My son is part of the LGBTQ community. He identifies himself as queer. I thought this was a derogatory word, but he said that’s what I am Mom, I’m not gay, I’m queer. I have learned so much about members of the LGBTQ community. I have about 5 friends that identify as being part of the LGBTQ community. My godparents growing up were a very nice lesbian couple. One of my best friends in the world was a gay man named Earl, he unexpectedly died in his sleep a few months ago. My sister is a lesbian. I have no patience for anyone that disrespects the LGBTQ community. I’m a huge advocate of them and I am bisexual myself. I think in the future, it won’t be such a big problem. Hopefully people will realize it’s not a choice, you can’t pray the gay away. I cannot imagine being trapped in a body that doesn’t represent how I feel inside. People tend to hate what they don’t understand. The fact they are removing books that have LGBTQ people featured in them are being banned is so ridiculous. A gay man doesn’t become straight by reading books about straight people, and a straight man isn’t going to become gay by reading a book featuring members of the LGBTQ community, instead they may learn some insight and understand the community a lot better. One thing I can say is that the current generation is much more accepting of everyone than my generation was. I love that about them. They want fairness for everyone. I always get into debates with people who are homophonic. Many people will tell jokes about gay people and I quickly defend them and tell them that’s ignorant and offensive to my sensibilities being that my own child is queer. I’m so proud of him. He has completely turned his life around. He now works as a manager at Humana. His dream is to move to New York because he gets a lot of discrimination in Raleigh. He has had an entire family tell him and his partner they were immoral and going to hell and proceeded to throw things at them. I’m always so scared someone is going to beat up my son or any of my other friends because they are different. I can tell you that all my friends that are members of the LGBTQ community are some of the best people I have ever known. The violence against them has got to stop. People need to stop normalizing gay jokes. They hurt people and set us back twenty years. When my son came out to me, he was about 18 years old. I told him I don’t care who you date as long as you’re happy. My son and I are very close and he has educated me so much about his community. My goals are to be a substance abuse counselor after I get my bachelor’s degree. I want to be part of the solution to this awful epidemic and unfortunately many members of the LGBTQ community feel so bad about themselves because of how others make them feel, including their own family, so I would love to counsel them as well.

I was addicted to opiates for about ten years. My doctors wrote me scripts for pain pills for ten years before a doctor really looked at what was wrong. I had back surgery because I had sciatica, a bulging disk, and a herniated disk. I went to a treatment center to get off opiates and I have been clean for over ten years now. I also had to help my oldest son who also struggled with addiction. I’m proud to say he has been sober for four years. I have lost at least 12 friends from substance abuse. When I get my bachelors degree, I want to be a substance abuse counselor, because I know exactly how these people feel, and people confide in me all the time. I want to be part of the solution to this awful epidemic. I lost my cousin at 50 to alcoholism, now I help take care of her daughters when they need a woman to talk to. I am actually disabled due to opiate use disorder. I have had clean drug tests for at least ten years. I lost my best friend to an overdose 7 years ago. She overdosed. Both of my sons have lost countless friends due to suicide or addiction. My niece died 8 months ago at age 29 due to taking one fake percocet that her boyfriend gave her for her birthday. She was unresponsive for over 8 hours and he was too scared of getting in trouble that he didn’t call anyone, she probably could have been saved had he called. He is now in jail charged with her death, as he should be. I lost a good friend named Ami whose son was my youngest best friend. She was five years younger than me, but she overdosed last year. I have lost my friend Suzi sue to an overdose three years ago. Many years ago we lost my sons babysitter due to alcoholism. His body shut down and he died at age 24. My sons father is currently addicted to fentanyl and has been out of his life for over ten years. This world is so scary. In my day, I only took pills my doctor prescribed and I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, however he prescribed me Xanax, temazapam, suboxone, adderall, ambien, so I had uppers and sowners and all arounders. My children begged me to get help and when cps got involved, I went to the mental hospital for about three weeks and have been sober ever since. Now a days, there are so many counterfeit drugs that look exactly like the real deal but they are laced with fentanyl. I believe that being a drug counselor is my calling now. I am so passionate about helping people with addiction.