- Alcohol
- Drugs
I was born in California and lived there until I was 8 years old. Since I was in elementary school, my mom was abused by my father. My father was a pastor at a Presbyterian church in Ontario, CA. Can you believe that? I still can’t. He was a pastor who talked about life, Jesus, values, family, respect and other positive themes. How could he be that person?
I have a half-brother who is older than me but I hadn’t had contact with him since I was two years old. I remember that Christmas in the living room, he pushed my mother. My mom got very sick cause of the situation with my father. Even after what he did, I didn’t have an excuse for why I always loved him and looked up to him. My grandmother was always flying to California to take care of my brother and me because my mother was in a mental hospital. They give her medication which gave her chronic sleepiness. This trauma has lived with me for 21 years of my life.
After my dad abandoned us in the airport in Ontario, CA, we moved to Puerto Rico with my mother. We didn’t have any money, a house or anything besides my grandmother. My mom left us with my grandmother most of the time while she looked for a job to support us. Our first house was made of wood so old that I thought it would fall down. My focus was always sticking together as a family no matter what. We began at a private school, and I didn’t know anything about Spanish so it was hard. Every weekend, I stayed with my grandparents while my mom had fun. I felt abandoned, lost and insecure. I was always telling my mom that I was sick so that she would not leave me. As I grew up, I moved to six different houses and seven different schools, both private and public. I didn’t feel stable anywhere. I believe that’s where my insecurity comes from.
In those years, I saw many people enter and leave our house with my mom. When I was in 5th grade, my dad came to Puerto Rico as a surprise to find out where our school was. When I saw him, I was thrilled to see him, but my mother didn’t know. Those two weeks of him being there were hell. My mom got sick, and my father was only buying us with money. He came again when I was in 8th grade. Suddenly, my dad got very mad. He screamed at me, hit me and threw us out of the hotel in which he was staying. I called my mom to pick us up, but it was a disaster. I was so hurt I was crying. Why was he that way? I never saw him again. In 7th grade, I had my first boyfriend, and my mom didn’t accept him so he left me. She has always been overprotective of me, and I felt suffocated. I just wanted my mom to understand me and the situation of my father, my school, what I wanted in life and what I wanted for my relationship with her. I began to have friends from the neighborhood who gave me pills such as Ecstasy and Percocet.
When I entered high school, it was a private school, and I never did well there. There was a lot of competition with the girls there. Your parents needed to have money for you to be somebody in school. My mom didn’t understand that, and it affected me emotionally. At age 17, I began to drink alcohol. My first drinks were five shots of tequila. I was drunk my first night. I felt the dizziness and the nausea but I also felt numb in a way. I had no feeling of loneliness and no other thoughts. So then I began to party and do random stuff. I never thought I was going to be that person. Every Wednesday and Thursday I went partying with people I knew and people I didn’t know. I had a bad habit of mixing many drinks in order to make me feel high and numb. One day, my mom told me she was pregnant. I now have a baby brother who is four years old. She got pregnant while she was finishing her master degree. My brother began to rebel against my mom, and in a way I understood him. She maybe didn’t see how this was going to change things. The baby’s father was and still is married to another person and has three other children. He promised my mother to move here with us, but it never happened. My mom sank into depression again, and it was driving me crazy. She had diabetes while she was pregnant. Those nine months were crazy because I was drinking a lot. When the baby was born, he had a condition in his mitochondria cells that affects his metabolism. He began to bleed every time he when to the bathroom and his skin was changing. We began to go to special doctors, and it was a very sad, hard and frustrating time. I slept in the same room with him and my mom for a year and six months because our house was being remodeled. Every night, I was getting the baby a bottle, changing his diapers and waking up every three hours. The next day, I was pissed and then I tried going to school.
At age 18, I was in 12th grade and I moved to a public school because I wanted to experience public high school. I wanted to go there because it was near the beach and because my best friends went there. I began to cut classes to go party and smoke weed. I never become addicted to weed but I began to spend $80-$90 regularly on alcohol. I couldn’t finish my semester because I couldn’t face my math teacher. He abused me, but I did not tell anybody. I didn’t pass my grade so my mom dragged me to another private school to have me finish. I graduated from there as an honor student.
My mom’s former friend had a son who I was dating before that accident. I lost interest in sex. It wasn’t what I expected it to be. I wasn’t well and I knew it. I went again to look for help, but there was no answer. I didn’t know what to do. Every afternoon at home, I was taking care of my baby brother and cleaning the house. My other brother never helped. He always had some problems with my mom and he never wanted to take care of the baby or help me. My mom stopped being a mom to be a woman. She started going out and doing her stuff.
At age 19, I meet a person who I had known since I came to Puerto Rico. I began talking to her a lot. She was gay, and I was curious. We began to go out, and my mom knew what was going on. She wanted to control me as well. That year, I told my mom what happened to me in high school. I lost everything because of this situation. Everything happened so fast, and it only took five months for me to stop being with her. It was a toxic, unhealthy relationship. But she reminded me so much of my dad in her bad way of treating me. I got skinnier every time I was in the hospital. My emotions were controlling me so badly and my depression got worse. My mom did all she could to get her to leave me. Today, I think maybe it was the right decision for me to break up with her, but it should have been my decision. Since then, I haven’t dated anybody.
In 2012, I got my first job at a Holiday Inn as a waitress and bartender. I only worked at night for nine hours and got home at 6:00 in the morning every other Thursday through Sunday. Before I got to work, I would stop at a gas station and buy beer. My mom and coworkers did not seem to notice. My drinking got worse and worse. My mom began telling me stop drinking. Summer came, and my mom was also going to therapy and psychiatric care. She was diagnosed with major depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety. She began to have episodes in which she couldn’t realize who we were. Every time this happened, she needed to take her pills and sleep all day. Of course, this situation was bad and still kills me because I can’t do anything to save her or fix her. I just have to see what happens with her. I miss the old versions of my mom. This isn’t her fault, but since she got mentally sick it’s caused a big change in the house. My brothers have never accepted or expressed any feelings toward this. I was still going out and sometimes I lied and said that I was going to work. But it wasn’t true. I needed to rely on something or someone because I couldn’t find comfort in this.
I stopped going to therapy and I got very mad because everything was getting worse. My birthday came and I was drunk as hell. My mom was getting worse, my baby brother demanded more attention and my other brother was living his life like he lived alone. I always tried to look at life in a positive way because otherwise I would have killed myself. I’ve always had negative thoughts. Sometimes I did have a suicide plan. But the only thing that stopped me was my baby brother. He has been a gift to me and to our family. Why should he be punished for something that isn’t his fault? If I kill myself, what would happen to him? Why should I punish him?
Christmas came I was drinking at the beach with some friends. I received a call from one of my uncles on my dad’s side. He told me that my dad had an accident and he was in a coma. He had three heart attacks at the gym, fell down and hit his head on a table. The ambulance took 15 minutes to get to him, so he didn’t have oxygen in his brain for a while. I had a panic attack and began to cry. After years of not hearing for him, I heard that he was dying. I did not have the money to go there that moment and I wasn’t prepared to fly anywhere at that time. I called my older brother on my dad’s side and told him the news. My mom was going to New York for Christmas so she couldn’t help me. It took my last paycheck from work for me to travel to California. The social worker called me from the hospital and told me they needed me to disconnect him. My world fell down. I lost him and I never got the opportunity to say, “I love you.”
I got to California. I felt lost and insecure. Those were the moments when I needed my mom. I got to the hospital, shaking as I held my brother’s hand and saw my dad. He was in bed, alive and lost. He opened his eyes, recognized who I was and began to cry. I held it in. During those five days, I spent the most beautiful special time with my dad, even though he had a damaged memory. He didn’t remember anything from the past. The doctors told me it was a miracle. I stayed in his apartment until I met his fiancé. I almost killed myself. The sixth day I went to visit him, he treated me like s**t and humiliated me. My two brothers defended me and left the room. I fell down, shut myself down and began to cry harder than I ever had before.
I left California abandoned in an airport and came back with the same situation. That night, I got drunk and lost it completely. My mom was not doing well in New York. I was so worried she had an episode because of us being in California. We found out so many secrets of my dad in California. I felt so much guilt because my mom was always right about my dad. The question was, “Why had I always needed him and why was I always looking for him?” I got the opportunity to get to know my older brother better. We are so alike that we should be twins. In January of 2013, my mom traveled to California because I was getting worse. We sat down and talked. I had great insurance through my dad, and she told me stay there and look for help. I never had a chance to say goodbye to my dad physically.
We found so many potential places for treating my alcohol and depression. My mom called one of the treatment centers and, on January 7, 2013, she received a call from one saying that my insurance would cover it all. She said yes. I remember that it was 4:00pm. We all just looked at each other and hugged. In a way, I knew I needed this. But my mom was sad and worried about the separation between us because she needed to go back to Puerto Rico to take care of the baby. Was it the worst day of my life? I felt that I had failed. Who was going to take care of mom and the baby?
A treatment center worker came to pick me up, and my mom just said, “I love you and I’ll see you in Paris.” Going to Paris is a pact that we have. On my way to treatment, I couldn’t stop crying. My heart felt so empty. Spending 36 days in treatment wasn’t easy, but I assure you it changed my life. I’ve learned so many tools that allow me to be a better person. During the first two weeks, it was hard. I believe I wasn’t really sure what I was doing with my life. To see so many people and hear their stories made me realize that I didn’t want this. While I was in rehab, my mom tried to commit suicide twice. My father demanded a lot of my two brothers, and my baby brother was sick. They helped me deal with my dad. I wrote him a letter to say goodbye. I told him I can’t live with this anymore. Every time I got near him or have any contact with him, he would hurt me emotionally or physically. I love him and always will but I need to move on and forgive him. And I did.
I’ve cried so much because I wanted to be out of there so I could be in a place to be that hero. But this time, I wanted to be better, get stronger, gain confidence in myself again and just focus on me. I really tried. Many of the women from the treatment center really did help me. They taught me how to see the other side of life, how to control myself, how to be positive, how to have faith and how to make the right decisions. I had to make a decision about staying in California or going back to Puerto Rico. My plan was to stay in California with my older brother. But one week before I was out, he went to prison because of a DUI. My other option was going to Indio to a sober living house there. I visited Indio to see. Knowing that my mom was in a mental health hospital, I needed to go back. I was scared that she would die while I was in California and I would have to live with the guilt. I prepared myself to go back emotionally and mentally. On February 11,2013, I came back home.
Now, I am 97 days sober in Puerto Rico. I can’t say that my life is perfect but I have a wonderful family. It may not be big and united, but I have a wonderful mom who is trying every single day to be better and to be the mom that I need. My brother left home and moved away. I don’t know where he is, and it hurts that he abandoned us like my dad. But it won’t bring me down. My baby brother is doing well at school and at home, spending time with me and mom every chance he has. My mom is still going to therapy and is still on medication. She is also having other conditions with her bones. One day, she might stay in bed for good or she might be able to live a normal life. Her moods change daily, but deep inside she is fighting. I believe in her and I have faith. Every day, I just focus on being a better person so I can help others if they need me. I also do not forget to help myself.
Today, I have a new job and am attending school to finish my bachelor’s degree in social work. Next year, I will graduate and will be moving to Denver, Colorado. I owe a big thank you to those who really believed in me at my treatment center. Every day, I say a prayer asking God to grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to the difference. AMEN! Life is like a box of chocolates. It’s full of surprises, and you never know what you will have ahead of you. Life isn’t perfect. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Do you believe in second chances? I do. The privilege to have an opportunity to do this right by being sober is a special thing.