Unwinding

“I grew up with my mom, who was a single mom, and I had my three sisters,” Carissa says. “I had a pretty good childhood.”

As an adult, things began to unwind for Carissa. She drank and used meth. She lost custody of her son. “I was just in a really dark place,” she says. “I didn't have a home, and I hated my life.”

Carissa recalls that when she was actively using, “my family had to set really hard boundaries with me. There were times where I would have no place to sleep. I would be very hungry and feeling really, really hopeless, missing my child, and the shame and guilt of that, of not being in his life … it was just really hard.”

Carissa says her rock bottom came when she “was really hating my life and having days where I ... wanted to go to sleep and pray that I never wake up again.”

Fortunately for Carissa, she had a friend living at Hope Place at the time. “I remember talking to her, and she was really happy, and she had a lot of hope,” she says. “I remember hearing her voice and knowing where she had been, and to hear that change, I knew that was something I wanted in my life.” 

After completing a detox program, Carissa joined the Mission’s recovery program. “I was very nervous. I was wanting change, but it was a completely new environment,” she remembers. “I was leaving my whole life as I knew it behind, but I was excited to, hopefully, get my life back.”

Worthy of love

Carissa did get her life back at the Mission. Most importantly, she was able to regain custody of her son, and learned tools to be “a good mom and to overcome that trauma and be open to healing, not just for myself, but my relationship with my son too.” She not only graduated from her recovery program, but also completed an internship and utilized many of the Mission’s other resources as well, including dental and legal services. Impacted by the staff and volunteers who “treated [her] with respect and love", Carissa was able to learn how to love herself, and let shame and guilt go, “... I think that was what was life-changing for me, because for so long, you feel like you aren't worthy of that kind of love.”