When I was fourteen years old, I experienced a sexual assault. Growing up in a small rural community town in East Texas, there were no resources. I had no idea a direct result of the assault, and you might be at risk. One of those things is substance use, and I used substances on and off for ten years, leading me into the criminal justice system. At twenty-five years old, I was arrested and sentenced to two years in the federal system. I remember a point telling my Grandmother, who raised me I wanted to work with youth. Due to substances, I became so immersed in a dark hole I could not see the light at the end of my tunnel. By twenty-five, most people had lost hope I would ever recover. I had attempted rehab before staying clean for two years. I never had proper guidelines on how good life could become if I stopped using substances. I was used to not feeling. I wanted to not handle all the pain from my past of not knowing my Father growing up, for seeing my Mother struggle with substance use. I was shamed for many years because my substance use. It quickly became a dependence, and that's when I saw the inside of a prison. Both my Father and Mother spent time in prison. I felt lost in the system. When I went in, I decided enough was enough, and I needed to do something different. I re-entered society at the age of twenty-eight after spending time at a federal halfway house in Houston. I learned to navigate the available resources and told myself; it was now or never. It was time to reenroll in school. I became a recovery peer support specialist that helped youth and adults who struggled with mental health and substance abuse. I fell in love with seeing when the lightbulb came on for someone. Seeing the seed being planted that one day too, they could recover. I worked and went to school for two years. I now have my certification as a Licenced Chemical Dependency Counselor working with individuals who have to attend mandated treatment due to having involvement with the child welfare system or the criminal justice system. My next goal is to be accepted into the Ann Arbor School of Social Work online to pursue a degree in Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Use. To include the entire mind and body to treat the whole person. I then want to open my own facility near my hometown in a small rural community called Longview, Texas, to work with youth who deal with mental health and substance abuse. To educate them on how substance use affects your body, mind, and spirituality to provide hope to them that they too can recover hopefully. I want to inspire them to one day achieve their goals, and that anything is possible without using substances.

I started using substances at the age of thirteen. Many people say Marijuana is the gateway to addiction. I'm afraid I have to disagree. It is trauma that is the gateway to substance abuse. I grew up in a dry town, meaning you had to drive across a county line for alcohol. Alcohol was a huge part of this small town. Parents would allow teenagers to drink as long as they don't drive and allowed parties at their homes that involved large amounts of alcohol. I started drinking wine coolers with my mother and her friends at their friend gatherings. I would play bartender instead of worrying about being a child. My father has been in prison since I was born, and I felt like a piece of me was always missing. When I was fourteen, I was sexually assaulted. I pressed criminal charges against the group that attacked me, and soon many people in my small town knew. I was called names, and there is when my addiction grew. I started to numb the pain with methamphetamine. I began to do them frequently and placed my use before everything in life. I experienced one trauma after the next for the next two years. Life began to get hard, and I isolated myself from everyone I knew, driving me deeper into addiction. I always wanted to join the high school drill team as a child. I grew up dancing and doing recitals yearly; I knew I could make the team. I transferred into the school from another one I was attending to try out, and the same week I moved, the drill team director would not even give me a chance. I remember her telling me I know what you're about, and you will not be trying out. It crushed my dreams, and also dug me deeper into addiction. I felt like I had nothing to look forward to. In 2017 I was arrested for a drug offense. I was sentenced to two years in prison. I knew at that time if something did not change at this very moment, it never would. My dad was out of prison, and he offered me to live with him and my grandmother in Houston. I worked my first year waiting tables, and then I got a job as a peer support specialist. I use my lived experience with having a mental health diagnosis struggling with addiction and having been incarcerated to work with at-risk youth. At that moment, I knew it was my passion. I had coworkers who supported my sobriety. I enrolled in community college and worked towards a chemical dependency counseling certificate. I had the opportunity to go to Uvalde to offer relief work for peer support and clinical staff that needed time to grieve when the school shooting occurred. It was then I realized we needed more people in rural communities. In 2023 I am now a licensed chemical dependency counselor intern working towards my licensure hours. I am enrolled at Walden University, pursuing my bachelor's in social work. My end goal is to be a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Eventually, to treat the entire person, I want to open a facility for adolescents that deal with substance abuse, trauma, and suicidality. I hope to eventually have a program where they can be treated in Longview, Texas. I've seen many of my friend's children have to be transported three and a half hours away due to the lack of services here. Through all the pain, I found my passion for helping adolescents along the way.

Looking back to when I was younger, I knew I always wanted to help. My father had been incarcerated for the first ten years of my life, and my mother was an addict. When I was thirteen, I experienced a sexual assault. As a teenager, I did not know anyone who shared the same thing as I did. There was never someone to direct me on what to do to navigate victims' compensation or the legal system. I felt lost and alone, and it took me on a dark journey. This event was the leading cause of what made me passionate about crisis work. I had known since being a teenager I wanted to help others. Again, I did not have anyone to help point me on different paths to take me there. I was experiencing depression and anxiety that led to multiple anger outbursts and then, later, to change how I felt. I started to use substances. I used substances for ten years, which later led me to face incarceration myself.Thee ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) surveysuggestsd that if you have a parent that has been to the prison system you are more likely to face the same. In 2017 I was arrested for the last time and I decided to change my trajectory. I learned about a job as peer support. Peer support allowed me to use my lived experience from having a mental health diagnosis to a substance abuse use history with a combination of being incarcerated. I gained my clients from the ages of 12-21 from the crisis line to school counselors. I reenrolled in school and maintained a 4.0. I gained a license as a chemical dependency counselor. During my time as a peer support professional, I was allowed to travel to the Uvalde community when the school shooting took place to provide relief work for peers and therapists in the community. It opened my eyes to smaller communities that need more providers. I returned to my home community in a small rural town in east Texas called Longview, Texas. I am a licensed chemical dependency counselor intern working towards my licensure hours to become fully licensed. I am currently enrolled at Walden University, working towards a bachelor's in social work, and hoping to gain my master's in social work. My ultimate goal is to open up an adolescent facility dealing with substance abuse, suicidality, and trauma. I aim to take everything I am building upon to better serve adolescents in the eat texas area and have services close to them. I am passionate about everything I experienced, as well as seeing my friends children having to go to metro cities to get hospitalization for their children because there are far few in between. I hope, with my degree, to impact many in my rural community and change the stigma in mental health. I was accepted into Columbia University but had to go to a different school due to finances. The cost of attendance is still high but more affordable than most. I am grateful for all my opportunities and for taking the time to read this and consider me for this application.

I volunteer not because I have to but because I want to now. The first place I ever volunteered was at Houston Food Bank. After volunteering for a while, it became something I looked forward to. I enjoyed the connection I made with others that shared the exact wishes as I did. What I learned is volunteering can bring people together with the same shared interests. I found others that liked the same things as I did. I struggled for years curious how people found others that shared the same interests. I now volunteer a lot of my time in helping individuals deal with reentry from incarceration settings back into the community. I enjoy seeing individuals progress in their goals and successful reentry. It can be challenging when someone goes back to prison but all I hope is to affect one person. I believe heavily to decrease the suicide rate we must create more resources in the city where we live. Suicide affects everyone around them from family to friends and to children. There is a lot of stigma in speaking about suicide,so many small communities like mine do not have enough education around the topic. I try my best to educate others on how to ask someone if they are having suicidal thoughts and then provide them with what to do if they have them or if a loved one might experience this. I hope one day we have better resources that learn a licensed clinician doe not have to know how to check on our friends or loved ones in the community. That is upon us to check on each other, and then once we do we must have the tools to know where to reach out to. Currently, I live in a city where their mobile crisis outreach team is not mobile, but you drive to a clinic. My goal is one day to have a mobile unit to provide services to teens in crisis. I am currently working towards my license in chemical dependency. I have my internship and have about 3,500 hours left in that. During this time I am pursuing a bachelor's in social work. Eventually, I will obtain a master's in social work. I have a dream to be able to afford to attend an ivy league school. I was accepted into Columbia University however due to finances and needing to work I am going to school at Walden University. I would love to go to some amazing private colleges, but when you are a part-time student, you get offered little help. My debt is quickly rising. I could use help in lowering the debt if I obtain a scholarship. Even when offered a loan every semester even my loan does not cover all my expenses and every few months I end up stressed about how I plan to help with school. Financially this would help me ease my worry and allow me to focus more on the individuals I help on an everyday basis.

At ten years old, my grandmother asks me to sit down. She then tells me, "if you have a man walk up to you at school and tell you he is your Father, do not leave with him." At six months old, my Father was arrested, and at ten, he was released from prison. That was the first experience I had with incarceration. As a child, I was angry that I did not know him. Finally, I had a solid relationship with him at age thirty-one. I lived in an apartment I obtained by myself at twenty-two years old. My Mother comes to the door asking to stay the night. She weighed maybe a hundred pounds then and did not have that great of transportation. She wanted to keep up the night in my apartment because it was closer to her job. Because of addiction, she went from working as an editor to a worker at pizza hut. I requested one thing from her, not to be using while at my apartment. I had been clean from drugs and alcohol for a year. She stayed the first night with no issues, and when she returned, she was carrying a birthday cake for herself high off of meth. It was one of the hardest things I had to do; I asked her to leave. Later that night, she was then arrested. I became angry all over again. The system kept taking family members from me. The anger eventually got the best of me, I started to use drugs and alcohol again, and at the age of twenty-five, I found myself being detained for a drug offense. I felt alone and angry. I felt dehumanized and humiliated for many days. After exiting incarceration, I made a decision I needed to change. I learned you could overcome your situation. It is not easy but also not impossible. I started working towards a goal to be a chemical dependency counselor. If not for my incarceration, I might not be where I am today. I realized due to my incarceration, and I could obtain the most amount of FAFSA for not having an income at the time. I have obtained my chemical dependency counselor intern status and am working towards my Bachelor of Social work degree. My incarceration history has given me the ambition to heal my thirteen-year-old self. I was sexually assaulted at that age and felt there were insufficient social services in the town where I grew up. I am working towards obtaining that degree to help youth and justice-involved individuals recover and become their best selves, whatever that looks like to them. I dream of being a clinical social worker specializing in trauma work to help individuals work through their trauma with the hopes of breaking the cycle of addiction and incarceration for themselves.

Lost dreams awakened; I was born into a family where my Father had never completed high school, and my mother had never finished college. My maternal grandparents raised me. My Father was incarcerated when I was six months old, and I did not meet him until I was eighteen. I witnessed my mother being abused and abusing drugs and alcohol. At fourteen, I was sexually assaulted and then repeated the cycle of incarceration myself as an adult. After experiencing incarceration, I knew I would not be a part of the change if it did not happen at that given moment. Sitting in the cell alone, I knew I was done because if I weren’t, I would die or continue to cycle in and out of incarceration. When I went through my sexual assault, nobody told me what I was experiencing emotionally was normal. From that given moment, I wanted to help others in crisis. It was recommended that I attend counseling, but it was talk therapy; there was no real solution, nor did I learn much about what I was experiencing and what to do about it. In these moments, I was grateful for what was available, and it stayed with me for years, thinking I wanted to be the change I desperately needed. My dream is to provide therapy to adolescent individuals who have experienced trauma. I want to teach them about what they are dealing with, whatever it looks like, and then teach them the proper coping mechanisms to handle life without feeling they must escape reality with drugs and alcohol. I want a youth center that hopefully they can come to for help and obtain educational things such as teen pregnancy, nutritional education, and the next steps for college, such as filling out a FAFSA. I want it to be all-encompassing, from mental to physical health and wellness. My other dream is to have access to professors that can teach me the science and application needed to fill my wants and goals. I wish to have university access without costing me thousands of dollars in debt. As someone wanting to go into social services, I am not here to make a lot of money; I want to help others in wellness so they can access their needs. Colleges have offered me scholarships, but it tends to come with offers, only being able to accept the offer if I was a full-time student. Currently, I do not have the luxury of being able to do that. So therefore, I work full-time and attend school part-time. In high school, I never wanted to be there; I was busy consuming substances. I’ve been able to show my teenage self that I am capable of everything she ever dreamed of, and for that, I am grateful.

"In September 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world at 716 per 100,000 of the national population." cited from Wikipedia United States Incarceration Rate. With the rates of incarceration, one of my passions is to help destigmatize incarceration and what it means to be someone who the justice system has impacted. If society does not change how we view individuals, then our crime rate will continue to rise due to outdated policies not providing opportunities to individuals for a second chance. Currently, in Texas, thousands of people are eligible for expungement. Individuals could have been arrested but never convicted. To expunge these arrests, you must hire an attorney to file a petition for expungement. This can be a costly process that many cannot afford due to rising living costs. I have been working with a group of advocates to help pass legislation called clean slate. A clean slate would help automatically seal individuals' records who are eligible. This could help many people obtain better housing, jobs, and more opportunities to follow their passions. By changing the stigma of someone who has been arrested, we remove the shame and guilt that society places on the individuals. The individual that committed the offense has completed their time, yet as a society, we shun them and keep the revolving door of recidivism by not offering them opportunities. Another way I give back is by telling my own experience of being a person who has been incarcerated by speaking to cops monthly by showing them recovery is possible and how you treat others in crisis matters. My passion comes from being a teenager who was sexually assaulted. I consumed substances to change the way I felt after the trauma. Many of years, I did not understand that it was my trauma that was the door that opened my path of destruction. I ended up using substances until 25 and then found myself incarcerated for two years. I had little hope and felt like my life was done until a woman gave me a second chance. She hired me to be a youth peer support specialist, and today I use my lived experience to help individuals who are going through crises to help better navigate life after crisis. I was able to enroll back in school to become a social worker. I have obtained all A's with one B., Something I never thought was possible. I hope to one day be able to provide hope for many more that cross my path that we all can recover by changing stigma and promoting change.

I walked into a police station in 2008 to report the rape that happened to me. As I experienced many things to come, none of those experiences showed an understanding of the system I was entering. I was told there were victims' rights, but I was never told how to access them. Due to my assault, I started to work on my trauma of many things that had occurred. I remember a point at telling my Grandmother I wanted to help others like myself. Never would I dream that come to reality. I started using methamphetamines at fourteen years old, introduced to it by an individual I met at church. It took me ten years to become drug and alcohol-free. Throughout my journey, I learned that it takes many individuals to come into contact with someone to impact change. It was not until I landed in federal prison and re-entered society that I could see the light in my story. Today I use my lived experience through my rape, addiction, and being impacted by the criminal justice system to help youth and adults dealing with the same things. When exiting prison, I knew if I did not try to do something completely different, I would be missing my chance. I started at the halfway house, leaving from 8 am-2 pm every day to attend reentry classes. It was there I was introduced to the individuals who worked there that made a massive impact on my life. They encouraged me to be my best self when at my lowest. It was a completely different world when I walked back into the halfway house. I was dehumanized and spoken to as if I would always just be a felon. A woman in charge of the employment services at the halfway house asked me what I wanted for employment, and I told her I wanted to work with youth to help them through things I myself went through. She said, "You could never do that with your background." In a loud and accusatory tone. From 8 am-2 pm, I escaped to humanistic behavior, to individuals who believed and supported my wants, goals, and dreams. In April 2019, I put that behind me and was released back home. In December 2019, I obtained my first certification to become a reentry peer support specialist. In March 2020, I saw a job description for Youth Peer Support posted on Facebook one night. My current director would tell you her fears about hiring an individual like myself. When I tell the same story, I would tell my fears of another human passing judgment on my past and not who I was today. While on my journey, that letdown did not come. I was offered a position with open arms and am an example of what recovery can look like. From my example, the company I have worked for has created five other positions in youth peer support. My dream is to travel continuously on my educational journey. Since 2020 I have taken many courses with only obtaining one B; I was accepted into many excellent universities, but I have had to become limited to where I could accept due to a university that would offer me scholarships just to find out you had to be a full-time student. I hope to continue on and one day obtain my Master of Social Work to impact change in others' lives.

In December 2017, life changed forever. I was arrested and sat inside a holding cell until correction officers took me to a new facility where I would live for 14 months. Leading up to this time, I was someone who abused drugs and alcohol. I had always wanted to stop, but on my own accord, I could not. In December, I detoxed from everything and changed my diet from consuming meat products to becoming a vegetarian. The 14 months there were the most challenging time of my life. I could hardly communicate with others because out of seven others in the room, only one spoke English. I had broken Spanish and started to learn to communicate better. The only thing I could do with my time is work out, read, watch tv and wait. Waiting is the hardest part, but it also drove me on a path toward health. I started to work out, doing crunches and pushups, followed by many other workouts. I started working out because my mind would race with the things that could happen to me. I thought about people outside those walls, my loved ones I missed communicating with. Working out calmed all those thoughts; it was in working out I found my peace. I could not watch television because I could not understand it. When very few individuals speak English, and the majority Spanish, someone finds other things to do. I started to pick up books. I found the love to read. I could escape my reality and let my mind wander. Through books, I could explore places I had never been to and things I had never seen, providing me with curiosity. It provided me with insight into the thing I very study today as I pursue my Bachelor's in Social Work. Health does not exist just physically but mentally as well. I found out my severe addiction was due to my diagnosis of Major Depression Disorder and the severe trauma I endured as a child. I was able to obtain medication to treat my depression with the hopes of not returning to active addiction. In April 2020, I was released from Bryan Federal Camp. I could sustain my recovery and have been sober since December 2ed, 2017. That same day was the last day I would eat any meat products. I continue to work out, but now I have access to a gym, and I spend my time reading in my downtime. I never knew my life would end up this amazing, and I thought I could never escape active addiction. As I continue my studies, I plan to devote my work to the next suffering addict specializing in adolescents.

Many who struggle with substance use disorders are looking to change the way they feel. Growing up with a Mother and Father with active addiction you learn to respond differently than others. My Mother use to ask me to duck when we were driving in the car any time I saw a cop. Due to her active addiction she suffered not having a drivers license. It does not mean she did not drive. It just was she did not want the cop in our small town to see that she was driving with me in the back seat without a drivers license. My Mother would have days when she would forget to come pick me up from school. Thank goodness I could walk to my grandparents home to wait to be picked up. You learn that your normal day to day life is not so normal to others. You have to unlearn and teach yourself it is okay to drive past a police officer with risk of being pulled over. My father was incarcerated for 10 years. I was a six week old child when he was arrested. By 11 I knew life was not normal. I have a Grandmother and Grandfather who would raise me on and off but all my friends had Moms and Dads at home. My grandfather finds out there is a “daddy daughter dance” at the school and offers to be there in replace of my absent father. I had to learn due to the pain of my fathers decisions I could never go like the rest of my friends. Many young women learn their self worth and self esteem through their parents. Due to active addiction I had no idea what love is. It is our choice how we choose to respond to life’s challenges. You can be the one who wants to change the way they feel or choose to make a direct impact on the world we have today.

I practice bravery today by being true to my authentic self. I have a past experience of incarceration. Due to that experience it is frightening if others will accept me for who I am today. I practice bravery by being transparent about my past. I do this to help change the stigma surrounding on what people who have experienced incarceration should look like. By doing this I make it easier for the next person come along and being comfortable with their past and what they want for themselves. Bravery can be simply as being different. Things such as not consuming alcohol the rest of my life. I have to be transparent with others in fear they might not ask me to their birthdays or celebration in fear of “putting you in a bad spot” of exposure to alcohol. Being true to yourself she me days might be the hardest bravery, if we learn to accept everyone as they are then life could become much easier for some. Thank you!

My experience with mental health has opened my eyes and allowed me to be more empathetic towards others. It also led me to go into the mental health field. Currently I work as a peer support specialist for a Mobile Crisis Outreach Team. My job has taught me many struggle with suicidal thoughts and how to better check in with loved ones and friends. I have learned many struggle with being open about the thoughts and feelings they are having. It has strength relationships within my family because now they turn to me to seek help and I can help link them to local recourses. It has also taught me that their is no certain face to mental health and it looks different in many ways. I have dedicated my time in order to help others struggling with mental health and substance use disorders. I hope by practicing and showing others they too can go on to show others that it is okay to speak about mental health and eventually be able to break the stigma on mental health so everyone can get the help they need.

In order to bring change in Texas I work with a group called The Statewide Leadership Council in order to work on polices that effect people who have been incarcerated. If we successfully change the policy we are targeting it will effect thousands for automatic expungement. When they receive expungement it will help them receive better housing, better job placement and overall effect Texas is a more positive change.

I mentor youth that suffer from addiction and youth that deal with a mental health diagnosis. I hope that with mentoring them it provides support to understand what they are dealing with. I also hope that they learn to deal with it now rather than later to prevent them from any unknown consequences from going untreated.

A personal financial lesson I have learned is how hard it is to bounce back from financial debt. With one bad decision you could be working years to go back to the original score you were at by simply not understanding debit or credit. Today I have worked hard to come back from a repossession on a car I could not help years ago. I struggled with good housing and good rates for a long time until I was finally back in good standing. After three long years of working hard towards it I can say that it is finally starting to look better for my future. I now educate youth on the importance of financial literacy and what one wrong move could do for your entire future. By using my mistakes to show them the potential negative consequences they could be facing. Sometimes it’s just someone sitting down and being transparent with someone for them to understand.

The experiences I have mental health help me daily. I have a diagnosis in major depressive disorder. I’ve learned how to manage my symptoms and that has led me to be able to succeed in school. Dealing with depression was one of the hardest things to understand. It prevented me from having long relationships. Now being able to have my symptoms managed I can life my life fully. It allows me to understand that many deal with depression and how to help them navigate their depression.

I have been an active leader by changing the narrative around people who have been incarcerated. I grew up with my Father incarcerated and then when I was in my early 20’s my Mother was incarcerated and then I was at 25. During my incarceration I found that their is an idea you receive treatment for mental health and substance use disorder when you simply do not. There are programs designed for drug rehabilitation but you do these programs at the end of your stay instead of the beginning. I advocate on the state level to have those who have been impacted by the justice system voices heard. By working with a group called The Statewide Leadership We brings peoples experiences to the law makers to help educate them on policies that need to be changed in the justice system. I also provide support to others who want to be in the same spaces.

I have found to play on my strengths and that will give me the support I need to get to the next step. I’ve learned I have great patience with others and have the ability to be caring empathetic and understanding of all situations.

The best piece of financial advice I had received is from my grandmother who raised me. She told me not to put anything on credit if I could not pay double of the payment.