When I was growing up, it sucked... My dad was an alcoholic, he smoked pot, and he'd beat us. I lived in a big city. My neighborhood wasn't a really good place for children, there were drug addicts living across the street. Police were always down there.

I have an older brother and older sister. My dad was abusive to the whole family. He'd yell and hit you when he was drunk. He hit my head through the wall once. It was scary painful. My parents used to have big fights. He cheated on my mom. One night my mom was trying to protect my brother and my dad cracked her ribs. That scared me a lot. I wished my mom called the police but she didn't.

When I was a young child, I lived in the country. I felt kind of isolated. I didn't really like school because I didn't have many friends. We lived in the country until I was thirteen, then we moved back into town. We moved around a lot when we moved back to town, then I went into foster care when I was 16. Being in foster care was difficult. I didn't like where I was living or how I was treated.

My mom was really young when she had me. I don't remember her being around much until I got older. My grandma and grandpa helped raise me. When I was young we always lived in big cities even though we moved around some. The neighbors right near our house were fine, but close by were some bad neighborhoods. There were always people outside. There were drug dealers and crack houses. My middle school was 3% white. The rest of the students were Hispanic or African-American. I'd say it was pretty rough school. There were always a lot of fights and drugs. My high school was pretty good. There was a magnet program within our high school so there were a lot of good kids that were bussed in. There were still gang fights though between different hoods.