Ana's Story

When Ana was about 12, she started having episodes of sleeplessness that would last for days. She also started hearing voices, voices that told her no one loved her. Her doctors and family were at a loss. “I would end up in the mental part of the hospital,” she says, “and then just pumped full of medications … I have been hospitalized between 15 and 20 times my entire life dealing with that.”

As an adult, a man Ana was involved with introduced her to heroin. One night, she started having another of her episodes, winding up in the hospital. It was the last time she used drugs. Though she never lived on the streets, Ana experienced homelessness. After one hospital release, she called several shelters before landing at KentHOPE, the Mission’s Emergency Shelter for women. “It was hard,” she says. “I felt like nobody (was) on my side.” While at KentHOPE, Ana began working to repair her relationship with her son, Jeremiah. “I wrote letters on a daily,” she says, “just telling him what I experienced that day, how much I loved, and missed him.” Also while at KentHOPE, Ana learned about Hope Place, the Mission’s women’s recovery program, and began making efforts to get accepted there, which she did.

At Hope Place, Ana felt both welcomed and loved. She began hearing different voices speaking into her life. “I think just hearing people tell you like, ‘God loves you. We love you.’ That was really big for me,” she says. While at Hope Place, Ana rededicated her life to God and became connected to her current church. After graduating, she was able to get her own apartment. Now seven years clean, Ana works as a Case Manager at KentHOPE, where her position and life experience help her connect on a deeper level with women struggling with mental health issues. Ana continues to focus on her relationship with God and being a good mom to Jeremiah. “I love him,” she says. “He’s my one and only and I want the best for him.”

Ana knows God has big plans for her future, and she is grateful for the role the Mission has played in her life. “I wouldn’t have made it without the Mission,” she says. “And if I didn’t have the relationship I have with God, I also wouldn’t have made it, you know what I mean?”