Hey everybody. Ruby here. So I’ve taken another step toward success. I’m fully enrolled in adult education! SafeHope also gifted me a laptop for my 18 months of sobriety, and my starting school! Which I am beyond thankful for! I’ve never actually owned my own laptop 😂 so this is a nice little new thing for me. 

I’m so thankful to be given the opportunity to finish my high school. School has always been a struggle for me, not intellectually, but more so committing to it, sitting in a classroom, and not just goofing off. A bit of backstory on my schooling; ever since I was young, I struggled in school, I remember being put into the special education class in first grade because I was being bullied and would retaliate physically. Kids would push and push me until I got aggressive, and then I would be the one in trouble. I also have ADHD, ADD, and ODD ( oppositional defiant disorder), so it was very hard for me to focus, I would get bored very easily, and I had so much energy that sitting at a desk was sometimes impossible. I did well with grades though. 

I got in more trouble before high school ( as detailed in one of my early posts), but when high school hit, I stopped caring. The second day of school I blew off all my classes to go get high. I would go with my friends to stand outside the liquor store to wait for someone to go in and get us liquor. I would go to parties, and I was using and selling drugs during school. I actually got escorted out of school in handcuffs on Halloween ( there was a school dance, and my mom said I couldn’t go but I snuck out and went so she reported me missing). Before the second semester even started I had been expelled and sent to an alternative school. 

At this point, I had been in CAS, and back and forth with my mom. At 15 I got my first job, so that impacted my school, my thought process was, why go somewhere they’re not paying me to be at, when I can get paid to work? At 17 I was working and going to school, and my mom had a psychotic break, which led to me having to become her caretaker, so I couldn’t focus on school. 

I tried to go back repeatedly but couldn’t ever focus on it, and when I moved out at 21 I was working full time, overtime because I had to support myself as well as my partner at the time. Eventually, he got a job, so I switched up my hours and tried to go back to school, but he was opposed to it because he couldn’t keep tabs on me. So I gave up. Then I just resigned to the fact that I’d never finish high school, and that I’d just work minimum wage to put a roof over my head and support my substance use. 

Fast forward to all the stuff that happened between then and now. Being given an opportunity for something that I took for granted before is such a blessing. And I am going to be able to work at my own pace, with learn at home. My first course is a University Level English creative writing course, and I’m very excited to be starting it. 

Anyways that’s it for today, I hope everyone is keeping well, and enjoying the longer days now the sun is out for longer. Until next time. 

Ruby