To every woman living in addiction, abuse and judgement

When my son died, I expected grief.
I expected pain.
What I didn’t expect was to be turned into the villain of my own tragedy.

In 2010, I was a young mother trapped in violence, trapped in addiction, and trapped in a system that saw my struggles as proof that I didn’t deserve compassion. I was on felony probation. I was using. I was trying to survive. And like so many women in the same situation, I thought I could protect my child by staying just one step ahead of the danger.

I tried to leave.
That’s when everything escalated.
That’s when my abuser lost control—and took my son’s life.

He confessed. He told authorities I used my body to shield my baby from the abuse. He admitted what he did.

But to the world, it didn’t matter.

Because I was an addict.
Because I was on probation.
Because people assume that women like me are incapable of love, incapable of protecting, incapable of being victims ourselves.

The system didn’t want my truth.
It wanted a target.
And I became that target.

I was charged with murder for a death I did everything in my power to prevent.
People I loved turned against me.
Authorities publicly theorized about who I was—as if addiction erased my humanity, as if my past erased my right to justice, as if my pain wasn’t real.

But here is the truth:

I did not kill my son.
I did not participate in his abuse.
I loved him with everything I had in me.
And I tried to protect him in the only ways I knew how.

I almost died trying to save him... because I survived I was punished.

To every young woman out there living this double battle—abuse on one side, addiction on the other—please hear me:

Your struggles do not make you unworthy of safety.
Your past does not make you responsible for someone else’s violence.
You are not the villain in your own story.
And you can survive this.

The world may judge you before it understands you.
Systems may punish you for being vulnerable instead of helping you heal.
People may blame you for the violence done to you.
But none of that defines your worth.

I’m telling my story because I don’t want another young woman to believe the lies that were used against me—that addiction means you don’t deserve love, that being on probation means you can’t be a good mother, that being trapped in abuse makes you guilty of your own suffering.

You deserve safety.
You deserve recovery.
You deserve to live long enough to rewrite your story.
And you deserve to be seen as a human being—because you are.

My son’s life matters.
My story matters.
And your life matters, too.