You haven’t met Janet until you’ve seen her smile. When it happens, a door opens and through that door, you see a gentle spirit in a field of kind nature. What you can’t tell when you’re in that moment with her, is everything that’s behind that smile. The things she has gone through to earn that smile. To earn her place here at Beit T’Shuvah. It’s a long and winding road that leads to her and I sitting in a room, while she shares her story with me.
Janet was born in Long Beach. She was the second child to be born of the four. Her dad died young and from an early age her mom worked from six in the morning to midnight. Life was never on solid footing at home. She experienced a lot of violence growing up and was forced to encounter dark areas of life at an early age. At nine she had her first experience with alcohol. Someone close to her fed her the booze and used the effects produced by the alcohol to take advantage of her in an unconscious state. Nine years old, and Janet had already become a victim of sexual violence. Janet shared, “Ever since then, I liked the taste of alcohol and used it to not think of what happened.” Early on, at gatherings of friends and family, it became standard that when she was grabbing a drink for an elder, she took one for herself.
Talking to Janet now, it’s surprising to hear about all the violence she willingly took part in. “I used to get in a lot of fights in elementary and middle school because I always thought people were talking shit about me.” Later in life, Janet would be diagnosed Bipolar and Schizophrenic—nearly impossible things to deal with at such a young age. At 13, Janet started bringing alcohol to school.
Due to her mom’s work schedule, Janet was tasked with watching over her younger siblings. So, naturally, she started bringing the party over to her house. The deal she had with her friends who wanted to come over and drink, was that they needed to bring a bottle, and they had to help her with her chores—usually cooking and cleaning. Janet’s attendance in middle school started to become a problem, a habit that eventually carried over into the beginning of high school. This is when her mom decided to pull her out and start homeschooling her. No schooling happened in the home after that. At 15, Janet decided she was done with school and that she was moving out.
Janet found refuge for a little while in the house of an ex-boyfriend’s family. Where you could find her drinking with the father of that household on most days. That situation didn’t last very long, as one might imagine. She then moved out of there to move in with her older sister and older sister’s boyfriend. That’s when she found meth, or rather when meth found her. She’s 16, she woke up hungover, and she got a ride to work from her sister’s boyfriend, (at this point she has a job waiting tables at a diner). As she got dropped off she forgot her Red Bull in the car and ran back to grab it. She got it. Consumed it. Had a wonderful, hangover-free day at work. In her mind she’s thinking finally, the Red Bull actually worked – it gave her wings. She got home later to the grins of her sister and her sister’s boyfriend, who asked her how her day went. Janet replied with all smiles and reported about the great day she had at work. This is when her sister’s boyfriend informed her that he spiked her Red Bull with meth when she was running back to grab it. That was Janet’s first experience with meth. No say in the matter. All effects and exploits. After a brief moment in anger, a light bulb went off, “This was my way around hangovers.” At the blissful age of 16, she had discovered a workaround for hangovers that allowed her to be productive at work, and still be able to enjoy herself after—“This is the way.”
Janet, now 17, moved again and was now staying with a girl she worked with. What she couldn’t know when moving in, was that this girl would later become her sister-in-law. Janet is well into her alcoholism at this point, she knows it’s a problem and there are plenty of people in her life who are trying to save her. She would tell boyfriends, “I have an alcohol problem and I don’t want to do anything about it.” While living with this friend from work, the friend’s brother starts to come around and fix things here and there. And every time the friend’s brother would come around, she would shy away. Janet’s future mother-in-law was over one day and asked her, “Why are you always running away from my son?” And Janet, with her endearing, girlish charm, responded, “BECAUSE I LIKE HIM!” Bing, bang, boom, and they were dating.
After things went sour in that living situation, she proceeded to move in with her then-boyfriend in San Fernando Valley. Around 19, she attended bartending school. In classic alcoholic fashion, she would attempt to practice with her friends, but get too drunk before she could get any real practice in. Somewhere in that chaos, Janet got married. This is also around the time Janet started hearing things, and she knew she was hearing things because she was alone most of the time. Things were rocky in the house and in the relationship, her schizophrenia had been doing pushups without her realizing, and Janet started contemplating how she was going to murder her husband. She really wanted to kill this guy for no reason. Even though the voices were telling her that life would be better without him, she had her husband take her to the hospital without telling him why she needed to go. This was her first 5150. For those who might not know, a 5150 is an involuntary psychiatric hold of a patient for up to 72 hours who is a danger to themselves or others. Her honesty when talking to the medical staff forced the hospital’s hand in telling her husband that Janet was in fact worried she might kill him. After that, they put Janet on a bunch of meds and she got back on track, or at least stopped the homicidal thoughts.
She’s 24, she’s withdrawing from psych meds, kicking drugs and alcohol, stone-cold sober, and pregnant. She had the baby. It’s huge! It’s healthy! It’s a boy! And she’s glad it was over. Her relapse unfortunately started during the pregnancy and with the doctors administering all the drugs to get her through the birth. It progressed after she finished breastfeeding. She didn’t pick up exactly where she left off, but she did enough to have the good time she was after, but not too much to where she couldn’t be there for her son. This lasted for about a year with her husband, until they separated and he moved her into a different apartment in the same complex. Quickly, she found a new drinking buddy, who would eventually become her second baby’s father. She got sober again during this pregnancy.
Janet’s now 26 with two kids. She has no social life and her only real friend was her drug dealer. She started drinking and using again. Again, she felt herself breaking. Janet stopped taking her psych meds and began to suffer from postpartum depression—crying all the time. She wouldn’t leave the house and all the while her husband was also dealing with his own addiction. Somewhere in all of this, 911 is called after Janet is found unconscious in a flooded apartment after a failed suicide attempt where she tried drowning in the bathtub. The Department of Child Family Services is now in the picture. This was the first time her kids were taken away. The youngest boy went with his dad, and her oldest boy went to foster care. Janet was left to her own devices and began to crumble away.
Janet ended up homeless. She had been hanging around this couple that she said was, “teaching me how to be homeless.” One night they were hanging around drinking and once again, unbeknownst to her, her drink got spiked by this couple and she suffered the consequences. She woke up in the hospital to find out she’d been beaten, raped, and left for dead. By the grace of God, somebody walked by and mistook her for a dead person and called the cops. Janet explained, “This still wasn’t enough for me to think differently.”
Her mom picked her up from the hospital two weeks later. Got her into a bible-based rehab where she couldn’t take meds and she AWOL-ed after a week or two. She walked the streets without a phone, looking for a lifeline. After, meeting a drug dealer who would become her boyfriend, multiple more 5150s, and a stint in a 60-day pych facility, she started to come around to the idea that something needed to change.
Janet’s soon-to-be ex-husband, yes the one from her first and only marriage, went through Beit T’Shuvah years ago and is good friends with our head Director of Clinical Services, Bradley Elkins. He has been sober since 2017 and had been waiting for his soon-to-be ex-wife to call when she was ready to get help. That day had come… the path to recovery is rarely a straight line. Now, she’s back for a third time ready to do it right and build something sustainable. She feels better. Her treatment team sees something different in her this time, which she responds to saying, “I don’t know what they’re talking about.” If only we could see the changes in ourselves the way others can…here’s a reason everybody is rooting for Janet, even if she doesn’t always realize it herself.
Janet loves Beit T’Shuvah. She must have said it around twenty times when I asked her to talk about what this place means to her. Without it, she’s not sure if she would be back in her kids’ lives—I’m happy to report she’s not just back in her kids’ lives, but also her mother’s, and is reconnecting with her younger sister as well. Janet is a light in the community and someone who is determined to make this time count. You can always find her in the front row at Torah study. She LOVES Torah study, she’s part of the marathon team, and just started an internship as a Program Facilitator.
When I first sat down to have this interview with Janet I asked, “Who are you?” She didn’t have an answer outside of, “I don’t know.” At the end of the interview, I asked her the same question and she answered a lot differently. With her signature Janet Smile™, she decreed, “I’m kind, I’m someone who cares, I’m there for people, I ask for help, I’m happy to feel everything, I’m a go-getter, and,” she then took a long pause and triumphantly said in a way that only she can,” I’M JANET FUCKIN’ M.” Yes you are…and we wouldn’t want to change a thing.