I was born October 27, 1992 into a broken family. My dad walked out on my mom before she knew I was on the way. However, he told my mom that he had one request that we grow up in a Christian home. I always found this odd because I had never seen my dad walk into a church ever.
My childhood was wonderful. I was a happy kid, and always had a smile on my face that would brighten someone’s day. The courts decided that every weekend I was to go over to my dad’s house. And as a kid I loved to go over there because my dad would buy us, me and my sister, Sarah who is now a sophomore in college, all these cool computer games and basically anything else that would keep us entertained. I remember that whenever we went over there I would hardly see my dad, and Penney, my dad’s girlfriend, would be the one to take care of us. I never had a relationship with my dad, and I still do not to this day.
As I grew to be in the fifth grade, I hated school, and had suicidal thoughts. This was because I was being bullied badly at school and it would not stop no matter what the school counselor did. It was still going on when I graduated 6th grade. My dad had just moved from an apartment to a house, and offered that I stay with him 7th and 8th grade in order to have a fresh start. At the time, I thought this was a great idea; however, it was not what I expected.
Living with my dad for seventh grade was awesome! He let me do whatever I wanted to. Hello freedom! I flew through 7th grade easy and made lots of new friends. In 7th grade, I did not abuse my freedom. By 8th grade, on the other hand I started to abuse it. I did not start abusing it right away. The first half of 8th grade was just like seventh grade. Nevertheless, during the second half of eighth grade was when my life became a complete chaos.

My dad was still with Penney, and as I got older, I realized that she is an alcoholic. The second half of eighth grade Penney and I started to butt heads. Usually when she had been drinking, we would get in these terrible arguments. Since she was so unconfident, she would get my dad to fight her battles for her. She would start them and he would finish them. My dad does not know how to put emotions into words, and he has a bad temper. Therefore, whenever Penney would get him to end the fight, he would beat me. After my dad started abusing me I started to cut. At first, it was something I could control, but like all addictions, it soon controlled me. This lead to a down spiral in my life. Soon I was not just cutting; I would shut down for days and not eat or talk to anyone. I would write depressing poetry, and do nothing else. I was suicidal for the second time in my life, but this time it was worse. I actually believed that there were two different people living inside of me. One was the Jennifer my family and friends knew, but the other one was evil and it was when she took over that I cut and shut down. About the last month of school, I decided to move over to my mom’s.

Now, I had grown up around church all my life, but it was not until my 8th grade summer that I had actually started to have a relationship with god. It was then that I gave up the cutting and came face to face with his amazing love, and accepted him into my life. I had gone to a summer Christian camp as a leader for a deaf girl. Moreover, on Thursday night, so the 4th night we were there, the speaker started talking about a time in his life that he had been depressed. Moreover, about three minutes into his talk I started balling my eyes out and did not stop for the longest time. And that was when my new life began.

First year was good. I went into High School with a new attitude and God by my side. I took accelerated classes and passed them all. My walk with god was growing everyday.


Sophomore year was the same I was in all accelerated classes, the stress was a little much, but I dealt with it. The beginning of sophomore year was excellent. My relationship with go was even better than the previous year. However, spring break was when everything went down hill again, but not as bad as 8th grade. The Friday before spring break I was informed that my uncle Bill was in the hospital in critical condition. So my dad decided to go to Sierra Vista and see his brother, so I tagged along. We got to Sierra Vista and I stayed with my cousin. Long story short I stayed there the whole week of spring break, and got drunk most of those nights. My cousin was the one who introduced it to me and I liked it since it would hide my pain.

So I left Sierra Vista with a new bad habit which controlled me for the rest of my sophomore year and that summer. It has been about one month since I took my last sip of alcohol. However, I still struggle whenever bad stuff rains in on my parade. My relationship with God is still a work in progress, but I feel that without him I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I have come so far and God is the one to blame for that!