This donation:
| Jan 4 |
Eleanor view profile
Eleanor
gave 100 for 3 days of counseling and education |
| Dec 29 |
Robyn view profile
Robyn
gave 25 for 3 days of counseling and education |
Renee is speaking out!
Renee wasn’t allowed to cry or speak as a child; her mother would beat her if she did because “a child should be seen and not heard.” Renee’s mother neglected and abused her, but her worst trauma was being sexually abused by an uncle, beginning when she was four. Although Renee was placed in a foster home, she eventually ended up back with her mother. When Renee was fifteen, her mother forced her to marry a twenty-one year old so she could give up her parental rights.
Renee’s life took a turn for the better a year later when she fell in love with a man of her choosing. They spent the next decade together raising two boys and leading a relatively normal life. However, Renee hadn’t worked through the effects of her childhood abuse and these buried emotions came to the surface when her father died and a friend committed suicide.
In order to cope, Renee began to drink, which led to cocaine use and a suicide attempt. She forfeited her parental rights to her husband, and her drug use escalated.
Addicted to heroin, Renee got involved in prostitution to support her habit. One winter night, Renee remembers having no coat and being sick from withdrawal symptoms. She curled up in the woods to hide. “It was a sick, scary feeling,” she recalls. In order to stay warm, Renee stole a car. The theft led to jail time and eventually to Off the StreetsSM.
Today, at 32, Renee has been sober for over a year. She has filed her paperwork for housing and should have her own apartment in the next couple weeks. She is part of a job training program, and she has reconnected with her sons, whom she sees on the weekends.
She is eager now to tell her story, having kept quiet for so long. She says, “Off the StreetsSM has taught me a lot about self worth and confidence. “The counselors care for us and I have a sense of family with the other women.”
Thank you for helping Renee speak out and cope with her past so that she may now focus on the future. As she says, “I don’t look at things as a victim; I try to look at the positive and just move on.” Thank you!