Family History

First of all, I would like to give a breif scenario of my past backround starting from my great grandmother and great grandfather. My family is origionally from Brainerd Minnesota and the surrounding areas. My great grandfather was a butcher and my great grandmother was a house mother of 6 children. Three boys, Three girls. Apparently (from possible family theories we dug up from files) my grandfather took alot of trips to San Francisco (possibly) having a gambling addiction. One day, Someone knocked on my great grandmothers door and delivered my great grandfathers body, chopped into pieces and placed in a suitcase to be put on her door step. For obvious reasons, my great grandmother went crazy and CPS ended up placing all those children into different homes even separating them by states(in my grandmothers case, it was Arizona). As years went by, my grandmother found contact with her siblings but all had made separate lives. She went and had two children both my mother and my aunt. My mother had two children (me and my sister) and my aunt had 5 of her own.

On my fathers side, it is pretty much unknown. He was non existant in my life. I heard from my mother he had children and a wife and i have great grand parents who are still in arizona. As far as my father goes, I met him once when i was half paralyzed (tell you all more of that story later. It wasnt cool) and by the time i came out of the hospital, he had went and killed himself on a 4 wheeler trip. Sometimes I wish god would have given me the chance to ask more.

Anyways, that is a family backround and it only gets more interesting.

Toddler Age

My mother was 17 when she got pregnant with me. She gave birth to me 18 and then married my father. They stayed together until i was around 3 or 4 and then my father left, wanting nothing to do with me or my mother. She was sleeping with another guy named Gary and was not certain that I was indeed his child (Terry was my father, i knew it when i met him the one time I did). I ended up moving to Oahu Hawaii (where she was either with the father of my sister or she met him there, not too certain) and spent a year or two there. I dont remember too much of the time i spent in hawaii but certain things like flashback type moments happen to me. I know i used to go to the next door neighbors house all the time and the girls would play with my he-man dolls while I would dress their barbies. I loved me some Barbie back in the day. I also remember that my sisters father had owned or managed a washer and dryer store and I remember him taking me there and I just thought it was the coolest thing that the whole store was just washers and dryers. Yah yah, I had never seen a laundromat. Now i can tell you about some stories at the laundromat at some of the places I have been to. I also remember the last day of school my mom took me out of school. I guess they had a "beat white people" day they celebrated in grade school or something. I don't know. When my grandmother came out to visit she was concerned. My mother had developed a drug problem with methamphetamines. So I moved with my grandmother and a very dear friend of the family (what i now call my "other grandmother"). She's my nana. I was raised a little while with them in Pinetop Arizona. It was was pretty good there. My nana is the type of person that she was father figure person in my life at that point. She was in the military for a long time and had structure and discipline where my grandmother was the mother, tending to my wounds and making the dinners and make sure i was in bed at appropriate hours. We lived in a small trailer park (it was more like a trailer circle with a main trailer stuck in the middle where the office was) upside the hill behind the spaghetti factory (people from pinetop will know where its at). Behind the trailer court was a small group of houses and behind those at the end of the small street containing 3 houses on both sides was a creek with a plethora of trees and wildlife. I would go down there all the time with my great cousins (I think thats what they call it when your great uncle has kids) and we would build forts. This one time I remember the ice had froze on the creek and my cousin was bieng a show off and started slipping on the ice and walking on the creek. It was really cold and possible hypothermic water temps and he fell in the water and my other cousin and I freaked out. I rushed onto the creek not thinking about it being solid or not and pulled him out of the icy water. Key thing to remember, don't walk on ice if you don't have to. Its just stupid. This is a part where my mind gets hazy as I moved a few places but somehow I ended up living with my aunt in Mesa, Arizona. I didn's stay too long there either because she was also a methamphetamine addict. I did however remember that I would walk everyday to the end of the road where my great grandmother (my grandmothers adoptive mother Thora and father Bjarne) lived and she would always give me fresh baked cookies and just smile at me with the most loving caring eyes and tell me to have a good day. I wish I knew my great grandparents more. My great grandfather Bjarne (it means brave bear)used to love the heck out of me too. I remember being very young and being held in his arms as he cradled me back and forth with that same loving grin on his face my great grandmother had. I was named after him, god rest their souls. I also think that they both have been angels that hover around me. I seem to have alot of those around me. Life had been decently normal as nothing tramatic really happened to me at this point besides I guess saving my cousin. All i was aware of is that it being unusual for me to move around back and forth but was a kid and found it pretty neat to see different places. It was kind of tough to establish any friendships with other though, it gave me a perception of allowing myself to feel like people come and go. It didn't take long, maybe a year or so, until I ended up living with my great uncle and his kids (my cousins) and my grandmother again (she moved back down to the valley). Thats where my childhood begins.

Childhood

I moved in with my great uncle, his kids and my grandmother for elementary school at about 2nd or 3rd grade. My grandmother was a travel agent at America West for a long time and my uncle worked at Bowing and had been there for decades and for the most part it was just a normal upbringing. I went to school, walked home with my cousins, and went to friends house to go play. On the other aspect of it, i was also living in an abusive alcoholic home. My uncle would get home from work and drink himself to sleep while my grandmother would come home as well and have her cocktail too to unwind and they would fight. My uncle was really strict on his rules. We, as children, all had our chores to do everyday and he was a complete dick if he came home and stuff wasnt done. I remember a couple times (maybe few but i only remember a couple) he would whip my butt with a belt but being drunk it never hit my butt once. It was the lower back (just fyi). The children of the family established pretty much a typical attitude to adjust to an alcoholic environment. I was always the hyperactive one that would get on peoples nerves singing and dancing around. Don't get me wrong, our family as a whole would have a good time as well. Every year starting with Halloween,we would all go out trick or treating and all the family (my cousins, sister, and I (eventually became my aunts kids as well) including adults would dress up and enter family contests at the park and playing games in the candy booths and would watch fireworks. It was a celebration as my family are witches and my grandmothers birthday IS halloween. We would all retreat back to the house where kids would trade candy and adults would hang out until the adults decided on going to a bar or home and would fall asleep.We all, no matter what problems we had in life, would just absorb the love of our family. We all had a psychic bond between us that was unified. As Thanksgiving rolled around, the men would gather to the sports on television in the living room and the girls would flock to the kitchen to help set up dinner. The kids would wander back and forth playing and frolicking asking to help as with with the set up. we gathered where my grandmother and uncle had a formal dining room with crystal chandeliers and good china that my great grandmother had given and had a formal dinner with the family. Family was of the uttermost importance in our family. My grandmother and great uncle had been through the tearing of a family and made damn sure we wouldn't go through that as well. We were taught that no matter what ever happens as the outside worlds does to you, the love of the family will never change and only become stronger. And to Christmas where we once again gathered the night before where the my cousins, sister and I would all have to go to bed early only allowing one present to be opened (it became larger again when my aunt had kids)and wake up early to wake the adults. There was always someone dedicated as Santa who wore the red had and they were allowed one elf to be helper and we would sit around with the television fire (you know what im talking about)and drink eggnog, eat cookies, take pictures, put on music and the adults would clean up and start to make the formal dinner while the kids went and played with their presents. Christmas was the happiest time for me. Ive created the best memories from it and thank god that I was allowed to have that for a childhood where alot have not. We were all taught it is better to give than recieve but always appreciate and enjoy what you get.
I did however want a relationship with my mother and always asked to see her. I would go over my moms house for the weekend to hang out with my mom and sister, but every time I went there I would call my grandmother and cry to come back. She lived on a ranch with her boyfriend with 4 wheelers, ATC's, and a pack of dogs. My mother being an artist would constantly be painting in a backroom that was separated by beads. The kids were not allowed there. She was an amazing artist when she painted. My mother has some magical paintings she has created. I would always have to go stand at the front of the wall and my mom would mark the wall showing my growth. I always hated that. She lived a crazy life then though, she had my sister with her seeing many different crazy scenarios and my sister was still a toddler/young child and she and her bf were both still on drugs. He had a kid too that lived there or went there a lot. I remember her boyfriend one day coming up to me and saying "you wanna see the most amount of money you'll see in a lifetime" and as a kid was like heck ya show me that money. He opened a big old fireproof safe and it was full of 20s, 50s, and 100's. I later found out that was because he was a druggie that sold. The last time I saw my mom with this guy she had a fight and she was ready to leave him. She took me and my sister and was gonna go into the car to leave and he bashes her head into a window and holds a gun to her. I dont remember too much of how we got out of there. All i know is I looked down at my sister and covered her eyes and told her everything would be ok as she screamed and cried. (sorry mom for telling that story, it still makes me tear up to think about it though. Im glad you got out of that when you did). I used to have nightmares all the time back then about this big haunted house that was on an edge of a cliff. The front of the house had one door to escape which was guarded by Freddy, Jason, and Chuckie and other spirits would chase me through the house trying to kill me, but the backdoor opened to the edge of the cliff where I would fall to oblivion. Tell me about anxiety, it wasn't cool. During that time, I was also molested by someone close to me. I had a group of friends that I hung out all the time. I wont go too much into details but just on how I rebelled shortly after those times (it was more than once). I started stealing from everybody. As far as how the molestation affected me, I would make these brothers touch each other in front of me to be in the club or asked my friends (ones i went to youth group where i developed a concept of god)I could suck/jerk them off when they spent the night. I thought that's normal, it's just what people do as friends for other friends. I would steal from stores what I wanted, I stole my grandmothers cigarettes and smoke them (she had a shiny metal box she kept tons of smokes in). I would convince my friends to go pretend that we were from boy scouts and collect all the money and go blow it all on candy,cake,soda,etc. I used to go to my friends house and dig up his slugs and pour salt on them to watch them sizzle and die. I played pranks on friends parents like this one time I had a small cage for hamsters and took that to school one day and filled with with ladybugs (in the early morning there would be hundreds outside on the playground and I would just play in the lady bugs until I went to class) and took them to my friends house and released them all in his living room as they distracted their grandmother. They had lady bugs in their house for MONTHS after that. I beat this kid kyle bloody as well one day after school. My cousin thought it would be funny to see a fight so asked me to beat this guys ass and I was like "what do I get out of it"? He responded with "my bag of m&m's" so I was like "hell ya" and I took this kid, put him in a headlock and just started punching his face over and over again (possibly even breaking his nose) and watched him fall the the ground crying. I grabbed my m&m's, started eating them, and just moved along like nothing happened. This one time I also (first time the cops were called on me) had decided that I wanted my own Christmas tree and I was walking home down the road with friends and saw this perfect tree, it was twice my size at the time and thought it was perfect. I went back to my house, got a butter knife, and went back to the house and started sawing the tree down. Since I couldn't chop it down i took it by its roots, ripped it out and drug it all the way down my street into our backyard leaving a trail of dirt all the way along. The cops were called and sent to my house and my grandmother answered and was just like "Jason did you steal a tree?" I told her "no gramma i didn't" but obviously it was in the backyard. Might have gotten a beating that night, not sure. I did find out however she paid the lady 100 bucks for that tree. I lied, cheated and stole. I had no respect for anyone around me anymore. The molestation affected my whole entire attitude towards life. I wrote a letter to the molester because I'm not sure that person knows how much it affected me. Ps. I DON'T WANT YOUR APOLOGIES if your out there.

You took away my innocence, you took away my concept of love, If I was an angel, you took away my wings. I looked up to you, I idolized you. You say I kept asking for it, but NO 10 year old wants that. I wanted love and acceptance and you jaded my perception of what was for my entire life. You are a root of all that I am. I have never fallen in love and I'm not sure if I even can at this point. That's when I started my "wall" that only continued through out life and became thicker and thicker. They say it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I ask God all the time if I am able to get that chance and I fear I might not have that option. I will never blame you for it though. Its the devil inside us that all of us, as human beings, have. I've learned that now with age. It might be a burden to have on your shoulder but it has been 10 times the burden having gone through it. You will never have my love, respect, nor a relationship with me. You have dug a hole that only you lay in. I also probably would not cry at your funeral.

Early Teenage Years

After I graduated elementary school, I decided that I wanted to live with my mother and start middle school in Tempe Arizona as opposed to staying in Scottsdale where I had previously been. She had been clean at this point for a couple years and met my step-father through AA and moved with him to a double wide trailer. He was a car painter for a local place and she worked for Walgreens Photo Developing department and went to school to be a photographer. I lived with my little sister as well. I didn't like her that much because I had always thought my mother chose her instead of me because I wasn't able to live her life with her. I, being older now, understand the reasoning on why I wasn't allowed but back then I didn't and still had my issues going on. During middle school (around age 11-12) is when I first started smoking marijuana and cigarettes on a constant basis. I went to school and did my thing for the most part, not ditching class and actually paying semi attention (as much as I could as I was a person that always needed some attention, good or bad) and doing good in school. I was a goofy person and always felt the need to act out or disrupt class and was always sent out of class. I was openly bisexual at that time and had developed a school boy crush on a hispanic kid that was the "cool kid". He also sang like an angel and every time he would ask me to see my homework so he could write it down real quick to turn in, I would get in a little girl school kid giggle. People still laugh at how gay that was. In the meantime I also had a girlfriend that I would meet up periodically to hold hands and make it "known" that i was straight enough to have one. We would meet up at the bus area by the soda machines everyday and french kiss each other I think more just to be "cool". She ended up breaking up with me when I told her I loved her. Said that she had met some other guy (he was fat and nasty and that's the only reason why I was like WHAT THE FUCK!) Anyways, so time moved on and my pot and cigarette addictions lead me to acid by the time I hit high school. It was a drug that made me feel free of all my problems. I would uncontrollably laugh till I pee'd my pants and would have massive hallucinations that would also amuse my senses. LSD took my mind to another realm. I started ditching class, grades were falling, and stealing money from my mother and stepmother. In my mind, I was just taking from my mother who never wanted me and some punk ass she married. They both had opposite schedules but I remember I would wait till my stepfather got paid and fell asleep and I would take his wallet. It always contained thousands of dollars and I knew he would be frivolous about spending money so I would take 20-60 dollars and wait for him to get paid again. Eventually they caught on so I would coax my little sister (who was desperate to have a brother figure in her life) and make her break in through the outside window so i could scrape up whatever money I could find. My lack of respect for anyone or anything was apparent and I was screaming for help in my mind and people around did not respond. I showed her one day what I felt inside when she was in an argument with me and slit my wrist right in front of her so she decided that I take a little trip to a psychiatric facility. I'm not too certain on how long I stayed there but I think it was only maybe a month. They tested me IQ wise and personality wise and they told me that at 15 my mentality was at a sophomore in college level and might have (i think) ADHD but didn't do much more than put me on an anti depressant. I remember being so pissed off at that place. It had a couch area connected with rooms that two people would share and we would all have to meet at the couch and share our feelings. That was bullshit to me, my only feeling for years at that point was anger and they did not want me to show them that. So while they did their "feelings" thing I would be in back where they had unlimited lego's of all sorts and I built a city. Eventually it became cool (obviously) and people wanted to join in. I was such a dick as a kid. I told each one that they had to get their own shit to do and got in trouble repeatedly until I just said fuck it, have at it. The last couple days of that stay I had a roomate come in. He was obviously schitzophrenic or something because he came in with an attempted overdose on asprin and he would talk nothing but the fact that he was going to hell for trying to end his life and preacher this and preacher that. I can only take so much, especially as a kid I had to voice my opinion so I told him that if he doesn't shut the fuck up so I can sleep I will steal a pencil and shove it in his neck while he is sleeping tomorrow. He was silent as can be after that and a day or two later I went back home. Things were back the same and I eventually got expelled from my school for getting caught with a pipe I had found while traveling on Mill Ave where I would periodically walk when I ditched school. It was filled with pot in it so I smoked the pot and carried the pipe with me. I was walking back to class and was showing my pipe I had found to this cute hispanic girl I talked to alot.I looked up to find a security guy that eventually took it from me and took me to the office not before going into my class and exposing my pipe to the whole class. It was stupid though, all they did was clap and whistle. I would have been so much more popular after that if I hadn't been expelled. So nearing the end of my stay with my mothers, I remember being so depressed and coming off LSD,pot,alcohol,and cigarettes that I was supposed to go to a family function for the holidays. Instead, I wanted to sleep. So as they kept telling me to get up, the frustration built up to where I ended up getting into a physical confrontation with my mother (mom, i will never tell this story again and want you to know that I am ASHAMED of what I did to you, and I will always carry that in me until the day I die). She somehow got me on the couch and was pulling my hair and I had a grip on her's and she was on top of me. I remember taking my legs and shoving her up in the air to get her off me and she landed on a glass table that shattered and I think I went back into my room and my stepfather came in trying to regulate so I took my switch blade and shoved him against the wall and asked him if he wanted his testicles detached. They both decided at that point that it was too much and told me that if I wanted to live like a drug addict, I can go live on the streets like a drug addict. So, I said fine and called up my aunt and asked to come live with her and she agreed with stipulations that I would go to school or have a job and pay rent, so I moved. My mother had told her not to take me in due to a lesson she wanted to teach me, but my aunt didn't listen or care apparently (its funny because EVERY person in my family is stubborn as hell and WON'T be told what to do). Anyways, this is where I started my mid to late teen years.

Late Teenage Years

I was about 16-17 when I moved into my aunts house under the condition that I either go back to school or get a job. So I tried enrolling myself into Mountain View High School where not even a week or two later I was expelled for piercing my eyebrow during class with a safety pin and wearing the safety pin in my eye all day long. The principal told me to take it out or just not come back and being the rebellious child I told him to fuck off. For the next couple years I just worked p/t and partied with my aunt. She was an alcoholic so most of the times on her days off, I would be designated the babysitter over her kids but also driver to and from the bar. She would have keg parties at least once a month and have afterhour parties every other weekend. That's where alot of my sexual addiction started to kick in. She would have these afterhours parties and I would go have sex with these 30-40 year old guys while they went and partied. At about 19 we ended up moving into a single wide trailer where a friend of hers had moved in as well. It was me and her friend in one room in the back, and her two kids in a room in the mid section, and her room up front. Thats when I started my methamphetamine addiction. I had just got back in touch with my high school sweetheart who had been trying to hang out with me for a long time but I constantly blew her off because she had left me for another man (who she ended up marrying) but I decided to hang out with her and we started doing meth. My aunts friend knew a few people that were methamphetamine dealers as well as slammers so it was not hard to get. I spent about two or three months doing meth with them on a constant basis. In order to get the money to do so, my high school sweetheart would create these "missions" to get more money where she would essentially commit check fraud and go to grocery stores and take out the max amount that she could write over on the check. She then would alter her check stubs to apply for loans to get more money. Over the course of those two or three months she had put a debt of about 8000 dollars in which we used for our addiction. We did not sleep but maybe once a week then and were constantly hallucinating. We would drive all over the place with meth in the car and go gambling alot. Our brains were "tweeked". We all had skin and bones on our bodies and faces emaciated. We all were angry and cared about nobody. When we spoke to people, our eyes rolled back into our head and we made no sense to anyone that was sober. I'm certain we should have overdosed and a part of me was hoping for that. I wanted to do that, but it never happened. I always woke up when I slept. This one time, our drug dealer had told us that he needed to go move his stuff because he was being watched so my aunts friend, me and my drug dealers wife went and packed up his stuff at his house. His house was rigged to where if you opened the door or tried breaking through the window, you would slice yourself open because there were swords that lined the area. His entire house was lined with weapons. While we were doing that he was at my house with my high school sweetheart holding a gun to her head and fucking her brains out on my aunts bed. I later learned that he ended up in jail because his baby had got ahold of one of his injection needles and overdosed on meth. I guess his karma got him in the end. Not too long after that, I ended up moving out and a friend of mine had suggested that he learned alot of life meaning through hitchhiking back in the 80's and suggested I do the same, so I did. I took a backpack and filled it with clothes and I left for the open road. I was immediately picked up by a guy that told me that anything I wanted and needed would be taken care of from now on and It occurred to me that I was gonna have to pay for that. I didn't care though, I was on the road and gonna see different places. I told the guy I wanted to go to san francisco and he assured me that was on his route and that he just had to go to Seattle, Utah, Colorado, and El Paso first but then he was going up there. So, being open minded, I decided to go along. I remember the first time the guy molested me. I had tried to go to sleep in the back of the truck and he stopped at a rest stop and came in back of the truck and tried to start kissing me. I pulled away and he pulled down his pants and told me that I needed to "earn" my keep. He pulled down my pants and just started fucking me until he came. He was fat, nasty, and sweaty and all I did was sit and wonder "why does this happen to me". I thought alot of God and the Devil on this trip, but as I went through those cities, it happened more and more. For some reason I was afraid to leave him. He would give me hundred after hundred after hundred to spend on whatever I liked and I knew if I left that, I would be all alone with no money, no food, and no water. We ended up in in Anthony New Mexico where he told me that his family business was there. We stopped there and then he told me that he needed to go through Kansas City, Missouri before heading back north to San Francisco, so I went with. While I was at a stop I had gone and took a shower bringing just an outfit to change into after I showered and when I came out, he was gone. I was left with absolutely nothing but the clothes I was wearing. I was lost, scared, lonley and in the middle of a state where I could easily be picked up and killed. I sat down and just started crying when a couple came up to me and asked me what was wrong. I told them the story and they said that they were heading to El Paso and that they would be able to drive me to that point. I agreed. They were a funny couple. They were 100 percent religious people that were constantly quoting from the bible but they had a little twist. They believed that God had sent them methamphetamine for their long journeys. They had the exact science down on how to make sure all your vitamins were in tact and still stayed healthy. One of the most important things I remember about that trip was their concept of God and Satan. The guy told me that "fear is the ONLY way satan has control over you". They said that God is the one that blesses you with things and Satan is the one that takes those things away. After they had dropped me off in El Paso, I had a long walk to walk to Anthony, New Mexico where before dropping me off in the middle of nowhere, the guy had shown me his homebase family business. He had told me that if his family ever was to find out that he was gay, he would lose the business. SO, that's where I headed to get my stuff back. I ended up making it to my destination where I told his family the scenario of what he had done to me and he called the guy up and he met up with me and gave me my backpack back and had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to join him again. At that point, I had just wanted to go home. So I did. Back to arizona. After coming back, I moved back into my aunts house where, when I was 19 years old got caught shoplifting while working at macy's and ended up in jail for a little bit of time. This is where my early 20's comes about

Early 20's

So after coming out of jail, my family and friends had decided they were done helping me and they could not do it anymore. I ended up going to a rehabilitation place where I lived for the first time without family or friends. It was AA based and we had to do meetings every day by the campfire before heading back to the apartment. I, at that point did not really speak to my family. I got a job as a bill collector and just did my thing in life, trying to find my place. Where do I belong? Who am I? Why am I crazy? What lead me here in life? Why can't I love? Will I ever be able to? Why has god forsaken me? Is it my fault? Am I going to hell because I am gay? Those are just a few questions that finally started to arise in my life. I think at this point in my life I finally was in a position to start questioning things. One day I was awoken at this place by my grandmother. She advised me that my best friend Lowell (the one who gave me advice to go hitchhiking) had been murdered. He was working at daily work/daily pay doing manual labor and befriended a guy in need. He had no money and was hungry and bieng the carefree person willing to help a person in need, he had offered to take him back to the house, and feed him. They went back and as he was making the sandwiches, the guy took his weight set and smashed his head in and then took a knife and slit his throat. The guy was a crackhead and was apparently "withdrawing". Lowell's life ended for 20 dollars that the guy stole from him. I was scheduled to be pall bearer (I think thats what its called when you hold the casket at the funeral). Even to this day it all feels like a really bad dream. I remember it so well though. She took me to the funeral where I was directed to get his casket out of the car and go lay him down next to the plot. Most of my family was there as well as his wife and kids and they were all crying. The second that I put my hands on the casket, I began to cry uncontrollably and did not stop the whole time. It was the only time I have ever cried at a funeral. They had planned an after funeral celebration at papago park where there was a keg party and music. It is the place where Alison and Lowell got married. He had always wanted a funeral where everyone was happy and worry free full of love. I was not able to go, because there was alcohol there and I was living in an AA oriented place. I think that is where I ended up hating the concept of AA because after I went back, I started smoking pot again occasionally at work with coworkers. A few weeks later, I got kicked out when they drug tested me. I ended up calling up alison to see how she was doing. She was 9 months pregnant and about to have her baby soon as well as with two children from Lowell already and was having a tough time. I told her that if she let me move into her house I would help take care of her kids. So I did. I stayed there for a while. I pretty much did all the stay at home mom type duties while she tried getting everything taken care of financially. There was alot going on for her. She also let this other kid move in (either that or he just stayed there alot) but we ended up doing meth randomly. It got a little worse and I personally would get methed out and go to adult bookstores and have sex, or I would go and meet people online and have promiscous sex. I had developed a sex addiction even further than when I was 17-18. I did not know names to any of the people I slept with and didn't care. So, after about 50 random sex partners. I started getting sick. It was like the flu but it wasnt. I went into the hospital after about two weeks (also not doing drugs anymore because I was sick) and told them that I had something wrong with my body and whatever it is, it is bad. They reassured me that it was just the flu and to go home and rest. More weeks passed by, and I was still sick and went back again. Again, they told me it was the flu and they could do nothing for it. One day, alison had gone to the hospital because she was in labor and I was making a homemade pot pie for dinner for the kids. A family friend named Benson came over to inform me that he was told that I was not caring for the kids and he was sent there to kick me out on the streets. I, not feeling well from "my sickness" started acting irrational because I had actually been taking care of the kids the whole time. I immediately thought it was my aunt who said that and kicked me out on the streets. I walked close to 12 miles to my aunts house and when I got there I started banging on her door and screaming and she opened the door and I slit my wrists. She called the cops on me to where I ended up going to a mental rehabilitation. After I was released from there, I ended up staying at my mothers house with her and my sister. She was now divorced from my step-dad (or in the process of trying to) and she was drinking again and my sister who was 16 was pregnant with her first child and living in a two bedroom apartment in tempe. The hospital had scheduled a doctors apointment for a wellness check up. I went in, and they had asked me if I wanted to do an HIV test. I said yes. Two weeks later I got the call saying that I needed to come in and discuss the results. I was scared at that point because I knew something was wrong so my high school friend shandelle went down with me. I walked in alone while she waited outside and the doctor told me that I was HIV POSITIVE. I immediately said I have to go. He advised me of paperwork that needed to be signed so I rushed to sign all those papers and I walked out, where she was and I just grabbed her and starting crying hysterically. She told me that it would be okay and I took a deep breathe, wiped the tears from my eyes and said "ok, now to go tell my mom". So I did. I lived there for a little while where I didn't do anything but drink and wallow in my depression. My mom had become a severe alcoholic and was drinking 30 packs a night and dating different guys all the time and I was becoming a severe alcoholic as well, seeing as I was finally 21 now and able to drink legally and go to bars/clubs. One night, I had come home from the club and my mom had gone out camping for the weekend with a boyfriend at the time and I was alone in the house for the whole weekend. I woke up the next morning and went to go do the dishes and my arms were weak to the point where I could not hold the plates and put them up. I called my mom and she told me that it was because I had gone dancing and that I will be fine. I knew something was wrong though. The next day I called her up again and said "mom, I am having troubles walking now too and I can stand up for more than a minute". She told me once again, it was from the clubs and I would be just fine. The following day, I could not even get up off the floor, could no longer stand or walk at all and I called her up and said mom, I cant even sit up now. I am laying on the floor not able to move. She advised me to call the ambulance so I did. They came and got me and started to run tests on me. They did not know what was going on with me, but I was progressively going paralyzed and not able to move at all. No arms, no fingers, no toes, no legs, no head. The harder I tried to move, the weaker my muscles were. Then started the pain all over my body. I felt every nerve in my body connected to every muscle and every nerve felt individually like someone was taking a knife and jamming it into my whole body over and over again. My mom was back from camping and had been at the hospital the whole time while this was happening. The doctors told her they do not know what this is causing this and ran test after test on me. My breathing started to slow and they moved me to ICU to monitor me. I had been constantly on drugs this whole time. Morphine, Percocet, Vicodin... ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to kill the pain, but it did not help. I was convinced at this point that I was going to die. I asked them to get me a priest to see if he would baptize me because I wanted to have GOD know that I was sorry for the wrongs I had done in my life. When the priest came in, he asked me why I wanted to be baptized and I told him that my whole family were witches and I was as well but I wanted to be forgiven of my sins. He then, laid the holy water along my table side, and walked out without blessing me. Finally, after about a month of constant tests and not bieng able to move at all, they told my mother that my disease was called Guillian Barre Syndrome. It was a neurological disease that a virus in the body attacks the spinal chord sending signals to your brain to shut down the body. They told her that even if I was to come out of this, and months of physical therapy to learn how to move again, I might never be the same again. They immediately started medication and I was at the weakest point I had ever been in life at this point. I felt as if my life was going to end and in fact had the near death experience people all talk about. I was lying in bed and everything went dark. I started to feel no more pain as a white light appeared. There was a hand reaching for me and my friend lowell beside it. He said, you have a choice. You can come if you would like to. It felt so nice and trusting and a part of me wanted to. But then i started seeing flashes of beautiful mountain tops and I smelt roses and thought about how I could not go because my life was meant to find love, pure love. The kind the bible describes so I said no. I woke up and looked over at my finger and just started telling it to move over and over in my mind. It took about 7 hours of me doing this and I had moved my first finger. I instantly started crying. I knew that this will get better at that point. My hope was back. Day after day my movement started to get better. One day my hand, the next my arm, few days later I was sitting up and then finally to stand on my own two feet again! My body was still very weak and I could not stand or sit for long periods of time but the doctors were amazed at my recovery. It took months at an old peoples home for me to train my body to function again, but I was determined to be normal again. I did become normal again and the next year at the same time of year, it happened again. This time it was only my legs and when I went in, they immediately knew what it was and started treatment. And then a year later, AGAIN! same thing but after that happened, it had never happened again. They tell me that I, one day, could have it happen again without warning. Thank god it hasn't happened yet. Three times was enough.

Mid to Late 20's

Around my mid to late 20's, after wanding from friend to friend to friend living with multiple amounts of people that I had met online, I had developed a severe drinking problem. I was a lost soul who have only knew what is was like to suffer in life and my life was empty. I searched constantly for meaning of my existence and did not understand why I was just dead. I started going to a local karaoke bar because a friend of mine had taken me there and met a girl who then would become my "suicide" buddy. I had been a singer in high school so I was automatically attracted to other singers and she had the most amazing voice but was also a depressed person who was lost and trying to find her way in life. We spent the next several years (3-4) at the bar, almost every single day drinking and pondering and singing and laughing and killing ourselves through alcohol. We would drive home "blacked out" on the daily and even had one encounter while driving to where if we had been one second later in life (we witnessed an accident that completely decapitated the driver and passanger) we would have been those people. Yet we still didn't "wake up". I was living with my high school best friend at the time and she was on disability and I also was on disability from having been paralyzed and my drinking buddy and I would take her car all the time (with her permission of course) and drink and drive. I regret those days. To think of how many people I could have killed because I was "lost and depressed and selfish". I had very little faith in god at this point but I knew life had to get better. Eventually my friend moved and I had moved out of my high school friends house as well. I decided that in my late 20's, I wanted to find purpose. I had been back and forth in AA this whole time (struggling to find any way to get answers for my life) and decided that I wanted to learn my body. I went to massage therapy school at the Arizona School of Massage therapy where I did an intense training for 7 months until I graduated. I learned not only about my body but became more in touch with my spirituality again through it. I knew that god was what I wanted in my life and that's all I cared about after that. I got a bill collecting job, where I stayed for a year and a half just doing routine things and not really drinking all that much. I did however decide to go to my cousins wedding. That was where I got my DUI in life. I had worked a 12 hour day and hadn't eaten much. I was extremely tired and was only able to show up for the reception. I ended up having some drinks and going driving after blacking out and I finally got caught. That was the last day, that I EVER drove drunk. I spent time in jail and realized my life, how many innocent people I could have killed. What if I killed a child? I would be a murderer and I don't believe in killing. I was released from jail and told to pay the fines but with no job and bieng mentally disabled, I just struggled to do so. My focus became to search for different churches that I wanted but still just could not find a pastor/church that I felt really connected with until last year. I had been let go right after the economy fell and filed unemployment and moved from phoenix to tucson (where my aunt lived) and stayed with her for a bit in hopes to find a job/church to go to. We ended up finding a neat church called "thecoolchurch" that had this band with the pastor in it and they would write their own songs based on the sermon for the day. It was a really neat church but I still didn't feel anything. A friend of mine had told me about moving to san diego, ca where he was and how much he loved life there and all these positive things he had going on and I decided well maybe san diego is for me. So I moved to san diego in november of 09 just to check it out and see if I liked it. In fact, I did like it. I fell in love. For three months that I stayed there, i got a sense of community for the first time ever, people would stop me on the streets and ask how my day was, everyone around was just generally happy and it was SO different from phoenix or tucson where everyone was mainly hot and miserable. I ended up going to this little church in mission hills where I would go to church. I had found my church. It was a little church tucked away where generations of families had gone and the pastor knew everyone. Right as I walked inside, you could just feel this amazing feeling of hope and love. I went up to the pastor and asked her "I have been waiting all my life to get baptized and ask forgiveness by god, will you be the one to baptize me" and she turned to me and smiled and said "yes, i will". So that is what I did. I went to church that following week and became a methodist taking communion and accepting jesus into my heart. Not too long after that though, I became mentally ill and not bieng around my family or friends I felt alone and scared. The friend I had in high school that I lived with through my alcoholic phase had called me up from arizona and told me that a health problem that she had been sturggling with since high school, she had a chance to fix but needed my help. I decided to move back home. When I got back there and moved in with her, I fell into a deep depression again. I had seen what it was like to live around happy people, a community and faith in god. I was now back into a godless community and around people that had nothing but problems all around me. I spent a good 6-8 months laying around, neglecting my health, my spirituality, and my life and she hadn't gone to this program so I ended up moving out. I decided to test a theory I had come up with on how to help the world. I called up my friend and said let's test this theory and see if we can make some money. It was to go to storage unit auctions and buy the units and sort through them and sell the items on craigslist/ebay/ and organizing yard sales. Sure enough, I had doubled the money invested. Another friend of mine called me up (my old drinking buddy) and I told her that where I was living was just not good for my health both physically and mentally and she was telling me of financial problems she was having because she was not working and her mother, whom was mentally disabled that she housed and cared for lost her job. I told her that I would come live with her to get her back on her feet so her son would be able to have a good christmas. So that is what I did. I moved in her house and slept on her couch. This is where my 30's comes in... Which I am 30 as of August 3rd, 2010.