I Emerged From The Black Hole That Was My Life

Where I come from does not define who I am-

If you have ever studied psychology, you will learn that people often turn out in the same way they were raised. Being raised by a drug addict increases your chances of becoming an addict yourself. Often, those abused become the abusers and those abused sexually by someone of the same sex, become homosexuals. If you come from a broken home, you are more likely to have a broken home- and so on and so on. If you look at the statistics, this is the norm. There are very few people who escape the generational curses that surround them. The way your are raised, the values you consume and the people you are surrounded with will decide the way you will live your life.

However, there is One who can change you! There is One who can teach you a new way. He can teach you a way that will turn you from all you ever knew and give you a life you never thought you could have.

I feel I must give you a backlight into my life as I have defied the statistics. I have not done everything right and I can not say I have not repeated many of the behaviors I witnessed growing up. But I can say that I have a God who has changed me from the inside out and who has shown me the way to live life. I did not have many examples to follow, but I discovered a God who could guide me and help me to become the person I wanted to be.

So here is my history… this is where I come from.

Part 1: 13 years in the Desert.

            I come from a family plagued with generational curses. Some of them I have broken, some of them I repeated my self. They include divorce, drug & alcohol addiction, poor money management, physical abuse, sexual abuse, incest, homosexuality, mental disorders and suicide – to name a few. From a young age my life was filled with chaos and uncertainty.

            My parents divorced when I was three. I grew up in the central valley of CA, which produced 80% of the United States’ methamphetamine during the late 80’s – early 90’s. Both of my parents used and sold methamphetamine. When my parents split, I went to live with my mother. The constant fights between the two led my grandparents to step in and coordinate any communication between the two families. Since I was three I have only seen my parents speak to each other a hand full of times – I’m 27 now.

            Chaos                        Confusion                   Drugs          

              Sex         Violence                           Isolation

 

My mother was very unstable. She never held a job for long. I remember one fast food place she worked in because she would bring me to work with her. I would sit in the back office with my feet up in a chair as the cockroaches ran around. We moved constantly. Often we lived with my grandmother – but my mom would get a new job so she would want to move out. So we would move out for a while, then something would happen and we would move back to my grandma’s. My mom always had different boyfriends. Two of my favorites being the one who slept with my moms sister and got her pregnant and the one who used to beat my mom in front of me on a regular basis.

“I had to call 911..” I had to call 911 when I was 8 on him because he was pulling my mom up the stairs and was going to throw her out of our two story window. My mom frequently drug me to her parties. I remember many nights sitting awake in some strangers house listening to what was going on in the next rooms (which was never anything good. Drugs, alcohol and promiscuity are things a child should not be exposed to). I also remember many times having to help people carry my mom to a car so someone could drive us home. She often became belligerent when she was drunk and was yelling and screaming… or she was sobbing uncontrollably. She rarely ever was a “fun drunk.” There were many people in and out of my life and my home growing up. As I said, my mom used and sold drugs, so there were always new faces and missing faces.  My mom was obviously not very good at the business aspect of selling- because we were always poor. She was on welfare and food stamps, I got free lunch, wore clothes from yard sales and always had shoes that were too small for me. We often lived in one bedroom homes or apartments where one of our bedrooms was in the living room.

            Abuse        Drugs          Madness            Homosexuality                        Suicide               Jail            AIDS             

                                Rejection              Alone         

           

            My grandmother’s home was slightly more stable. I did have my own room and she had a fairly big modular home with a good sized back yard. When we were living at my grandmother’s, I did not have to go to the parties with my mom. But I hardly ever remember my mom even being at home. My grandma did her best to take care of me but she was sick for many years. From around six years old, I would put myself to bed at 8pm, set my own alarm, get myself ready for school, make my own breakfast, walk a mile to the bus stop to get to school, etc. I pretty much took care of myself all of the time.

“I may have been exempt from parties… but I was exposed to something even worse- MY FAMILY.”  

Also, I may have been exempt from parties while living with my grandmother, but I was exposed to something even worse – my family. My grandma was the glue that held my mothers side of the family together. She not only took in my mom and I when we were homeless, but she had six other kids that were constantly moving in and out. And to put it lightly…my mother’s side of the family is a friggin’ mess! My mom has four older brothers and two younger sisters. I will not name them but will communicate them by the first letter of their names.

Also, I can say there is a very logical reason why every member of the entire family is so messed up, but I am not at liberty to post this information for public display at this time.

The most stable of the seven would have to be my eldest uncle, uncle J. Uncle J was married at one point and had a son- then he discovered he was gay, divorced his wife and has been with men ever since. Before he found his long-term life-partner, he contracted AIDS and has lived several years with the disease. He has actually had the same boyfriend since I was little and it is probably the longest, most stable relationship I have witnessed in my family (even though it is a sinful relationship). Of the other brothers, uncle R is a very angry alcoholic, known to abuse women and also has bouts with cocaine addiction. Uncle R frequently gets clean & relapses. When he is clean & sober he is a pretty awesome person, and when he is using no one wants him around. Uncle D is a bisexual, drug addict with HIV. He is addicted to methamphetamine, has a son (who I believe also has HIV that was contracted at birth) and used to molest my cousin when we were younger. He used to sleep with some 80 year old man when he was in his 30’s who would provide him with a nice place to live in SoCal, nice cars and lots of money. Uncle D sees nothing wrong with his lifestyle or his choices. He is probably the most demented one of them all and I was lucky enough to never be left alone with him when I was younger. Uncle B committed suicide via heroin one month after my grandma died. He had actually been clean for quite some time when he overdosed. I think the death of his father, followed by the death of my grandmother two months later put him over the edge. When I was growing up uncle B was a drug addict who was frequently in and out of jail. He used to transport drugs into the jail/prisons by hiding the product… well I’m sure you can guess where. From what I understand he also had sexual relations with my aunt B for many years- even though he was married. My mother was the eldest of the three girls and often was their protector and savior from a lot of the horrible things that went on when they were growing up. This makes me think she most likely took the brunt of most of the abuse in order to protect them. However, she is over five years older than both of them and moved out early on. Leaving them to try and cope with things they had probably been protected from for years. My aunt C is the next eldest under my mom. Aunt C is a lesbian with bipolar disorder I. She often goes on and off of her medication. When she is not medicated she has delusions where she thinks she is different people or is in different places and or different eras of time. When she is unstable you can find her on a street corner of Modesto, CA selling her body for drugs and incredibly out of her mind. The youngest of them all is aunt B who has been schizophrenic for about 12 years now. Aunt B has two children. One daughter who was born 24 hrs and 22 min after I was (we will call her A) and one son that she does not see. Since A and I were so close in age, the two of us grew up very close. A was molested by my uncle D on a regular basis and therefore had a tendency to turn some of this on me. Luckily, it did not last into my later years as my cousin A had to move away when my aunt B became schizophrenic and could no longer care for her. Aunt B spends most of her time in a permanent mental hospital. Sometimes they can get her stable enough to live on her own, but she usually stops taking her meds and has to be admitted once again. As for cousin A, she is a lesbian with two children that were conceived by her drug dealer. She is frequently in and out of jail as she is a car thief by profession. I have not seen her in years but my dad did see her in a NA meeting a few years ago and said she had a good amount of clean time. So hopefully she straightened her life out.

            I lived with my mother for 13 years of my life.

           This was my family.

These were the people I celebrated birthdays with, Christmas and Thanksgiving with. These were the people I had as “examples” in my life.

            My grandma often tried to distance and protect me from the family. My grandmother, though good to me, was a very judgmental person. So you can imagine how she felt about the path that her children had taken. Many of them often complained about her criticism. However, my grandma was very different towards me. She often spoke words of encouragement and praise to me. She spent time with me as she could, loved me and always believed the best in me.  But it seemed I was an isolated case. She did not even act this way towards my cousin A, who was only hours younger than me. And as far as I know she hardly communicated with any of my other cousins. The difference in treatment between me and my aunts, uncles, and cousins caused a lot of tension between me and my mother’s side of the family. My aunt C voiced her opinions most and directed her resentment towards me often. I was kind of an outcast from the family- though that was probably not a bad thing.

I don’t know how it is He look at me and saw the person I could be- not the person I was likely to become.

I thank God every day that he has provided me the opportunity NOT to live life as I learned it, but to live life as He designed it. Becuase of Him I will experience something that I never thought i could- a life I never thought that I could have. This right is not reserved for me alone. God can change and renew the lives of anyone who wishes to follow Him. I encourage you... if you want something different- something more- something better... give Him a chance! It is worth it!