I do not have a very hard life. In fact, so far I have been very blessed with what has happened this past year. At the beginning of 2013, I lived in Georgia with my mother. I loved my school and all of my friends. Things at home, however, were not so great. I felt that my situation at home would get worse, and very soon. So, I had to make the decision to take myself out of the harmful environment. In May of 2013, I moved from my mother’s house in Georgia to Iowa because of issues with my mother. From there, my stepfather and his wife took over legal guardianship of me.

I was never abused, not physically, and I always had something to eat. My mother, however, had always been into a small amount of drugs. If it was not a small amount, it was at least not extensive, not in my eyes anyways. Ever since I can remember, she had been into marijuana. That was something that had become normal to me. She was becoming a compulsive liar, and I never knew if anything she said to me was true. She seemed to have many undiagnosed emotional problems. Usually, she did not drink, but it all really depended on her boyfriend at the time. If he drank, she drank, if he did not choose to smoke marijuana, she smoked less. Her boyfriends usually changed with the seasons, and with them her habits.
My situation at home could have quickly gotten worse. All because I saw something, and I knew that what normally follows, would not be good. One day, I walked into her room when she was at work, and I found something especially disturbing. Laying on her side table was my polka dot notebook that I had been saving because it was my favorite. On my notebook there was a white powdery substance, a credit card, and a straw that I can only assume was used recreationally with the drugs. In my mind, everything changed. I’m not even sure if it was her that was doing it, or if it was her boyfriend. But I had noticed that she lost a lot of weight recently, and I was not about to stick around to find out.
Suddenly I realized, what had become normal to me, should never become normal to anyone. Those are not circumstances anyone should live under. I knew there were many kids whose lives were much worse than mine, that must have been why I stayed so long. My stepfather has always like a dad to me, he raised me and took me in with love. I was happy to be with them, but once I was gone I wanted to understand why. My mother’s emotional imbalance is the main motivation I have for being so interested in Psychology. Although, I may never know the actual answer to why she was like that, I do know that I could get close to it, and I intend to.