My Autobiography

Jessica Pollock

HUMS 206

My Autobiography

Ivy Tech Community College

December 1, 2011

My Autobiography

I believe that everyone deserves a second chance, and sometimes a third and fourth. I also believe that one should forgive easily, not because they are weak but because they are strong enough to know that people make mistakes. I feel these two life mottos that I personally live by speak volumes about the type of individual I am and the type of life I try to live. I believe that not all people who make mistakes are bad people. I value tradition, family, children, the elderly, my faith, and freedom. I do not dislike anything about my beliefs and values. I was raised to be open minded, not to discriminate, and to cherish your family.

I have a very strong bond with my mother. I have two children and I am in a loyal committed relationship with their father. I currently have a lot of healthy female friendships in my life. I have a little brother who is sixteen and our relationship is typical; we get on each other's nerves still but love each other very much. My mother is a lesbian and I have a very close relationship with my mom's partner as well. I have never met my biological father but when I was eight my mother married a man that adopted me; they divorced when I was fourteen and I no longer have a close relationship with that man that I called dad for years.

I feel that I had a good childhood, but a few incidents happened that had a pretty big impact on the way that I am today. When I was five years old, I remember being molested by a neighbor boy that lived next door to me. This boy was seventeen years old. I used to feel it was my fault that the molestation happened over and over again because I would go to that house every day to play with my friend who was the molester's little sister.

After living as a happy family with the man my mom married and my little brother for six years, my mother came to me and revealed that her and the guy I had been calling Dad were getting a divorce and then my mother revealed something that was even more shocking to me. My mother said she was gay and would be moving from our small town in northern Indiana to the big city Indianapolis to be with her new "partner."

After moving to Indianapolis, it was all down-hill from there. I was used to being involved in cheerleading, softball and church in the small town I was from but after moving to Indianapolis I felt as though I didn't fit in. I turned to the wrong crowd and began smoking weed at fourteen. A year later I began sneaking out to see an older boyfriend and drinking to "ease" my nerves of sneaking out. When I was seventeen I was arrested for theft and two weeks after that arrest I was again arrested for possession of marijuana. I graduated high school (barely) and began to do heavier drugs such as oxy-cotin, vicodin, valium, Xanax, etc. I got pregnant at age nineteen. By this time I had already developed a physical addiction to pain medication and it was snow balling further into an addiction to heroin by age twenty.

Now I am a recovering drug addict. I used to shoot heroin into any part of my body where I found a vein. I did all sorts of unimaginable things as a direct result of that drug use, secrets I was sure would go with me to my grave never having been shared with a single soul. But I have shared those things. I've shared every one of those sick secrets that had been lodged for so long in my mind, in my heart, in my soul, the very place where I live. I damaged myself far worse than I ever could have imagined humanly possible.

I believe Quality World means we all have an idea of what we really want in life. How I used to be and my history of being a drug addict has played the biggest role on my quality world and is the reason why I know what I want in life as well as help me in the human services/social work field. Although this was a dark spot in my life, if it wasn't for this experience, I wouldn't have the goals or ambitions that I do today.

Fun, love, and freedom! These are my top three needs. In order to achieve these needs though, I have to have God and my sobriety. I have the ideal life all painted out in my mind. Everything I do in life, going to school, working, taking care of my kids, and maintaining sobriety is to improve my quality world and to make me the best person I can be. Putting into perspective my quality world is as simple as this; I look back on where I used to be, where I am at now, and where I want to go in the future, and I NEVER forget any of these. That helps me to decide who and what I want in my life at this moment.

After extensive work on myself, I learned that my problem was not in fact heroin, but that heroin was a mere symptom of my problems. My problem was my thinking, I lacked the tools and skills to live life on life's terms so I chose to escape with tools such as heroin, the actual problems were not being dealt with and the problems of yesterday were stacking onto the problems of today. The only remedy was more drugs (I once heard someone share at a meeting that their drug of choice was "more"). So I began my journey towards self-awareness, and more importantly, became open to taking direction from others. I learned to trust in treatment