Carolyn Cynthia Ransom,
Age 44

There was a lot of abuse in my family. My mother was abused a lot by my father. Then I had a step father. He abused me physically. He abused my mother physically. He would beat my mother and I would jump in because I was the oldest of six brothers and sisters. I would try to help. So I really didn’t have a normal childhood. I had to take on the responsibility of helping my mother raise my five brothers and sisters. Like it was me and her against the world. She was a really good woman. She worked really hard. She went to school and she worked in people homes. When she got sick, I would go and do the work and bring the money home. During summer break for school I would go and work in Trenton at a blueberry farm. Me and two of my younger siblings we would work at the farm and bring the money home to help my mother make ends meet. She finally did get rid of my stepfather after years of being abused. After growing up in that type of environment, I swore that I would never follow in her footsteps, but that’s been a pattern of mine too. I constantly got into abusive relationships.

It’s still painful, but I’m learning to forgive those for the abuse that was inflicted on me and for the many times that I was raped out there, and my addiction. Crack really took me down real fast. I started to take things from home, from other people, my family. I started selling my body. Then I started breaking into my family homes, taking their things and selling them. I started using crack when I was 26. I had got involved with a guy and I moved in with him. He was on crack. I didn’t find out until later. Slowly but surely I got addicted to it. Then came the problem. I started losing jobs, having legal problems for prostitution.

As a result of my using crack, I was placed on house arrest for aggravated assault. I violated my house arrest. I was running out, continuing to get drugs. That’s been my life story, drugs. Not being able to say stop. When I got sick and tired of being beat up by drugs, I decided that I was going to turn myself in, because I was tired and I needed the help. The way that I was living my life, not only was I hurting myself, I was hurting my loved ones. I knew it was time to get help or else I was going to wind up dead. On July 28, I was sentenced to 11 to 23 months.

I had several good jobs. I had a very nice job at the University of Pennsylvania Financial Aid office from ’86 to ’89 and I took a leave of absence to have an operation. And this is when I started my drug addiction. It was in ’88. I was missing days, no call, no show. I was in denial that I had a problem. I wasn’t ready to admit it. And I was embarrassed to let them know that I was on crack cocaine. I lost that job. I was records assistant and receptionist.