I don’t really remember too much about what life was like before using. But I do remember a bit about my childhood. It was a fairly happy time and I lived in a village with my mum, my dad and my older brother. My aunts and uncles were down the road and my nan and granddad were close by as well. It was nice, but I always felt different.
For example, from the age of five, I would escape the house and just go up to the woods. I used to get myself into some pickles. I would get up to the top of a tree and I couldn’t get down, I mean I would be paralyzed with fear. That’s the theme of my life. I have no problem getting high. But I could never, never be grounded. My dad used to have to come out and get me because I wouldn’t let anyone else.
I never really got on very well at school. I couldn’t ask for help and had crippling anxiety about what people thought of me. Like, “I’m not smart enough”, “I’m not fast enough”, you know. I started being naughty from about age nine. By 10 I was doing stuff like taking my mum’s lit cigarette off the kitchen side and trying it.
Then my dad died in a road accident. It happened so quickly. It was so traumatic. We could have all discussed how we felt and gone to therapy, but we didn’t. I was 11 years old.
That’s when things took a turn. My mum was drinking. My brother moved to America. I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I started hanging out with older guys and they’d be like, “Have some speed Mik”, or, “Can you take these car stereos through town Mik?” At this point, these were the people I felt loved and cared about me. By 12 or 13 years old, I was on the street for the first time and shortly after that, I was put in care. These behaviour patterns carried on and I eventually ended up street homeless and an IV heroin user.
It’s weird, but I felt safe on the street.
I didn’t know I was frightened. I didn’t know that I needed love or to be listened to or be heard.
Then I had my first wake-up call.
I was begging in Maidstone and out of the corner of my eye I saw this person turn up, so I asked them for a bit of change. When I lifted my head up it was my mum – she’d come to find me because my brother was getting married in America and he wanted me to go. I would love to say I was like, “Oh yeah, rescue me”, but you know, I was flat in my addiction. So, I said, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, have you got a tenner?” I was never thinking I was going to go; I didn’t think I’d get a passport or a visa. I was just seeing my mum to get money and then keep using. I even drew over the line on the passport box so they would decline it, but mum drove all the way to Peterborough to do it again and they passed it!
I didn’t do too good in the run-up to the trip – I even tried to overdose by drinking a lot and then having a hit of heroin on the way. Just because I was frightened, I didn’t know what life was going to be like and I didn’t know what was going to happen on the plane. What if I was two hours in and felt panicked about not being able to get anything?
I had been going to meetings for about 20 years at that point, but not to get clean, just because they were nice. I liked that there was a posh toilet, and I liked the biscuits. Sometimes someone would give me a pound. And they always said come back. I had a moment on the plane thinking I need to go to meetings and do it properly this time.
So, when I got to America, I did 90 meetings in 90 days, and I got a sponsor. I wanted to stay, so me and my brother went to the visa office. I thought I was going to live happily ever after in America, but they said “No, you have to return”. It did upset me, but I was just learning about the steps, and I thought, right, let’s go for it. Let’s see if you’re telling me the truth.
I left America 90-days clean and I ended up in London because that was where the most meetings were and I didn’t want to go back to where I’d lived before. I was street homeless for about six weeks, but I was just living in the meetings.
And then I got into a relationship very quickly. I moved back to Kent to be with this guy and, soon after, I became pregnant.
My little girl was a miracle, but I wasn’t prepared or didn’t have the tools or understand parenting myself then.
I wasn’t ready for a functioning relationship and neither was he. I couldn’t cope but was too frightened to say, “I can’t do this”.
Then I relapsed. At the same time, my partner’s mental health suffered really badly, and he took his own life. I ended up calling social services, the school and my mum, saying “I can’t do this”. I would love to say I stopped using and got clean, but I got worse. My daughter was placed on the at-risk register and went to stay with my parents in Kent. Then my brother (my superhero) saw that I was going to lose everything and put the wheels in motion for him and family to adopt my daughter. Social services wouldn’t let her leave the UK, so she continued to live with my parents.
I decided to go and stay with my brother in America for a while. At this point, I was feeling that I had let them all down, so I’d gone to use and then got up into the loft to get my suitcase. I didn’t want to jump, but I thought in my mind that I just needed to have a fatal accident. But I couldn’t move. It was one of those moments when it was like the universe was trying to tell me something.
In America, I did loads of work on recovery and was feeling good again. I thought that would be enough to get my little girl back, but they told me the adoption was still going through. I felt awful. But I was like, “Well, I don’t care” and I said, “I’ll tell you what, I’m not doing this for other people, I’m doing this for me.” I’d been in touch with The Forward Trust before but hadn’t been engaging with them. So, I got back in touch with them when I was in America. I called the day programme and the new key worker in Ashford before I even got off the plane.
It was a huge turning point. They filled in all the bits that were missing, that I wasn’t getting from the fellowship, stuff on core beliefs and reframing your thinking. When the 13 weeks were up, I thought, “I don’t think I’m ready to go yet!” I spoke to my key worker; I told her I had the court case coming up with my little girl and I wanted to stay on the programme until after that. We spoke about how endings are important and how I could use the successful completion of the course in court.
Because of my past, the courts went for adoption all the way through to the end. They said that my daughter, who was six years old at this point, needed to remain with my parents, but with more access to me. Then over a 12-month period, if everything was alright, they could gradually move her back home. This was good news, but it wound me up too!
Then, two weeks after that, Covid happened. My parents are over 75, so they said my daughter would have to come back with me. I was thinking, “But I’m not safe, that’s what you told me, and now you’re saying she can live with me full time?”
We’d had time together before and three months in America, but now we had quality time and we thrived. We played and I did home schooling. It was miraculous and I managed, and I actually loved lockdown. I had the opportunity to be trained online as a volunteer for The Forward Trust to get some good skills. Then I started working for them.
Recovery support is brilliant and it’s still really quite challenging. I’ve discovered I can do things I never thought I could.
I’ve found my truth and I’m now working on who I am and making sure I’ve got a stable home.
My job means when clients are finding things challenging, I can reassure them and help them find their own solutions, get them to fix their own stuff. Because I know that builds confidence and self-belief. And I imagine that talking to someone that’s been through what they’ve been through, that must be a big driver.
When I was using, I thought I was rebelling, I thought I was having a great time. And actually, I wasn’t.
I was destroying myself, isolating myself and I took away all my freedom, all my choices. My life became as small as a shop doorway.
My family is still in shock and never thought the changes I made were possible; after all these years, they still say how proud they are of me now. Although they all still have their anxieties because of the choices I made, especially my mum. I’m still working on letting go of resentments and building bridges with my family, thanks to the Forward Trust’s family group in Hull.
Getting my daughter back is what I’m most proud of, as well as getting a job and not giving up when it got hard. I just want to provide for me and my daughter. I’m like the strong independent woman that I always believed I could be when I was little.