It started the day my little sister was born, December 1st, 2008. I heard my mother in the other room screaming for my stepfather to race her to the hospital. I still don't remember all of the events that occurred that night. Until the next morning when I held that beautiful, tiny miracle in my arms. She shouldn't have survived. She was born two weeks early and only weighed three pounds. After we took her home, my mother had to stay at the hospital, the stress of labor outdid her. They diagnosed her with a disease called, Lupus. it was extremely painful and her doctor had to prescribe many types of medications just to keep the pain bearable. After a while my mother started to abuse her medications, she would take twice the amount she needed to, causing her to always be tired and angry. She would scream and yell at everything we would do. Eventually, she got my grandma hooked on them also. It was a hard period of time. Me being the older sister but not knowing a damn thing about life. I had to raise that little miracle and keep her from the experiences that completely changed me as a person. Because she was abusing her medications, my mother would have excruciating seizures. Leaving me to deal with outcomes. There was a time it was so bad I had to hold her tongue to keep her from choking. Two years later CPS came to the door to ask me some questions about my occurrences at home. I explained, being too young to understand what their intentions would be. I told them that my mother would show me how to crush pills and sniff them. I told them about her seizures and weird conversations I'd have with her while she was high. How she would leave her door locked and I'd only be able to come in if there was an emergency. How I at nine years old, was raising and feeding my baby sister who was two years old at this time. They wrote everything down on their computers and left to make some arrangments. To my surprise, they took me and my baby sister to my father and gave him temporary custody. Although it was better, I hated living with my dad. I was trapped. Not even able to walk outside unless I went to school. While I was with my dad, my grandma had passed away. Overdose. If she did it on purpose? I still don't know til' this day. But she will always be my best friend. Even though she was high most of the time too, she let me be around and talk to her about the problems happening at school. She let me cook with her, she braided my hair, and she let me cry on her shoulder as my mother should of. So losing her was losing myself. I didn't know who I was without her. I started acting out at school. Because my dad was an alcoholic at this time he was also always angry. He would take out his hard days at work on me, and when I was in trouble he'd called me horrible names. Bitch, Pussy, Mistake. It depended on the day. Even though it was better, I still missed my mom. No matter what she did I had always loved her and begged God to bring me back home. Finally, my mom was able to have visitations with us. I remember her long blonde hair and the intense smell of cigarettes and perfume. I hugged her with all my might. Hoping she'd feel my love since I couldn't express it into words. I didn't talk for years after my nana's death. After about a year of visits, my mother was able to see me outside of the building and I started being able to go back and forth between her and father on different days. But this is when the worst of the worst started. The beginning of my horror show of a childhood. We moved into a town-house with my little sister and my stepfather. This is around the time my mother started to use Heroin and Meth. I decided to ignore it and if anyone asked I had no idea what they were talking about. Those were the good years. That's when I started learning the basic feelings of life. Love, Hope, and Sadness. Until it got to be too much. My mother and stepfather started to fight every day. He began to hit her. I had watched my stepfather repeatedly sock my mother in the face. And it came to the day where I had to protect her or I would have lost her. She tried to jump out the window when I had seen the life leave from his eyes after I'd hit him in the head with an ashtray. She couldn't believe the fact I had taken her husband from her. She was going to end her life after I'd just saved it. I rushed to pull her from the ledge. Luckily I had saved her once again. After the death of my stepfather, there were a lot of questions and fear of having to go to prison for the majority of my life. But my mother finally wrapped her head around the situation and told them everything. From the drugs to the death of her spouse. And they let me continue my journey. Thank you for listening.