the difficult circumstances at home and her story not only has a lot of lessons for most of people who may have similar challenges that experience but that didn't stop her there overcoming they impediments and challenges taking head on she has not only become a  saw her change your relationship so she had different boyfriends and so i didn't really have a stable father you're and during the time i was growing up i started to see my mother's instabilities know she was a single on the way came out was that my older sister came to visit during her break from college and so she asked me if i knew that my mother refused using drugs and i said no you know but she mentioned that other family members had proof that my mother was and are for me that was a shock of course as a ten year old i didn't know how to process it but indeed my mother was and from her drug usage she was unable to keep the apartment where we live ok so from that point i wanted to stay in south over new jersey where i grew up and she needed to move so my mother actually gave me permission to move in with my best friends and she agreed to in with my best friends and i started attending church regularly every sunday and naturally i gave my life to jesus christ became a christian and during that time my mother was able to try to get back on her feet and i moved back in with her and her boyfriend in front of the church so at that point i hadn't really gotten to know my mom's boyfriend until i actually moved in  and when i got to know him there were some weird things that started happening so the first being was that i found out he was an exhibitionist oh so he he basically like to walk around  actually didn't walk nude in front of me but he did wear just imagine a towel at the cross so he walked around like that and he just made some weird statements to my mother sometimes saying like are small so good them house there was a small kitchen in kind of a boarding house and showed a bathroom with everyone in that house and this was a place where drug addicts lived our holic and it was horrible eventually we were able to move into a condominium and at that point that is when my mother's boyfriend i really started to see the depths of his perverse so once i started high school it was great you know we moved into the condo as opposed to living in the me house once we moved into the rooming house i'm sorry the time and oh my my mother's boyfriend started to expose himself to me so i would be in my bed and on the living room was right outside my bedroom door so mother's way from watch pornography while i was in my bedroom out loud i could hear everything and my mother was in her bed and she did nothing about it and the only thing i could assume is that she did that she didn't do anything because of her drug usage ok so she you know she had had someone to supply her need to take care of her and that was that was it that was so that was her word that she choices you have would go to help yes it can be when it's self yes like so it was it was kind of a dichotomy because of one hand i had my faith i was so christian so trusting that and then on the other hand i had something traumatic happening every day because every time i would leave my back room my mother sleep or he would purposely expose himself to me and so i literally felt like a prisoner in my own home i felt trapped and so i was going to school while this was going on nobody at church knew what was going on and of my family did not share none of my friends eventually what did happen was i did get in touch with my best friend who had lived with prior to that and so i would visit her some time she was living in pennsylvania so they know but no one else knew so really an outlet for me was poetry or a lot of poetry while i was in high school and so i had always loved writing so that was a good outl eventually from there by the time i was about sixteen before my junior year i decided i could take it anymore so at that point i wanted to move back in with my best friend but my mother told me she said you know we have security here by this time my mom had married her boyfriend so he's my stepfather now if you so we have security those were her words we have security so i did back in with my best friend really sick i was having some issues so i actually got expelled my junior year because i didn't have health insurance and i had no way to prove to the school why why i had so many an excused absence is so i got expelled and then i moved back home with my mom and my step dad and the reason i made that decision was because my mother's will that he had change things was different and so i returned home and things were different or pajama he was still working for another three but he would move to television so i guess that was some sort of improvement in their eyes so from that point i had to make a decision about my education whether i would continue with normal high school or if i would get my ged so i opted to get my ged because i completed a lot of credit from high school but actually didn't start right away so at that time i reconnected with my best friend and some of her family and one of the members of her family every connected with was her cousin and it was a young man who had liked me when we were younger ok and so becoming older the last time i had seen who were probably like ten eleven this come seventeen obviously things change from when you're absolutely seventeen and so when we reconnected i did want to get to know him again and things like that and from there we  relationship so at that point i kind of had free reign i could come and go as i please at home my mother didn't really putting restrictions on me and i started dating the show man and because i had lived with his his cousin they kind of embraced me as family so i was able to see bill is how he's how i wanted things like that and from there i had moved in with his family and i got pregnant when i was eighteen years old so i will say of a big reason as i mentioned before that led to that decision to have to merrill sex was that i was listening to a lot of i would say heavily charged sexual music which is of most of the popular music that teenagers listen to and so for me i was the music is the soundtrack to teenagers lives as teenagers who love it's everything yes so definitely hearing that music every day i don't i don't blame use it for my decision but i do feel like it such is some influence to it absolutely and made it easier you know to make that except that you should do it so you have something to justify exactly sex so needless to say you know being eighteen years old and pregnant i was very scared very afraid and on from that point my boyfriend and i are decided we are going to raise a baby and there was a lot of instability so we had moved around a lot with different members of his family and of eventually i wound up seeing it was very unstable and i decided that i needed to get myself out of that situation so i moved in back with my mom my stepdad yet again and at the same time i had given my life back to christ because during that time of that relationship i had strayed away from my face so when i didn't move back home my boyfriend and i were still together  eventually the relationship fell apart he was unfaithful so i became a single mom for about two and a half years and during that time i started working i was able to get a job at a fortune five hundred company year with a ged so i was very happy or you know is to have a salary which is a great career started great start to a career and during that time i had also  yes yes when i met my husband he was very upfront about the way he felt but i mean we started off as friend best friends and during that time i really just felt like i didn't want to move into a relationship  just very afraid didn't want to commit but just like you know yes yes especially just with my family life being so unstable my mother my biological father not being involved and my son's father leaving but eventually over time i was able to let go and let him in so the great thing is the foundation of our relationship was definitely our space so we both were yeah we were both caught some ministry and we both have become licensed ministers i leader i've worked with kids in middle school and in high school and i was able to teach them in the youth group i was involved in a church and actually now i'm working on a curriculum for public schools where i'm able to challenge him about popular music so if you don't mind us telling us a little bit about it the credit boom that you're working on would that be accepted in the school system now the great thing about the teaching is that i it is adaptable to teaching because it's all personal to me i found out that music has the ability to affect our motor system without our permission so that in itself is very powerful you know actually make of a good boy and a good music and good the definition of good music and change from person to person right so some like rock and others like soul music and jazz do this like unlimited two year us because my goal isn't to teach kids what to listen to and what not to listen to it's teaching them how to become active participants in what they listen to so learning how to hear the music and examine it and then acknowledge that musical you don't yes absolutely right and for me i would say that the music you have to examine it because because it has the power to affect us without our permission we automatically relax like you said sue the music we relax when we hear certain kinds of music yes and so for teenagers if they're in that relaxed state of mind they're the most vulnerable to make impaired decisions when they're relaxed their minds have not matured is when i actually met with the assistant superintendent in public school systems he actually told me the lesson could be fit in either hope larson music lesson i know there are in assembly program because a lot of their actually could x two are the common core state standards that schools have to abide by so health that's a trust there so thankfully it is very adaptable to what they teach i see i see ok well that's a pretty interesting twist so how does that make you feel it makes me feel awesome because i i see so many teenagers i mean this is the generation of headphones all the kids have had phones and it's like well what are you listening to and so much of it so so i'm to say it is so much of is just horrible yes and so it's pollution and i feel like they have to be awake and they have to know i have to be an active participant in what i'm listening to and not be a passive listener so back to the goal not to say this is wrong  because they're going to go and do the exact opposite so for me the way i approach it is by presenting a popular song playing the song dancing to the song getting them involved and i have volunteers come up to enjoin and and from there i go into the teaching so showing them i understand why you like this i want to do is it catchy it moves you ok but at the same time this is how it's affecting you have you paid attention to what the lyrics are actually saying so that's the whole point and the teaching that i have done they have been very receptive ok let's let's take an example a popular song sometimes there are first words sometime that's that's culturally accepted to listen to the music to me it doesn't make sense what you listening your subconscious is processing you're giving your subconscious but a mission to exit and way yes is that's what yes so normally what i will do is i will know whether it's involving a sexual act and i'll ask them so that i can get the answer from them and at that point we will break down how the music is impacting them whether it be if the music is glorifying violence promiscu degradation of women so i'll ask the young man how how has this song changed your view of young women ok and so it's showing them that music is just deeper than what you hear it is affecting you on the inside yes and eventually church you know brunswick and that is the church where my husband and i both attended both became licensed ministers there yes yes i am so pleased to see that you know how your faith and you similar situations that you went through as a child yes yes for me definitely seeing young people for me they they are why i do what i do so knowing my experience as a young person being able to share that with other young people i want them to know that they're not alone so if you are going through something traumatic you need to reach out for help for me first of all it was my faith secondly you do need to get practical help so you need to reach out to a trust educational equity a nonviolent approach advocating abstinence building self esteem living drug free and also empowering youth so those are the tenets that i really want to  and help help them reach how do you do a community outreach with them do you have a team that works with you so i didn't care so right now i'm actually in the process of building the team so that is the goal because my use the experience has been within the church that i had attended and now it will be in the public school system i see so definitely i would love for people to reach out to me through the website ok i'm trying to build a team excellent excellence of people who are listening out there you know they have kid so i love writing poetry lets storytelling so i have been able to work as a freelance ghost writer and editor just my passion always loved it and thankfully over the past few years i've gotten the opportunity to work on several ghost written edited published projects so that's it's been a fun experience that's excellent are there any other stories that they stand out and had impact on you to when you interact with other people for me i guess i just want to encourage people against to let them know that if you need help reach out for me because none of us can get anywhere alone so for me i i just see it as a testament to my faith to guard that i was able to come this far as far as having a great job now i'm a co manager retail comically i you know with the ghost writing and editing and being a youth leader i couldn't have done any of these things alone so i always want to encourage people to reach out for help i can see that you know most people in the going through difficult times  a good message for the people who are going to tell us what we cannot do it alone yeah we need to open up let you have to find a safe safe space to go you know to trust who to go to i may take some time yeah it may take some time but they have to step out of there yes absolutely and you know back here that they could and i myself have been in the situation that i look back and see that message to the audience that you wanna help us yes absolutely i would encourage the audience to volunteer so if you can volunteer whether it be with your local church youth group of boys or girls call the police a easy to share what you have gone through and i had my you and me she was a lot of luck thank you so much thank you for being on the show thank your appreciate it and for our viewers this was another episode of