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Sometimes life can be a tricky thing to wrap your head around. Growing up was difficult, trying to understand this world. When I was younger I wasn’t afraid of anything. Nothing could hold me back! Everything was a game to me, or a joke, and I thought I knew it all. Maybe I didn’t know everything – but I wanted to know everything and I wanted everything right now.

I was very confused when my parents separated at a young age. As I got older I accumulated a lot of anger towards my family. I held in a lot of these feelings, which often got me in trouble in school. At a young age I started smoking. Shortly after that I experimented with drugs and alcohol, which caused me a lot of grief at home with my parents. My mom could not handle the stress so when I was 13 she washed her hands of me and sent me to live with my dad. That was chaos! At 15, I couldn’t deal with my dad’s drinking. We fought a lot so I took off to figure out life on my own. I stayed with uncles, aunties, cousins, and friends. Wherever I could stay, I stayed.

I knew to stay away from the hard drugs. I’ve experimented, which I believe messed my head up at a young age, but I couldn’t look at myself as an addict, so I always found a way to get away from the hard stuff. Alcohol, on the other hand, was a different story. Nobody could deal with my shit and I shortly started realizing what life was really about. I became very lonely subsequent to getting involved with YESS. Before YESS I was in rehab, and before that I was sleeping in an abandoned van. Realizing life wasn’t a game, I fell into a deep depression. I tried not to show it, but people probably could see it considering I was anti-social. I was a loud-mouth growing up, so it was probably noticeable.

YESS is a wonderful place and every day I’m learning new things. I am so grateful for their services. After rehab they took me in with open arms, no problem. When I thought I had nobody or nothing, there they were all along. They have given unfortunate youth like myself hope! And I’m greatly appreciative of the community and it is so beautiful to know how many loving hearts are out there who donate. My heart is truly baffled by what we have here.

Every day is a new challenge for me and my faith is infinite for my success. My journey for tranquility is still an adventure, but I’m confident I’ll succeed, especially with the support I have out there. I do believe people seldom try to find peace, but this life is a journey and I’m going to embrace every moment. Even when times are tough and when I’m down, YESS has given me a lot of confidence in my resiliency. I am truly blessed! I’m very grateful for all that has been done for me and I thank you so much. My success is peace and happiness and I’m sure I’ll find it.

This is the story of one of our youth. Client names and identifying information have been changed to protect their privacy. Images used are representations of YESS’ clients.