At 11 years old, my father took his own life. I did not know what depression was, or suicide. I could not wrap my little mind around why my father, whom I adored, would do something so awful and just abandon me. What I learned as I got older was that my father struggled with mental health, that was worsened by his alcoholism and drug addiction. By the time I had learned these things I was already down my own road of depression, attempted suicides and drug addiction. My experience with mental health had me believing that this type of struggle was hopeless. That I would lose this battle, just as my father did. Mental health was not talked about when I was growing up 20 years ago. Neither was addiction the way it is now. I used drugs to cope with my depression. I spent my entire life self-medicating until it single handedly destroyed every relationship I had, including the ones with my children. At 37 years old, I was homeless, depressed, addicted to drugs and had nothing left to live for. Child Protective Services had removed my children and left me with a brochure of resources. I reached out to a treatment facility and they accepted me. On May 8th of 2019, my whole world changed. I learned what co-occurring disorders were. I was diagnosed with severe depression and medicated properly. I was able to stop drinking and using drugs. I was able to find freedom from my pain and slowly rebuild my life. Today I get to be a healthy mother to my 2 beautiful daughters. I get to help them go through life and give them awareness of what depression looks like. My oldest daughter struggles with depression and anxiety and began self harming at a young age. I am able to provide her with the professional help that she needs and she continues to meet with a therapist years later and is thriving in her life. I am so grateful that I am able to help my children, but I want to help so many more as well. I am currently working as a counselor at a treatment center that offers help with substance abuse and depression. I am also enrolled at the University of Kentucky working towards my Bachelor's degree in Social Work. My goal is to graduate into the Master's program and become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker so that I may become a therapist and help those who struggle as my family and myself have.

I remember when I was a little girl and thought I would be a teacher or someone who could help people when I grew up. I have always had a kind and generous heart and believed I could use that to find a job I would love doing. At 12 years old, my world got flipped upside down when my father decided to take his own life. I loved my father, but the short years I had with him only taught me that loving a man was the same thing as fearing a man. It was then that I learned about alcoholism and addiction, self harm, depression and abuse. My life took a sharp turn and I sought out anything I could find to numb the devastating pain I woke up with daily. I attempted to end my life at the young age of 13. I found myself institutionalized and scared. I realized I didn't want to die, I just didn't want to live in pain. It was then that I began to self-medicate. Alcohol and drugs became the solution to my pain. Throughout my life I managed to keep the kind and generous heart I was born with. Unfortunately, I gave it to the wrong things and the wrong people. I became pregnant at the age of 21 and attempted to fix my life when I became a mother. I went back to school at night and worked any job I could find during the day. With the help of my mom, I was able to get back on my feet. Until I met him. A man who I loved, yet feared, and found myself stuck in a horribly abusive marriage that allowed my heavy drinking to escalate to excessive, black out drinking. Eight years, and one more daughter later, I escaped with my two girls and ran back to my mom's. Unfortunately I escaped too late and the trauma from that marriage crippled me. It destroyed everything I had in me. The alcohol could not numb me anymore and I fell into a vicious cycle of drug addiction. 5 years later I had become homeless, been arrested and lost custody of my beautiful girls. I fell apart and was hopeless. At that point, I attempted to take my life because I could not see any other way out. Luckily I was unsuccessful and in an attempt to get my children back, and find freedom from my pain, I sought help from the resources that were provided for me. On May 8th of this year I will be celebrating 5 years clean and sober. I worked hard and, despite all of the odds stacked against me, I regained custody of my girls. We have healed together and have a beautiful relationship. I am finally able to provide a life for them that they have always deserved. I get to teach them the importance of healthy boundaries and self love. I get to be an example for them today. I currently work as a substance abuse counselor for a treatment facility. I have enrolled in a social work program so that I can become a therapist and help those who struggle as I did with addiction, and those who struggle as I did with domestic violence. At 42 years old, I finally get to give my heart to those who need it. I can finally help people and have become a woman I can be proud of today. This scholarship will help me to afford the schooling I need to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and finally help others.

Recovery has given me freedom. Freedom from active addiction and freedom from self. I was an alcoholic for most of my adult life. Having found myself in an abusive marriage, it was the only way I knew how to cope. My alcoholism led to drug use and I quickly became a meth addict. I lost custody of my kids, I became homeless and lost any desire to live. On May 8, 2019 I finally surrendered to my disease, and to my pain. Over the last four and a half years I have worked extremely hard to rebuild myself and my life. It took me a year to regain custody of my kids, but I never gave up. Becoming a member of Narcotics Anonymous gave the the freedom from active addiction however, my journey does not end there. I have worked through the 12 steps multiple times and, in doing so, have found freedom from self. Today I am a mom again. An even better one than I was before. I have learned how to place boundaries in my life and have developed healthy relationships. I work as a substance abuse counselor in a effort to help those who are still lost. I am continuing my education to become a licensed clinical social worker so that I can work one on one with women who struggle with substance abuse and/or domestic violence. Recovery has saved my life and has given me the opportunity to become an example for others.

My career of choice is to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I will use this degree to be a therapist specializing in substance abuse and domestic violence. I am passionate about this field because I was a victim of domestic violence, which ultimately led me down a painful path of alcoholism and drug addiction. I became homeless and lost custody of my two daughters. I truly believed there was no way out, that nobody could help me even if they wanted to. I had given up on life and accepted myself as the junkie mom I had become. My troubles began as a child with an addict/alcoholic father who was abusive. He killed himself when I was 11 years old. The trauma and abuse I endured at a young age set me up to repeat the cycle as an adult. I want to be the kind of therapist that I needed as a child, and again as a woman, stuck in the vicious cycle. I want to add education to my life experiences so that I can help women and adolescent girls break their cycles, just as I was finally able to break mine. In 2019, I sought help for my addiction. While in treatment I found my own therapist who showed me compassion and understanding. She taught me about the behavior patterns I was living in, helped me to understand and manage co-dependency, anger and denial. She gave me hope when I was hopeless. With her help, I was able to pull myself out of a very dark place and find a new way to live. I was able to regain custody of my daughters and became the mother that they deserved. She taught me how to use my voice and develop healthy boundaries for myself. She taught me that my trauma did not define me and that I had the power to become anyone I wanted to be in this life. Today I choose to be an advocate for young girls and women. While I am working towards my degree, I work full time as a substance abuse counselor and will continue to do this job while I finish school. The job does not pay very well but I do it because I want to make a difference in someone's life. I had to sacrifice everything so that I could start over. At 42 years old I have rebuilt my life from the ground up. I want to be an example to other women who feel like they have no way out. I want to teach young women how to love and respect themselves. Lastly, I want to show all women that we DO have a voice.

As children who have experienced trauma or live in abusive homes, we learn to stuff our feelings. We bury them as far down as possible and try not think about them in an order to survive the pain we are living in. We do not speak up out of fear and/or feelings of inadequacy. We are taught that our feelings do not matter or that crying is a sign of weakness. When we grow up with these learned behaviors, the consequences can be devastating. We do not learn about boundaries or what love is supposed to look like. We end up allowing our lack of self-esteem and self-worth lead us to similar relationships. We become comfortable in the pain, yet can never understand as adults why our lives have been consumed by such toxicity and cruelness in our relationships and with the people we love. I grew up with a father who was an alcoholic/addict. He was abusive when he was drinking or using, but loving and nice when he was not. As a child I did not understand why things would so drastically change at any given moment and constantly lived in fear. I developed behaviors of people pleasing and learned how not to cry even when I was hurting. I associated love with pain and never developed any sense of self-esteem or self-worth. When I was 11 years old, my father killed himself. I was devastated, my whole world flipped upside down. I didn't have the ability to understand how unhealthy the relationship with my father was and therefore grew up seeking out the familiarity I found in the abuse, associating love with fear and pain. At 21 years old I found myself single and pregnant. I wanted desperately to provide a family for this little girl and settled for someone who was "familiar". He was very charming and made me feel like I was important. As that relationship continued, I married him despite all of the red flags. He was also an alcoholic who was mean and abusive when he was drinking. I then fell into my own alcoholism and eventually fell into drug addiction. At that point I had 2 daughters and I lost custody of both of them. After hitting a very agonizing rock bottom, I finally found help. In May of 2019 I reached out for help and have since turned my life around. I have regained custody of my daughters and have sought therapy to heal from a lifetime of abuse. I have found acceptance in my circumstances and forgiveness in my heart. I have learned to show myself a little grace and how to place healthy boundaries in my life. I have found self-respect, self-worth and most importantly self-love. I work as a substance abuse counselor and am working towards my degree so that I can be a therapist. I will choose to use this degree in an attempt to help women and adolescent girls who are victims of abuse and/or drug addiction. To offer them guidance and support and to show them they no longer have to live this way. Our traumas do not define us. We get to choose who we want to be and that freedom is a beautiful thing when you've lived under someone's control for so long.