What Have I Done? Guilty, Sentenced, and Ashamed.

I never saw it coming. Then again, when do we ever? That fateful moment that will permanently alter the course of our lives. That moment that is surrounded by the consequences of those fateful decisions you made to get you in the situation to begin with. Yet, there were lies I believed, things I didn't understand; I was so naive. It's actually so sad how naive I was, having had lived mostly a sheltered life outside of the home I mostly grew up in, despite the sexual abuse that went on there. Many people have offered up the suggestion that the reason my childhood was so sheltered and I wasn't allowed to spend the night at friend's houses, go to any type of camp, have birthday parties (expect 3 that I can remember; one, no one showed up; two, it was in my mom's bar, so definitely no one showed up; and three, my one and only slumber party I ever had in my childhood when I turned 10), or even go in the neighbors or friends houses, is because my grandmother wasn't necessarily trying to shelter me or protect me from the outside world, she was trying to keep what was happening on the inside world our family secret. That was the huge pink elephant in the room, only I've decided our elephant is purple with white polka dots. If you want to watch a video blog I did about that, you can see that at My Story, Part 1: Childhood sexual abuse, struggling, self-injury, and suicide. Hope.  This is about something else entirely. It does tie into and explain in more detail what is up with my video blog, My Paper Story, Part 2: Drug Addiction. Recovery., if you'd like to watch it first.

My life plus drug addiction was chaos directly ordered right from hell at the very beginning. Granted, as you see in the progression of my video blog, I didn't do drugs until I was 30 years old. Who does that, anyway?

I do.

I had been a single mom of 4 children for four years at that point.  It was hard and I was bipolar, but I didn't know the bipolar yet.  I thought I was just stressed out and overwhelmed. I was; both. But that's never an excuse to abuse substances to cope with it. Mine was a different kind of overwhelming and stress altogether. It was the kind that made me pick up heavy vacuum cleaners and throw them across the room. My oldest son, who was 11 at the time, said he had no idea I was that strong. I don't think I really was. I think it was early manifestation symptoms of undiagnosed mental health disorders, that would remain undiagnosed until I was 38. 

The year was 2004. It was later in the year. My sons were 4 and 11, and my daughters were 6 and 8. I honestly can't even remember how it began. A few phone calls, the invention of the internet and AOL quickly becoming the greatest "social network" at the time. Chat rooms were suddenly available and you could talk to your friends through instant messaging, which was pretty freaking awesome. We suddenly had access to things we never would have had access to before. Then, there was texting, of course. Easy contact with everyone.

That's me, second from the right. I was 30, but I certainly didn't look it. Most people thought I was in my 20s. This is when, during the times I didn't have my kids and they were with their dad, I began hanging out first with my aunt, who happens to be almost the same age as me, and a lot of friends that were into a lifestyle that I wasn't necessarily into; but that quickly changed.  I started smoking marijuana, not just with other people, but buying it for myself and taking it home. I would lay in a hot bubble bath and smoke while reading a book, then subsequently hop on AOL for games and chatting, and laugh my ass off at just about anything. I'd finally found what I thought was my harmless comic relief coping mechanism for the moods and changes going on in my mind that I had no control over, nor did I understand at all. All I knew was that I had been raising 4 children by myself for over four years at that point, and I felt like I just might go crazy.  Even though I was, and always will be, completely in love with my children, and a very good mommy, having close relationships with all of them, I was losing control; and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. Then, here this was. This plant that made me feel normal for lack of a better word. It didn't stop there, though. Within a month, I was handed my first line of cocaine by a friend. He was someone I thought I could trust at the time, and being the naive, trusting person I was, I figured since he'd done the drug and I hadn't, he knew what he was doing when he gave it to me. While my aunt was in her bathroom, because her apartment is usually where we all hung out, this mutual friend handed me a plate and a straw. I was scared to death. I said I'd never do drugs, let alone something more than marijuana. I don't know why I did it. Curiosity? Thinking that if marijuana made me feel better, cocaine would hide my pain even more? I had no way of knowing that the line I was given was not, in fact, a line; it was more like a rail.

I was snorting it just as my aunt came out of the bathroom and stopped dead in her tracks. All I remember hearing was, "Oh my god." and my immediate thought was, "I just killed myself." An argument ensued between the two of them. He thought I'd done coke before; she couldn't believe I'd just done that; I'd obviously been given too much; eventually her saying well you might as well do it now; etc. My first thought, quite honestly, was "I suddenly really need to poop." I didn't know yet that was one of the first reactions you get when you do coke, especially the first time. Oh, and your appetite completely vanishes. And you don't sleep, because you CAN'T. It's impossible. At least for most people. The picture above kind of makes me laugh because I didn't realize I was in it when it was being taken. I'm kind of glad I was though (far right, hand over my mouth) because it shows how skinny I became in such a short period of time, how hollow my eyes were getting with dilated pupils, and the redness and darkness had already started around the sockets. I want to say this picture was around December 2004. I was wiping beer off my upper lip, FYI. How the hell I remember that, I have no idea, but I do. I also had begun to drink very heavily while doing cocaine, because I found it physically impossible to do an upper without having some sort of a downer. I found out later I was actually speed-balling and could have easily killed myself multiple times by doing cocaine through the night and drink massive amounts of beer at the same time. You never know when to stop either of them. I also began to abuse Xanax as a downer about a year later. Major speed-balling.

That first night, after that rail of cocaine I should have never taken, I spent 4 hours sitting on that torn up couch you see in the above picture, leaned over with my forehead resting on the edge of a large cooking pot, throwing up. FOUR HOURS. What scared me the most wasn't that I was throwing up, it was the fact that I was unable to lift my head. I would tell my brain to do it, but my head would not lift. I had a curved bruise on my forehead for the good part of a week, and another friend at the time had to empty the pot 4 times for me before the night was done and I could finally get home and lay down. You'd think that would have been the end of that, wouldn't you? I'm about as bull-headed and stubborn as they come, and once I had cocaine, cocaine had me. Regardless of the probable overdose, the sickness, the stupidity, it had sunk it's talons in so deeply in one night, that I wanted more. What started out as a $20 habit, grew into a $250 every 2-3 days habit over the course of the next 2 years. It didn't help that I married another cocaine addict in March of 2005, which is really when this story heats up.

I knew walking down the aisle I was not supposed to be marrying this person. I had a few people voice their opinions to me. I did not listen, of course. I was in complete denial about my life. I didn't have a problem, I was not marrying him because it had anything to do with drugs, and I could control my life. I was just fine! I was so fine that one night I tried to snort coke through a cigarette and then proceeded to light a straw on fire when I put it in my mouth thinking it was the cigarette. I was so fine that when my husband knocked an entire plate of coke off the bed, I crawled around on my hands and knees and got all I could from the floor with my fingertips, carefully gathered remnants off the bedspread, even put one piece in my mouth thinking it was a small piece of uncrushed cocaine, when actuality it was a piece of cat litter, while multitasking by cursing him out and drinking a beer. I had turned into the one person I never, ever wanted to become.  Long nights turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Months, amazingly turned into years. The most painful year was 2005 for me. I lost my job and home, and I signed primary residence of my children over to their father, because I knew that I was incapable of taking care of them the way they deserved to be taken care of at that moment. It ripped me apart. I hated it. I loved them so much, that I actually did what was best for them, which to some people turned out to be an opinionated selfish thing, with their assumptions that I did it so I could be free to party more. No. Not at all. I was beginning to see I needed help, and fast. I didn't want my kids going through anything else. They didn't deserve to suffer any more consequences for my life choices.

You would never guess it by this photograph, but I hadn't slept in at least 48 hours. The night before my wedding was spent speed-balling, almost to the point of not being able to breathe through my nose. Through some miracle, I was able to function normally and make it through my own wedding. The bottle of champagne in the limo helped a LOT. I actually had a wonderful wedding photographer, because the photoshopping done on this picture is actually quite remarkable, given that I had a very large scab on my bottom lip (you can still tell it's swollen, though) that was ferociously covered with make-up, but still visible to the naked eye if next to my face. My arms were also covered in scratches, but you can't see those, either. The fact that my wedding dress fit when I originally bought it, and you can tell here that I was getting down to skin and bones, really saddens me. It was a super gorgeous dress. I would have made a super gorgeous bride - under the right circumstances; with the right person.

I would spend my nights begging my husband to help me stop, but instead he would feed it to me when I'd get sick. Sick is usually the term us drug addicts use when we are going through a state of withdrawal, because you are sick. You are sick as hell and feel like you want to die. In his twisted way, MAYBE he thought he was helping me, but remember, he was an addict too, so any excuse to get more was good enough for him. I still continued to beg, he still continued to bring it. My money had run out. My income was the only source for a long time. I had graduated from college and my job was a good one. He was supposed to be going to some medical assistant school, but dropped out. He went through job after job. It never worked. So the money started coming in a different way.

It was October of 2005 when my children began living at their dad's more permanently. By November, my husband and I were living with my aunt (yes, the same one), and by December he was a full-time thief and burglar.  The insanity of drug addiction is something I could never describe to anyone who has never been an addict. An addict would already understand. Drugs own you until you finally decide to exert power over them with help of others and your higher power. I had shoved my higher power under a rug, yet I could still hear Him calling out my name. I ignored the calling, the whispers, the screams. I had no clue what my husband was doing - at first. He was robbing houses, bringing the merchandise back, and I was pawning it because he lacked a Florida ID.

Before I go any further, go ahead and say it. You are a complete idiot.

I know. Thank you.

Completely naive is what I was. Clueless. Brain dead. Zombified. Whatever you want to call it, that's what I was. I actually believed that he got the stuff from his parents the first couple of times it happened, but one day he said, "don't ask" when he brought back a whole bunch of jewelry; I didn't. I realized it on my own, so I didn't have to ask. He had stolen it. He came clean with me, told me not to worry, that he had been careful, used gloves, explained how he was doing it using MY MINIVAN, and that if he ever were to get caught, I wouldn't get in trouble for pawning anything, because he was the thief and would take the rap for the whole thing and say he tricked me into it all.  Guess what? I was so not street smart at the time, I actually believed him in my drug-induced addicted mind, and, you guessed it.. continued to pawn items. I could sit here and list the different types of things he stole and I pawned, but it would really serve no purpose other than to bring me to honest, true tears of remorse and regret, and bring out old feelings of anger that I'd rather just leave alone right now.  It's horrible to think about. I never once went with him to steal any of those items, yet I feel inside, to this very day, that I was with him every single time, because I was the one that sold them under false identification. False pretenses. For all I know, one of those rings could have been the only thing left someone had of their great-grandmother's. If people don't think I have thought about stuff like that and have gone through the guilt process, they are dead wrong. I could say "I'm sorry" until I am turquoise in the face, and it would never cover the amount of pain I indirectly caused people. I am deeply, deeply remorseful for what I did and I am very well aware, now, that it was wrong.

On the morning of January 23, 2006, my husband came home from robbing a house (I didn't even know he had left, which was often the case), and I got dressed and prepared myself to make our trip to one of many scattered pawn shops across the tri-county area. In retrospect, I can see how incredibly stupid I was in many, many ways. Little did I know they were already looking for me, and the last 3 times I had pawned items, they already knew who I was and were just collecting more evidence. Those pawnshop brokers are sneaky little bastards in more ways than one. (Sorry, I had to make a comical jab.) Even though I was the one with the driver's license, I was exhausted, so I hopped into the passenger side of minivan and he took the driver's seat. The next 5 minutes or so happened so quickly, nothing registered in my head at first. Nothing. I felt like an empty balloon with eyeballs just staring off into space, somewhat floating above my body as if this was just not happening. I was confused, everything was quiet in my head, even though I knew there was intense screaming around me. It was like in the movies, where they quiet the soundtrack and you see the person looking around at all the details without hearing a single thing, in slow motion. That was me. We had pulled out of the parking space, and when we got to the entrance of the apartment complex, one police car hit my minivan from behind, one hit it from the front, one hit it from the driver's side, and in less than 5 seconds there were 3 fully-loaded trigger-ready guns pointed directly at my face. This was all taken in, in that slow motion silence I was talking about. When it finally registered in my head what was happening, the first thing I remember hearing was the police officer with the gun to my right screaming, "Get out of the van now and put your hands up! Now!" It didn't make any sense. None of it. I was still processing.

I got out of the car at about the same exact time my husband did. He was automatically thrown face first into the pavement and cuffed. They were much more gentle with me. I don't know if it's because I'm a female or because I looked so bewildered and frightened that they took pity on me, but I calmly turned around so they could cuff me, and they gently sat me down on the curb. They questioned him first, for what seemed like an eternity. Then my questioning ensued. Do you want to give us a statement? Sure! Why not? After all, it's all going to be pinned on him, right? No, I don't know why you are arresting me! I think you do. Well, you are entitled to your opinion.

Please educate yourselves. You do the crime, you do the time. Don't believe anyone else, especially if they are an addict too, when they say you won't get in trouble for something because they will "take the rap." Also, look up the term "lawyer up" and do it immediately. My stupidity was escalating at a frightening rate just within that first hour, but I had no idea what I was doing. Once collapsing hard into reality and spilling my guts (no-no! big NO-NO!) I explained to them that I didn't know at first. He asked me, "but you should have known, right?" I later found out this was a sleazy trick question and can be used against you in a court of law, but it was done, said, and recorded. Nothing I could do about it. Needless to say, by the end of the day, my lawyer was super pissed with me.

The following evening, even though I didn't know it until 2 weeks later when I was released from jail, a story ran on the local news with my mugshot plastered all over television.

Husband And Wife Team Arrested For Winter Park Burglary <<<<<<<<<
No Facebook reposts or Tweets on that, thank God. The 2 shares that are shown are from my grandmother, who decided to take it upon herself to share it with the whole family via emails. THAT was fun. Also, this report shows the idiocracy of careless journalism at its finest. 1) It was not Winter Park, it was Winter Springs. There is at least a 20 mile difference between the two cities. 2) As I stated, I was never with him when anything was stolen. But thanks, baby daddy, for dragging my four children into the room when it came on the news and saying, "I just wanted you to see where your mom is."

The difference almost a year of hardcore drugs can make versus the picture above. Granted, the wedding photo was the beginning of my downfall and I'd already started to deteriorate, the puffy face and distant eyes in this picture tell my whole story. I was a disaster. I was completely void of feeling by the time I got to the jail - until I got into general population, and then all hell broke loose inside and I cried for 3 days straight, literally, without being able to stop.  All I could remember was talking to the police, like I shouldn't have, the police woman who drove me being very nice, even offering me one of her cigarettes and lighting it for me, because I smoked during that time; and I remember Z88.3, the local Christian radio station, playing in the police car and I was sitting in the backseat awkwardly with my hands cuffed behind me, singing songs to Jesus out loud with what felt like meaningless, emotionless tears streaming down my face. I knew I was going to jail, but I knew that I also had a possible advantage on my side that my husband didn't have - a grandfather that loved me and had the money to help me. The issue with that was he had already helped my mom, my sister, and my aunt so much, and I was the only one left who HADN'T gotten into trouble, that I wasn't sure he would.  I was the first in the family to graduate from high school, let alone college. I had led a picture perfect life (from the outside), with the first husband, four children, house; despite the divorce, I was still graduating from college, making something out of myself.

BOOM. Real life happened, yo. Like a tornado, hurricane, and earthquake combined into one perfect storm.

The call to my grandfather was one of the hardest calls I've ever had to make, besides the one to my children's father. Neither of them took too keen to the fact that I was in jail for, um, countless felonies.

It's all a matter of public record, and for those of you that are the curious type, I will save you the trouble of looking it up:

Arrest Date: 1/23/2006

Account Balance: ($0.00)

Charges:

• GRAND THEFT OVER $300.00
• DEALING STOLEN PROP ORGANIZE THEFT
• FRAUD/FALSE VERIF OF OWNERSHIP PAWN ITEMS OVER $300.
• DEAL IN STOLEN PROPERTY-ORGANIZED THEFT (OBTS#5901058490)
• GRAND TEHFT OVER $300 UNDER $20000 (OBTS#5901058490)
• FALSE OWNERSHIP INFO FOR PAWNED O/$300 (OBTS#5901058490)
• GRAND THEFT $300 UNDER $20000 (OBTS#5901058490)
• DEAL IN STOLEN PROPERTY ORGANIZED THEFT (OBTS#5901058490)
• FRAUD-FALSE OWNERSHIP INFO FOR PAWNED O/$300(OBTS#5901058490
• GRAND THEFT O/$300 (OBTS#5901058490)
• PAWNED ITEMS O/$300 (OBTS#5901058490)
• DEAL IN STOLEN PROPERTY ORGANIZED THEFT(OBTS#5901058490)
• GRAND THEFT O/$300 UNDER $20000(OBTS#5901058490)
• FRAUD-- PAWNED ITEMS O/$300 (OBTS#5901058490)
• FRAUD-PAWNED ITEMS OVER $300 (OBTS#5901058490)

I won't bother listing my husbands charges, as it would take up at least twice as much room.

A total of 15 felony counts were brought against me. My bond was set at $25,000. My court date was in May. I thought for sure I would rot in there, especially after the initial conversation with my grandfather, who called me every name in the Great Book of Heart Slashing Painful Names Under The Sun and lectured me on how I was the good one and how everyone had expected so much more from me. "Out of all the family, Barbara Frances, you? What were you thinking?"  Well, that's an easy question. 

I wasn't.

He did bond me out after 2 weeks and he did spend $80,000 to keep me out of prison. You read that correctly. I'm pretty sure I solely finished bankrupting my grandfather after everyone else took what they could get. I'll never be able to repay him, except to continue to show him that I'm not the person I was then and make something really amazing of my life. It's one of the reasons I blog and I advocate for mental health so much. I want to make a difference in the lives of others, in a way that is relatable to myself. He let me sit in jail for 2 weeks on purpose. It was horrible. As I said, I cried non-stop for 3 days, cried intermittently after that, but I survived. There weren't many people I could make collect calls to. My baby daddy/first husband ended up blocking my calls so I couldn't talk to my children. That killed me a little inside, because I wasn't sure at that point if I was getting out or not.  The only people that visited me were my sister and aunt one time, and my lawyer. I had a fantastic lawyer. He is our Central Florida family lawyer, considering he has literally represented us all now, including (unfortunately) my son a few years ago for something minor. The only reason he took my son's case for such a minimal amount of money is because of the time and money that's been invested into him by my family.  My baby daddy knew he was a good criminal defense attorney and was smart to take my son there, even if he did use a name-drop (me/my grandfather). 

After 2 weeks in jail, my grandfather told my attorney, Zack, to go ahead and let me out; he thought I'd learned my lesson. Zack relayed those exacted words to me and although I was grateful and crying, I couldn't help but mutter, "asshole."  It took a year of continuations and court proceedings to finally get sentenced. My husband was sentenced to 15 years in prison with a mandatory minimum of 85% of that time being served.  His release date will be in August of 2019, at this point, according to recent checking. He has pending charge that I hope keep him in prison that I will not mention here, but he did something, that I only found out about not even 4 years ago, to someone I love, and I never want to see him again. He is no husband of mine.

Zack got all but 1 of my felony charges dropped, and the rest turned into 2 misdemeanors. I was sentenced to 3 years probation, adjudication withheld, no restitution, and my court costs, fines, and first 18 months of probation were already paid. I served 2 years probation and qualified for early termination.

This, my friends, is not only the difference between wrong versus naive, but also the difference in having a public defender and having a top criminal defense attorney.  Nothing against public defenders, but honestly? Actually, I'm not even going to go there. I'll save that for another blog and one other, much smaller, incident.

I wish I could say I was immediately drug-free when I came out of jail, but considering I had to go right back into the same place I was living before I went to jail, that was virtually impossible for a drug addict. It would be 2 more years before I didn't touch cocaine again, but it was NEVER as bad as it had become. As a matter of fact, as funny as this is going to sound, the very first thing I did when I got out of jail was dye my hair and, after finally getting my van out of the impound, scraped all the stickers off the windows I had that readily identified my vehicle (giant silver musical notes across the back, colorful Grateful Dead bears, flowers, and fairies along the sides; I was one of those kind of minivan moms - the cool kind). I wanted to hide, or at least blend in. I felt like everyone who had been watching the news that night my mugshot aired would surely recognize me and point me out in public. Although I had turned my back for a couple of years, I did attend a church with close to 4,000 members, hundreds of which I literally new on a first name basis because I'd been there so many years, so there was no doubt in my mind that practically everyone knew what I had done. I wanted to change everything about me and my surrounding, my belongings, my vehicle, yet I knew I was still me and it really wouldn't change a thing. I would ultimately have to find a way to make peace with my actions, and make amends to those I had harmed. I'm thankful to say that, indeed, I have. 

This is me now. Healthy. Drug free. Clean. Clear-minded. I struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder because of events that happened during the years from 2004-2008, when I struggled in the pits of cocaine hell, but I'm healing.  Because of my conviction, I cannot go back to school to finish any healthcare-related degree until my felony is 15 years old. I have a degree in medical transcription and medication documentation specialist, which I graduated with in 2004 just before all of this started, with plans to go further and eventually acquire my Bachelor's degree. I can no longer get financial aid, so if I do go back to school, I will have to be able to pay for it. Therefore, my hopes of returning to school and pursuing further dreams looks bleak most times. I'm the type of person who never loses hope, however. 

You might be wondering why I decided to write about this. For one, it's a matter of public record anyway, so anyone who decided for whatever reason to look into my past would find it without even having to do a formal background check. It needed to be told from my personal experience standpoint. Two, I simply needed to tell it. Part of who I am becoming is total transparency. It took me a long time to learn to be honest with myself, and then with other people. I want to be able to do that with anything and everything. I have a voice and my stories need to be told. It took years for me to realize that. Not just for myself, but for others. Whether as a teaching tool or just to let someone know that they are not the only person to make the crazy mistakes they have made in their life.  If you are going to read my ramblings, you are going to be reading a whole lot of everything. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and everything in between.

Also, there are lessons to be learned here:

1. Don't do drugs. Ever.
2. Stay single if you aren't 100% sure someone is good for you.
3. Don't do the crime if you don't plan on doing the time.
4. Don't believe stupid lies. 
5. Always lawyer up, never talk to the police without a lawyer present. About anything. Ever.
6. Don't go back into the same environment you came out of if you can help it, if it was unhealthy.
7. Realize that you are important and you will make mistakes. Just make sure they aren't the kind you will have to pay for, for the rest of your life. And if they are, you are still okay. You will just have a journey that is a little bit rougher.
8. There are consequences to every action. Every action has a reaction.
9. Life isn't all roses and lollipops and can be quite unfair sometimes.
10. Addiction is a real thing, a horrible disease, and yes, it can happen to you.
11. No one else can take the rap for your wrongdoings. You are responsible for you.
12. If you aren't street smart, get smart; just without being on the streets.
13. A felony criminal record affects your life in a LOT of ways, way after your time is served.
14. Again, common sense goes a long way; and it's a whole lot easier to hear when you AREN'T DOING DRUGS.