The Megan that everyone sees today is not the same Megan they knew about a year ago.

Who Was I?

When I was 3 years old, my father was in a car accident. Shortly afterward, my mother and I moved from Pittsburgh to a little town called Shippensburg. My mother and I were barely surviving in Pittsburgh. We had lived in a shelter and government housing. This is when we decided to move to Shippensburg where my aunt and uncle lived. My mom figured they would be able to help us financially, and they did. We moved into our first trailer. The neighborhood was nice for the most part, except for a douche up the street who constantly called 4-year-old me mean names (e.g. retarded) as I would get off of the pre-school bus. My mom had a Saturn at the time, which she would later go on to total, but at the time, there were constantly people that would fuck with us by slashing our tires and egging our car.

My mom is not a very efficient cleaner, and this would later cause problems. Our first trailer was condemned. There were 11 families of mice living in our stove. We had disgusting little bugs called silverfish.

Overall, it just wasn’t a very good place, and was eventually condemned. That’s when we moved into our second trailer. I was about 7 or 8 years old.

Our second trailer was much nicer than the first. There weren’t holes in the floor or dick-weed neighbors. I easily made friends with the neighborhood children. When we moved in, we had two cats. Fat-man and Precious. Fat-man wasn’t fixed at the time and bred with Precious. we got rid of most of the kittens except for one who we couldn’t catch. We called her Kitten because we didn’t intend on keeping her, but once we realized she wasn’t going anywhere, the name stuck. Someone had asked my mom and I if we wanted 2 male kittens, and my mom said no, but me being a child, I said yes. My mom didn’t really have a choice because I was so excited, and she didn’t want to let me down. So we kept the two male kittens name Rocko and Grayson.

Kitten and Precious were not fixed, unlike Fat-man who had gotten fixed not too long before. Rocko and Grayson bred with Kitten and Precious. We would have gotten them fixed, but it’s kind of expensive. And then the cycle started. Those cats had kittens and then those cats had kittens and so on and so on.

I was in 7th grade when all these cats started causing problems. At the time, we had about 11 cats. Male cats spray things to mark their territory, and this caused a pungent smell. Every day, I went to school smelling like cat piss. Naturally, I was bullied for it. Middle-schoolers are vicious. It was after all this bullying that I started to use marijuana. I was placed in drug counseling.

It was around this time that my 28-year-old cousin contacted me. He was a truck driver for US express. I was 13 when I received a text message from him. We talked a bit and he seemed nice. I figured that he could tell me about my dads’ side of the family, considering I don’t know a whole lot about them. He used this to take advantage of me. I will not go into detail. This was about the time I started smoking cigarettes. After I returned to school, I was unclear of the confidentiality rule. I told my drug/alcohol therapist what had happened, and she called the cops. Needless to say, he is now in jail.

I was put into trauma therapy due to the whole incident. One day, I was having a really crappy day. I had told my therapist how I was feeling and felt it was needed for me to go to crisis. (Crisis is a suicide prevention unit in the emergency room). They drug tested me, and naturally, it came back positive. After sitting there for several hours, and no signs of any beds at the psychiatric hospitals opening up, I wanted to go home. I needed a cigarette. So we left.

A few days later, a CYS (children youth services) worker showed up at our front door due to the pot in my system. She noticed that the house was a wreck, and ordered an emergency removal. They took me from school to National Human Services. That’s where I met my foster mom, Ms. Ronnie.

Ms. Ronnie seemed nice at first, but after a little bit, she turned into a whack job. She accused me of stealing her Last Supper painting. She made my foster sister and me clean out her shed. She gave me three dollars for doing it. Then, when I got my period, she made me walk to the Dollar Tree and buy tampons. Those tampons have cardboard applicators. She would give my foster sister and I five dollars every week, and we would then go to the freezer section of dollar tree and pick out 5 food items for the whole week. The list goes on and on. But luckily, she moved to South Carolina. That when they put me with my aunt and uncle.

I had just turned 15 when they moved me. This is when things started to change.

Who Am I Now?

For a little bit, things remained unchanged. I snuck weed and cigarettes. I still did the things I normally did. It changed when my aunt had found my baggie of cigarettes, and the pills I had hoarded and planned to use to overdose. Her and my CYS worker sent me to Crisis once again. They sent me to a psychiatric hospital where I stayed for two weeks. No more weed, no more cigarettes, no more going to see my friends and boyfriend whenever I want. Nothing.

How Have I Changed?

Pretty much every aspect of my life has changed. When I lived with my mom, I was a tomboy. I wore T-shirts, capris, sweatshirts, sweatpants, and sneakers. Now I wear dresses, and boots, and heels, and makeup, and jewelry. I used to miss school all of the time. I rarely miss school now. I used to spend almost every weekend with my friends, but now I rarely go anywhere. I can’t get high anymore, and I can’t smoke cigarettes. I used to talk to my mom every day about everything. They said we had codependency. Now, I see her twice a week for two hours each. I don’t get to see my beautiful kitties anymore. Rather, we have two dogs, and I have a gecko. Everything is just so different. what I’m still trying to decide is: Is the change good or bad?