When I was 23 I was raped. He shot me up with methamphetamine. From there life was really hard – I was in the streets all the time. I bounced from place to place and I sold drugs for a living to support my habit, to support whatever hotel I was bouncing from that day.
Eventually, I was exploited by a human trafficker.
There were a lot of nights that I spent just running the streets, trying to numb the pain of losing both my kids, losing the career that I did have.
Every cop in Mesa knew my profile, knew my name… would stop me on the streets and just asked me what I was doing out there, that I didn’t belong out there. I heard that so many times that I didn’t belong in the streets, that it wasn’t a place for me, that I was too smart. But I didn’t believe it. I didn’t see any potential in myself. I didn’t see any reason to stop because I had no reason to live.
In August, Mesa PD arrested me for human sex trafficking and sent me to the Camp Verde jail for six months and put me on intensive probation and that probably saved my life more than anything. I was told I was pregnant with triplets – that was almost like a death sentence at first because I didn’t think I would ever be able to take care of them by myself.
As I was being released, I ran into obstacles because I have felonies because I’m not a teenager and I was pregnant. Most places wouldn’t take me because of one or all of those obstacles.
I found the Phoenix Dream Center and, even though on the website it didn’t say anything about pregnant women, I ended up calling anyway and they took me in.
No matter what obstacle you go through, God’s always on your side and He will put things in your path to help you if you just pay attention and you recognize the small miracles. The Phoenix Dream Center has offered me a lot of opportunities to get my life back on track, to keep my babies instead of having to put them up for adoption, and just all the resources that I need to find a job and to find the right medical care for my babies.
I know that through whatever I go through, the Phoenix Dream Center will be here to support me just like they have been doing since I got here.
So my dream from here when I leave is I want to be a child team crisis counselor because I know that there’s other people who have been through what I have and worse, and if I can use my experience to help somebody else get back on the right track and let them see that there is light at the end of the tunnel, then that will make everything that I’ve been through worth it.