When I was in kindergarten I was repeatedly sexually abused by a relative of a my next-door neighbor. I remember leaving the house on several occasions to return home late at night. The abuse was not violent, so I did not understand that anything “bad” had happened to me until I was much older. My father was in the military, and we moved from that town when I was in 2nd grade. By the time I was in 5th or 6th grade, I was learning in school about sex education, at which point the realization hit me that I had been in this type of situation. In church I was learning that God hates homosexuals, and so I chose not to tell my parents for fear that would hate me.
My mind blocked out the worst of this trauma, but it manifested itself in various ways throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. I isolated from peers and found it very difficult to maintain friendships, in part due to being a military child.
By the time I was a teenager I began engaging in self-harm. I became mired in depression in my late teens, and moved out of my family’s home immediately after graduating high school in 2000.
From that point on, substance use took over my life. By 2004 I had become addicted to oxycontin. I finished my Associates degree in 2009, and began using heroin because prescription pills had become too expensive.
I moved to Wilmington in 2013 to try and turn my life around by attending UNCW, but I took the addiction with me. My heroin and alcohol use increased as my GPA plummeted. After failing out of my senior year in 2016, I felt like my life was over. I felt that I’d wasted my last opportunity at succeeding with my goals and climbing out of the pit I’d dug.
In 2018, I moved back in with my parents and began working in an overnight diner. Again, I’d brought my addictions with me, and my parents were forced to kick me out. From 2019 until I entered treatment in 2023 I was homeless, using fentanyl and methamphetamine, and hoping more than anything to die.
I finally decided I needed to get help. I woke up on May 9, 2023, and have not touched a drink or a drug since. My father drove me to Raleigh that morning to admit to Healing Transitions. I completed the program in thirteen months, got a job and moved into sober living at an Oxford House in Raleigh.
In February of 2025 I began working at a medical detox facility, New Waters Recovery, and I have learned that I have a passion for helping others who have struggled with substance use and trauma. I feel that the pain and depression and struggles that I have lived through put me in a position to be able to help others from a place of empathy, understanding and respect.
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