I was not living for the past 10 years I was surviving…

My Name is Melissa. Back in 2018, I was lost, addicted to drugs, and required by my probation officer to come to Wellspring Woman’s House.

“Wellspring is a 4 to 6-month treatment facility that will help you learn to live life on life’s terms” I recall the clinician on the other end of the desk telling me during my screening.  Hmm, life on life’s terms? I thought to myself, I had spent the past 10 years living in the streets, in and out of jail, and bouncing from trap house to trap house, lying to my family, and losing out on my bond with my three daughters, I was pretty sure I knew how to live life on life’s terms.

However, what I learned through working through my trauma and with my clinician at Wellspring as well as Dee Clark, LCPC, LADC, the Mental Health Clinician, I was not living for the past 10 years I was surviving. It was time to put in the work and figure out what it was that made me automatically run to drugs. My stay at the woman’s house taught me things I thought were useless at the time….Holding the door for the next housemate coming in from break, doing daily chores, cooking with another housemate for the whole house, and picking up after myself and taking my medications on time and the way they were prescribed and being held accountable for my actions and understanding why my behaviors came out the way they did when I was scared, sad, or unsure. Taking the hour-long session weekly to meet with my clinician and truly be honest for the first time in my life about what had led me to Wellspring. My treatment at Wellspring led me to where I sit today…

I now work as the Client Care Coordinator at the Wellspring Women’s House. The place that helped me discover who I truly am and what my calling in this life is. I’m blessed to work beside some of the same ladies who saved me! Today I can be the help other women need to grow and find themselves beyond their past. When you walk through our facility doors, regardless of whether it’s mandatory or not, everything in the past is no longer going to be able to define who you are and who you will be.

I had been to a 28-day rehab before and attended I.O.P numerous times. Neither truly gave me the treatment nor the support I needed. Today I’m a Happy, Blessed, mother, daughter, wife, Mimi as well as a woman in recovery working daily to help others live not just survive.