Michele

Michele’s parents divorced when she was young, putting her in the middle of a custody battle. Troubled, she dropped out of school in the ninth grade but later got her GED and attended college for a year. At eighteen, she gave birth to a daughter. When she was twenty she was in a serious car accident, fracturing her sternum. “I had trouble getting into a car for a long time after the accident. It was very traumatizing.” She was given Vicodin for the pain, but when her prescription ran out she turned to cocaine.

After the accident she lived with her mother and her step-father, staying with them until her daughter was ten. She got pregnant again and gave birth to a son, but continued a downward spiral into drugs, a habit that cost her custody of her children. She tried to get them back taking parenting classes but: “I was very unstable and had a lot of difficulty dealing with everything that was going on in my life. I had the desire to stop using but didn’t know how or what to do. It wasn’t what I had intended for my life.” Michele tried to get her life together and got a job at the rehab center she had been attending. Then she returned to her hometown in Massachusetts to start a new life, but couldn’t find a job and became homeless. Then she was attacked, causing a brain injury and more pain. “I was disabled and had no one.”

Michele attended AA meetings trying to get help. She cleaned houses and rented rooms, focusing on recovery. She finally applied for disability, got her own apartment, and bought a van. “I focused on staying clean and bettering my life.” She went to rehab and volunteered at Social Services, but life took another downturn. An apartment she lived in had code violations, and the tenants were ordered to leave. She applied for new housing, living in hotel rooms when she could afford it and sleeping in her van. Last January she got a dog for companionship and headed south to escape the cold northeast. When the pain got worse she took her dog to the humane society. “It was too much for me to bear.”

She continued to work on and off, taking showers at a fitness center and renting a room from a lady she met there. But “my head was causing me so much pain I went to the hospital where they kept me for 11 days.” When she was released she headed to Virginia to live with her now grown daughter for two weeks and then slept in her van until she found The Union Mission on the internet. She came in May for the first time. Life started looking better for Michele. “The staff helped me spiritually. Now God is in my life daily. I joined the savings program, and they are helping me with my stability and to find housing. If it wasn’t for the Mission, I would still be living in my van. Being here helped me pay my bills. I’m very grateful for the Mission. I received guidance from the Lord here.” Michele recently moved into her own apartment excited about a new future.