When I was 13 I began running the streets. I was severely addicted to drugs and runaway from wherever I was living at the time. Occasionally I would return for food and clothes then runaway again. The longest I was gone was 2 months, my parents and family all believed I was dead. I wasn't dead but I may as well have been during those times....these months I have very little memories of because I was so high the entire time.

When the law caught up with me because of some drug possession charges, probation violations, and a felony up to boot....they locked me up. I escaped. They locked me up again, I escaped again. I did this over and over. Finally they sent me to Arizona and placed me in a therapeutic home for teenage girls. The facility sat 30 miles on top of a mountain in the middle of a desert......there was no escaping there.

That year saved my life.

I don't mention it now, but I have revealed this to close friends. I was a horrible person during this era of drug use and hurt a lot of people along the way. During the time I thought I was in so deep there was no turning back. I truly hurt innocent people, I mean really hurt them.....beyond emotions. I'm the luckiest person in the world though....they had all forgiven me, I had forgiven them, and I had learned from my sufferings.


The reason I don't mention this era to people is because they may believe there is still a bad part of me, a person capable of hurting others like this couldn't possibly change. I DID change....I just wanted to say that.