because nobody knows me.’ But they are there, Crisis, Connection, they help people, and they listen. Talking to somebody makes you feel much better.

Life is hard, so hard. My friend who directed me here, he was sleeping on the street, he's been alcoholic, only 28 years old. But he's been taken away for rehab, and now I think he's gonna get help. Crisis is helping. He’s got no family as well, he was like me. Sometimes I don't know how I do it. If you have no family, nobody you know, no one to run to if something happens to you, all you can do is go to your room and cry and then go out and pretend that everything's good.

I was 16 when I lost my family over there. Every time I think about it I cry again. You get tired of crying and you cry inside your heart. Life has not been easy for me. But I thank God I'm still alive. I've been here almost 20 years. It's been hard. When I came here, I did expect that everything here would be good. When I came when I was young, a man tried to rape me. But if I'd stayed there I would be dead, a long time ago. What is there? There is nothing there. When I come here, they give me life. It's hard, but organisations like this, they bring smiles to people's face, they make us believe that there is hope. I believe that one day is going to be better, one day is going to be better. I keep on thinking that.

I'm not in the best place, but I'm not where I used to be, you know? I got a nice place, they give me some money for food, I can sleep without thinking too much. And the medication I take, it's good as well. To go to ten, you have to start from one, this is my one. Somebody has to take pain, somebody has to be happy.

Sometimes I think maybe if I die I meet my Mum and Dad, maybe they are there. I’ll never see my family again, that makes me cry. But it’s my life, so if I do something wrong to myself, when I've got people giving me hope, God will never forgive me. They don't know me and they help me like that, that's a good heart you know? People to love you, not because you have a lot, not because they have attachment to you, but they just love you for you, and help you for you. That's good. It's been really good, I appreciate it. It's not easy dealing with different kinds of people, different mentalities. And some of them you're helping and they’re taking their anger out on you. Everybody goes through different kinds of struggles and if you have your family, you can go and talk to them, but if you don't have family, like me, and an organisation helps, you take them as family. All that disbelief I had, thinking ‘If I die, nobody's gonna feel sorry for me.’ Now, I changed it. I say, ‘If I die tomorrow, all the people helping me…’ I can't say now that I don't have no family.