Linda Hicks Memorial Scholarship

I have personally been impacted by domestic violence and/or substance abuse in that I survived! I managed to escape a 12 year abusive marriage and thrive. My ex-husband had an unacknowledged drinking problem. He was an angry drunk and every time I became the object of his disdain. The verbal, emotional and physical abuse became unbearable and I eventually left in 2017. I did everything I could to change myself to make my husband love and treat me in the manner I wanted to be treated and loved. I had erased so much of myself I was unrecognizable to me. It has been a long road to healing but I am on it and going back to school is apart of that process. After several years of counseling to restore a healthy view of myself I have returned to school to pursue an education in the field of Psychology and Social Work. A friend opened a Boutique Mental Health Group, Spiritual Outreach Services (SOS) and I started working with them assisting the homeless population with mental health issues. In doing this work daily, I see the void in the African American Community. I especially see how even in a homeless state African American women are sexualized and taken advantage of simply for a place to stay. I am finding that my clients all struggle with the same underlying issue; not resolving some type of trauma. I've always been easy to talk to and have also been able to offer insight that helps people. I wanted to tap into this characteristic of mine but knew I needed adequate education and training. This train of thought is how I ended up at VUU. Upon my completion of my undergraduate degree, I will pursue my Masters in Christian Mental Health Counseling at Liberty University. My goal is to open a Wellness Center for Women of Color. I want to provide a safe space where women and young girls can come for counseling and small group therapy. It will be a place where we will gather and share our experiences with each other. I feel like this will help by showing participants that they are not alone. There are others who have experienced the same or similar experiences and have survived, who have overcome and are thriving. It will be a place where young girls and women of color can come and meditate, exercise (yoga, tai chi, aerobics), learn about and how to choose healthy meal options to purchase, and healthy cooking classes. This will be a facility that hosts seminars and courses all to help young girls and women of color grow in knowledge and skills in the areas of Health, Education and Financial Empowerment. This will help them be viable and successful and healthy to be able to do the things they want or create the life they want by helping them heal their mind, body and emotions. This is my way of advocating for black women and girls. It will be my way of helping my community and giving back in a vital and much needed way. By equipping them with the tools to become whole, they can in turn help others.

I have watched my mother be in abusive relationships for the majority of my life, whether it was physical or mental, it was always there. From the age of around eight until now. When I was younger it was just me, my twin sister, and my younger sister. My younger sister was the daughter of my mom’s boyfriend and that played a big part in what was happening. Every day there was constant arguing and bickering in the house, most of the time when my mom and her boyfriend started to argue my mom would tell me and my siblings to go into the room. But other times we would see everything. I would see my mom get punched, screamed at, and pushed around. When he would be coming at me and my twin she would try to intervene but it would just create more backlash for her. I felt trapped, I didn’t want to tell my family members because I didn’t want anything bad to happen. But even as a little kid, I knew things weren’t right. When I would stay at my grandparent's or godparents' house it wasn’t the same as being at home. The dynamic was different; there was more love over there and I was seen. I didn’t have to walk on pins and needles and be scared that something would pop off at any moment. But at home, I worried every day. At first, my mother was the only person being abused but then it seemed like her boyfriend turned on me and my twin sister. I felt like I was Cinderella and my younger sister was Cinderella’s sister. I felt like I was below my younger sister, she would get everything she wanted from her dad and I would be ignored. When we were arguing and she was clearly in the wrong I would get my head bashed in and she would come out on top. It made me not want to speak up anymore and just do what I was told. Now 10 years later some of the same things are still happening. My mother ended up leaving her ex-boyfriend and getting married. I thought after they broke up life would get better. It did for a couple of years until things took a turn for the worse. My stepdad has a lot of the same traits that my mom’s ex has, he mentally abuses everyone in the household and pushes my mom around and it seems like he does those things and gets away with it. That’s why I plan on getting my education and moving out. I am currently a freshman at Winston-Salem State University majoring in Psychology. I want to be a Child Mental Health Therapist or a therapist in general. I want to cater to the black community and be a reliable resource. I want more black women to be heard, not just women going through domestic violence but anyone with mental health problems. There is a stigma around mental health, especially in the black community. This makes people not want to reach out or think you are just a “crazy person” and not trying to find the core of the problem. I don’t ever want a person specifically children to go through what I went through and have no one to talk to. I want everyone to know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I got through it and so can you.

Three words that stuck out from my childhood are pineapple extra smooth- the name of my mother’s favorite alcoholic drink. I remember going to the store with my mother before and after school, and I would hear her ask for a Pineapple Extra Smooth over and over again. After a while, I started to believe that she cared more about drinking than he did me. Her addiction consumed her and distracted her from her duties as a mother. I never received help on my homework, had school clothes on time, had birthday or Christmas presents, or received enough attention. I felt like my mom did not care about me, and I hated her for it. There were times when neither I nor my two other siblings had food to eat, but my mother had enough money to buy cigarettes and alcohol. I started saving the allowance my father used to give me, which was $5 every week. I put my money in one of my favorite books at the time, The Fault in our Stars, and would only go back to it to see if it was still there. One day my mother stole all of my savings. Why would a mother steal from her child? I hated my mother for this, but as I got older, I realized she was sick and needed help. The following year my mother ended up in the hospital. We were living with my aunt, and my mother threw up blood. She had surgery and ended up with tubes in her stomach. I was worried for my mother and thought that I could lose her. After this, my mother decided that it was time to get sober. Ten years later, she is sober and has not relapsed. During this time, I researched addiction and discovered that it creates a chemical imbalance in the brain and can cause the person to act like a different person. I began to feel sympathy for her once I learned her story. All of the trauma I faced as a child was a cycle. My mother once told me that grandma was an alcoholic and would leave for months, while her four kids were left to provide for themselves. My grandma turned to alcohol because she was a product of rape, and her grandmother would physically abuse her. My mother turned to alcohol because the people closest to her were murdered. Her sister died young, and her mother was shot in the face by her boyfriend. I realized that both my mother and grandma turned to alcohol because they felt like they had no one. “Black women are strong”, society says. Nobody is there to help them when they need it, so they turn to other sources like drugs and alcohol. Noticing the behavioral pattern in my family made me want to study psychology. I plan to start my own practice in my hometown, Detroit, where I will work with children who have had traumatic childhoods. I believe that it is vital for people to get help early before it turns into something worse. If my mother and grandmother had help for the trauma they undersent while thy were children, they may not have turned to alcohol or in the first place. I will use my voice to destigmatize people with addictions because they are in need of help. Black people already have odds against them from a young age, especially if they live in a poor neighborhood as I did. Therefore, we must do all we can to save them from themselves.