Jenine Wilson,
Age 40

I went to Penn State two and a half years. I have my Associates Degree in Business Administration. First I fixed cable boxes just to make ends meet. Then I started working for Hahnemann Hospital. Then I moved up to a non-profit organization. That’s when I got laid off and things kind of like took a turn for the worse for me. The job was like everything to me. It’s how I got my first apartment. I was assistant to the vice president of the company. So I had a lot of responsibility. I worked for one of the projects that lost their government funding. So they had to let me go. It seemed like ever since then my life has just been crazy. That’s what turned it all around for me.

I got pregnant. I became depressed and started using drugs. That’s when I had to get a smaller apartment. A smaller apartment became no apartment, because I couldn’t find the kind of job that I wanted. So I became comfortable with unemployment and welfare. Then the drugs came. I needed something to pick me up, because here I was assistant to a vice president and now here I am on welfare in a room with a baby. And I’m like, what happened? So you get depressed. You start feeling…sitting on a pity pot, and I started using. All this started when I was 27. I had my first baby when I was 27 years old. I have 3 children now. I’m 40 now, so it’s been off and on, up and down all these years. I managed to be okay for some part of that time. Most of the time, I just missed my life, the way it used to be.

I got arrested for using crack cocaine. In the last 13 years I’ve relapsed 3 times. I’ve gotten clean. Went to a program, everything was fine. Well my life just wasn’t what I wanted it to be. It wasn’t there fast enough for me. So I’m learning how to be patient now. Take one step at a time here in prison with some of the programs that I go to through the JOBS Project. I love it! I love coming to this computer class, Anger Management. I really hate sitting around not doing anything. I’m doing all these things different now. Hopefully this will be a turnaround for me for the better, forever, and not just one of those rest periods.

I’m not sure where I am going to live. I can’t go back to my children’s father now, because he’s moved on. And my family aren’t all that comfortable with me right now. They’re tired of me using drugs. They’re tired of me coming in and out of programs, doing this, doing that. I’m hoping and praying that the program that I go to will help me get a house for me and my girls. And then when I get out I can just move into it. Maybe have to stay with a friend for a little while until…yeah. So that’s how I’m going to try to do it. I’m praying everything works out okay.