Growing up, I lived in a trailer park in a small town with my mom, dad, younger brother, and sister until I was about 8-years-old. That's when my parents split up. I lived with my dad and step-mom until I was about 11. At that point, things got really hard, because my dad went to prison and I started moving around all the time. At first I was living with family and friends that I knew, but then I went into foster care. It was hard to be away from my family and not be able to see my younger brother and sister. At least I enjoyed going to school and I got along with my teachers. In fact, I still stay in touch with a couple of teachers from elementary school.

After my dad went to prison, they tried to reintegrate us with our mom, but she had met a new boyfriend and started using drugs. My mom would try to hide it from us, but we knew she was doing drugs. She started with marijuana and would sleep all the time. It made her really lazy. Then she began using meth and then she was sick everyday-coughing and throwing up. She didn't work, because even when she did have a job it wouldn't last. My mom wouldn't go or she'd get fired. My mother couldn't be there mentally when she was on drugs. Because my mom did drugs she was broke all the time, she lost her kids, and I haven't seen my brother or sister for two years.

Now I'm doing good in school and I'm trying to deal with my anger. I like sports, being outside, and someday I'd like to go into carpentry. Eventually, I might work my way up to running my own business. I've never done drugs because I saw what it did to my mom. I don't want people to think that just because someone does drugs that it makes them a bad person though. It seemed like my mom always blamed herself for losing her kids and used drugs to try to get over her depression. A person might use drugs to get rid of depression or because they tried drugs one time and got addicted. I would say, if you are close to someone that uses drugs, just try to keep away from them and don't get too involved so you don't go down that path.