Many of us, people just like me and you, are just one family crisis or one bad breakup away from homelessness or mental illness. I know it’s true because I see it every day through the clients I work with. I know it’s true because it happened to me.
The way my life played out, that one family crisis happened when I was just a kid. My mom died unexpectedly when I was 10, and the pain of that loss was incomprehensible and difficult to bear. All I knew to do was shut it out as long as I could. Being so young, I didn’t have the tools to understand the impact of the trauma I experienced. No one around me could understand what I was going through or how to support me. By the age of 18, I became addicted to heroin and I spent five years in and out of jail. I found myself on a trajectory that could have ended very badly, and then I discovered the thing that would lift me out of it: love.
I became pregnant with my son. Suddenly there was another life in the picture, and I had a choice to make. I had to choose between raising my baby or living a life of pain and unaddressed trauma. I chose my son. I used the pain from losing my mom all those years ago to propel me into getting well. I spent three years in intensive outpatient services. It was thanks to these services, just like the ones we provide at Comprehensive Life Resources (CLR), I was able to find my path to wellness and forge a life so beautiful that it still, to this day, feels like a dream come true.
My son is 10 years old now, and I just celebrated my tenth year of sobriety. I now have two beautiful sons, a loving husband, a dog, and a fish. Most important, I now have happiness.
When you make a gift to Comprehensive Life Resources, you make wellness possible for people like me who thought they’d never be able to have love, a family, and a beautiful life.
- Sokha Keo, former Homeless Outreach Manager
