As we head into Recovery Month, and the opportunity to celebrate the journeys of people through recovery, we are publishing the incredibly powerful testimony of Vicky, now a member of staff here at the Good Shepherd.
Vicky initially arrived with us – thanks to fellow volunteer Emma – as part of our LEAP (Lived Experience into Action) programme, offering an opportunity to people with experience of issues such as homelessness and addiction the chance to volunteer and support other people, whilst also gaining qualifications.
Since then, Vicky has made such impressive progress that she is now, alongside Donna who followed a similar pathway, a trainee key worker at the Good Shepherd.
This is Vicky’s story, in her own words. We thank her for having the courage to share it in the hope of helping others.
CONTENT WARNING: Please note this story contains details of self-harm including one life-threatening event and discussion around suicide. This may not be suitable for a vulnerable or younger audience.
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My challenges only really began in adult life, and initially came about as I continued a relationship with a boyfriend who I had been with since we were younger.
He was a drug dealer and any mother’s worst nightmare to date their daughter, and we ended up having two children together in what was a volatile, and often violent, relationship.
Eventually I ended the relationship, which still broke my heart as he was my first love, and he got on with his life and I got on with mine.
I went back to live with my Mum so she could help me with our two children, but my ex-partner was still dealing drugs so was given very limited access.
I was in my early 20s at the time, and would regularly smoke cannabis and started to drink a lot more after the split.
With my Mum helping me with the kids, I managed to go back to college, although I was still drinking and doing the ‘wacky baccy’ and living a party lifestyle.
Then my ex-partner passed away, and that broke my heart again.
Although he had been violent towards me and we had gone through this very tough relationship, he was still my first love, and the father of our children.
My way of coping was to start smoking crack, and it came to one occasion, at about 1 o’clock in the morning, when my friend had gone out to score some crack for me.
They came back with heroin, because that was all there was and there were no other drug dealers available. And yet, because I was all hyped up for a smoke, I thought if that’s all we’ve got then that’s what we’ll do.
I thought I wouldn’t develop a problem with heroin if I smoked it and didn’t inject it. But of course, I did it once, did it twice, did it again, and became addicted. That’s how it works.
What happened to me from there? Well, I had 15 years of heroin and crack abuse, during which I attempted suicide on several occasions whether by overdosing or slashing my wrists, and self-harming became an everyday occurrence.
***
My life was literally in the bin, and yet, somehow, I was still working, still holding down a job in the head office of a building society.
I suppose I was what they call a functioning drug addict. I was working in mortgages, and was hitting my targets every month
My Mum, who had helped me so much, passed away 11 years ago and, even when she was fighting for her life, I would go and see her but be watching the clock because I knew I needed to get away for a fix.
One of the very last things she said to me was – and sorry to be crude -: ‘Vic, you’re never going to change all the time you’ve got a hole up your backside.’ Or words to that effect.
She said that to me the day before she died, and that comment has always stayed with me and haunted me ever since.
I now had two kids in their late teens, who my Mum had really helped me to look after, and now they really needed me having lost their Nan.
But what did I do?
She died at 11am on a Sunday and by 1pm I was in the local crackhouse with my friends getting absolutely wasted. And that is where I stayed for a week.
Luckily my sister lived just over the road from me, so I knew the kids were o-k and they were old enough to be o-k. But they needed me on an emotional level – and I just wasn’t there for them.
They knew about the drugs, and in their teenage years they really resented me, and it’s not difficult to see why.
Eventually my daughter moved out to live with her boyfriend.
Then came another incident which would change my life for the worse.
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I was dating a guy who was more of a drug buddy than a boyfriend and the one day we were out and about when another drug dealer who he had beef with turned up on the scene.
There was a confrontation, but we thought they had disappeared and moved on. Only, they hadn’t.
We were walking along and, all of a sudden, lo and behold, they were back, and driving towards us in their car.
It mounted the pavement, and I got hit, breaking my left leg and left ankle, and my right knee.
It was completely intentional, although they had wanted to hit the guy I was with, not me, but he bounced off the windscreen and ran off and I was left lying on the floor under the car.
I didn’t realise how badly injured I was at first, and they were trying to get me in the car and I was absolutely screaming that I couldn’t.
Eventually, I was in the back of the car where two of them held me at knifepoint as we drove around for 15 minutes or so and they told me what would happen to me if I ever reported them.
They dropped me just down the road from my house, and I literally had to crawl on my backside to my front door to get somebody to help me.
That happened on July 7th, eight years ago. I’ll never forget that date, and I was in hospital for a long time afterwards going through the recovery.
When I got out, I was pretty much a prisoner in my own home, as my daughter had moved out, my son was going to college and I was completely reliant on other people.
I started snorting cocaine whenever I could, there were always dealers coming to the house, and I fell into depression and was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
I had never stopped self-harming, but about four years ago, it started getting a lot worse.
One particular night, while I was on various medications including diazepam and sertraline, it all became too much.
The life I had led, the people I had hurt, losing my ex-partner, the car running me over, I couldn’t deal with it anymore.
I had started drinking a lot as well, the hard stuff, a bottle of vodka was no problem, and on one night before Christmas in 2020, December 21st to be exact, it all came to a head.
I was at home drinking and snorting cocaine, and starting self-harming, to the extent that I actually wanted to kill myself.
And so, and I can remember the moment to this day, I set fire to myself.
***
I was crying, and just wanted to be with my Dad, who I had lost when I was 16.
My sister, who lived over the road, was losing her battle with cancer, and had been such a big support to me as the only member of my family who had never fallen out with me.
Seeing her deteriorate was killing me inside, and was another reason why I, too, just wanted to die.
I was playing with a lighter, and hairspray, and my top just went up.
I remember the flames being around my face, and feeling that heat and the pain, and then after a while it went.
It was a miracle my face didn’t burn, and then I recall wanting to get away from the flames, all the time breathing in the warm smoke, which has left damage on my lungs.
I still can’t remember how I got from my bedroom into the bathroom where I just grabbed the showerhead and blasted water all over me.
There were a couple of my friends downstairs who were around for drinks and, when I went down, they were like, ‘what on earth have you done’?
They called an ambulance and I remember pretty much collapsing as soon as it arrived after which I was in a coma for three or four days.
I had 30 per cent burns which needed five skin grafts, and I was fighting for my life.
The doctor phoned my daughter and said they had done everything they could – now it was up to me to come out of the coma myself. There wasn’t much hope.
Throughout my childhood, I had grown up with religion in my life from my Mum, and I had always believed in Jesus and had some kind of faith, even with going off and doing what I did. I always felt that God was there.
At this point, my daughter rang my local vicar, who I had always been in contact with, and asked him to pray for me over the telephone.
Within 30 minutes of that call, the doctor phoned my daughter again to say that I had woken up.
I remember that moment, waking up, because I could hardly breathe due to the tubes down my throat from all the machines.
There was a nurse with a lovely soft Irish accent who was ever so nice in calming me down, because I woke up not knowing where I was, what I had done and what had happened.
And afterwards, I remember having to speak to my daughter about it for the first time.
In the Burns Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, there are very few visitors at the best of times, and this was during Covid, so we had to speak on the phone.
She knew that what had happened to me wasn’t an accident, and she broke down. Hearing my daughter sob made me realise just how selfish I had been.
If it had ended differently and I hadn’t gone on to recover, they might have lost both of their parents when they were still young.
My daughter sent me a photo of my grandchildren, Coby and Mia, and that picture inspired me, and kept me going.
I was praying a lot as well, and I still truly believe that the only reason I am sitting here today is because of those prayers being answered.
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I was in hospital for eight weeks in total, having treatment after treatment after treatment.
I had tubes going up my nose and feeding me protein which helped repair skin, and, for eight weeks or so, it was really horrible.
The nurses had to bath me, for which I was put on ketamine because I would be in so much pain.
I had my dressing changed three times a day and they applied cream to my skin which really stung.
Every day for those eight weeks there was a different treatment.
Even now, I can only lift one of my arms so far, and I have more movement in one hand than the other.
I have still got chunks of skin missing here and there – it feels like I have been bitten by a shark!
I can go back for more treatment if I want to, more skin releases to help get more movement in my neck, but it’s two big operations and anti-viral medication so I don’t reject the skin, and, at the moment, I don’t really want to put myself through it.
I’m ok as I am, and only need to look at myself in the mirror as a reminder of what happened and what I did.
There are still times when I take a glance and then quickly have to look away, and I have not yet reached the point where I can have a really good look at myself.
There were pictures taken at the time, which have been used to help teach students with their studies at University, which I have never felt able to look at up to now.
When they washed me or needed to do any treatment, I would always have a blindfold on.
But I am starting to think I might ask if I can look at the pictures now. I feel ready to be able to deal with that.
***
So, my recovery has been a long process, but it was during last year when I first came into contact with the Good Shepherd.
I have been fortunate that my daughter allowed me to help with my grandchildren from time to time, but, when my granddaughter started school full time, I knew I needed something to do.
I couldn’t afford to have too much time on my hands, because that used to be when the trouble would start.
If I was on my own and started getting wrapped up in my own thoughts, that would spell danger of maybe falling back into difficulties, and so I needed to be around people.
I already knew Emma, who is on the LEAP project at the Good Shepherd, which offers volunteering opportunities for people with lived experience of homelessness and addiction, and she suggested I went along and did the training.
But I was really nervous, so when the first day came, they were starting the training, and I still hadn’t turned up.
Emma phoned me and put Chris (Cole) on the phone, who heads up the LEAP programme, and he persuaded me to come in.
Even now, I hate walking into anywhere by myself, I don’t like being singled out and prefer to be with a group of people, but, that day I made it to the Good Shepherd to start the training and, since then, I have never wanted to leave.
I started with LEAP last September, a year ago, and it has been going really well.
I remember my Mum once telling me that once I got myself sorted out, I could do this sort of work, helping people facing difficult situations, but I was always reluctant because I thought I needed to get away from this sort of environment because of my history.
But LEAP has been totally different, the training has been amazing, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
I have since progressed to become a trainee key worker, and, when I think about what has happened since last September, it has been absolutely incredible.
I have a great relationship with my daughter, and regularly see my son, who comes and goes from my house as he has a girlfriend in Coventry, and it’s been so good to rebuild my life with both of them in it. And I am also still very close to my younger sister.
Elsewhere, the relationships with some of my other immediate family are pretty non-existent and my elder sister, who lived across the road, sadly passed away.
I have a lot of regrets there because she spent her last few months knowing what I had done to myself.
I understand why people close to me have been so angry or don’t want to know me because, in my worst times, I wasn’t the nicest person. I was dreadful, absolutely dreadful.
I have really disappointed the people who meant the most to me, and that still hurts me.
But I can’t dwell on it for too long, because it will really set me back.
And I can’t stress enough what Jesus has done in my life.
I have been really involved in the church, at St Mary’s Church in Bushbury, doing the Alpha courses and helping to lead them, and I actually got baptised back in June.
Over the last few months, I have taken a bit of a step back from being so involved at church so I can concentrate on the opportunities that the Good Shepherd are providing, with studying for an NVQ and other training courses I can pursue.
Throughout my 15 years or so of being an addict, there were occasions when I didn’t have good experiences when I was trying to use services and didn’t receive what I thought was the right help from members of staff.
Having been in that position, I want to be that key worker who helps people, not the one who makes life more difficult and might even push someone into going off to use.
I listen to people, and I can tell them my experiences if they are interested, but I will never force my story onto them.
The best key worker I ever had was a lady called Wendy Askey, at Horizon House. She has inspired me and I want to be that key worker who will go the extra mile.
Now I just want to do as much as I can for the Good Shepherd and the people that we serve.
I am 48 now, and have hopefully got around 20 years left of my working life, and that’s 20 years that I really want to spend making a difference, not only in my own life but for others as well.
I am lucky to have a good support network of family and friends but I know others aren’t so fortunate, and for people like that, with no one to help them, it really breaks my heart.
That is why I’d like to try to be involved in people being able to address and move on from their troubles, and, in a way, that would also mean the experiences that I have been through aren’t going to waste.
Working in this environment is perfect, and I want to be here for as long as I can, alongside another ambition I have, to one day work supporting people in a prison.
Being a key worker is incredible, and there is such a great team of staff and volunteers at the Good Shepherd.
It was Emma who first got me involved, which I will forever be grateful for, and then I have also been working closely with Donna, who is my fellow trainee.
We often say, with our back stories, and the issues we have both had past and present, which employer would ever have considered giving us a job?
Well, the Good Shepherd have, and we are both loving it.
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So, when I look back, how do I reflect on everything that has happened in my life to get to where I am now?
Physically, when I look in the mirror, do I regret what I did? And how I damaged myself at a time when I really wanted it to be all over?
Of course I do. Of course I regret it.
And yet, when I look at my life now, mentally it has made me so much stronger.
I went to the very pits of hell that day, and so, to have all the opportunities that I do now, is truly amazing.
If there is anyone out there who is self-harming, even if it is just a little scratch or cut to start with, I would like to be able to tell them that it can lead to far more dangerous situations.
I was just self-harming that night, and took it upon myself to go one step further. I know what can happen.
When people say that suicide is a selfish thing to do, they are right.
To be in that situation where you want out – ‘stop the world I want to get off’ – it is an illness where you are really not well and suffering so much pain.
My heart was breaking but no one could look into my body and see that.
It is those you leave behind who are the most affected, and that’s why it is selfish, but, for so many people, it is very much a last resort.
But there is always an answer, always a positive way to come through and become stronger and that is where I have been so fortunate.
There were several different trigger points which set me off on the road towards destruction.
The initial drug use and self-harm, then losing my ex-partner, and being run over by the drug dealers.
In the years which followed all that, I was very bitter and very angry, and very unforgiving, about what I wanted to do to the people who ran me over for what they had done to me.
But there is a saying, that unforgiveness is like drinking poison but expecting the other person to die. It kills you eventually.
So, I do forgive people now, and I think that is really important.
I also believe my Mum is up there, watching down on me, and I hope that I am making her proud.
What she said to me before she passed away will always be in my memory, and I’m just so sad that she is not here for me to be able to treat her better than I did. To take her out for the day, go for a spot of lunch, just the usual things like that.
But I am blessed to still be able to see my children, and spend time with my grandkids.
I have a couple of days off work each week when I can take them to school and pick them up, and that is creating memories.
Those two grandkids keep me strong, and they also inspire me, and I know that they have been such a big part in saving my life.
What I will say is that life is still not always a bed of roses, that’s the same for everyone, isn’t it?
I still look back and feel emotional, especially when talking about the past and all the traumas I have experienced, and I still have issues today.
It’s not easy, infact it’s tough, to think of some of the things that I did and the damage I have done to my body.
But it’s all part of me now, and part of me going forward, and if it wasn’t for all that, I wouldn’t be here at the Good Shepherd, with these incredible opportunities.
Everything happens for a reason.
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PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU NEED HELP THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT ORGANISATIONS TO REACH OUT TO WHO CAN PROVIDE CONFIDENTIAL ADVICE AND SUPPORT.
THE SAMARITANS: Call 116 123 at any time day or night to discuss anything that is troubling you, however large or small it may seem.
SHOUT: Text Shout to 85258, a confidential 24/7 text service offering support if in crisis or needing immediate help.
RETHINK: Call 0800 008 6516 or text 07860 025281 at any time to access free advice and support from Rethink in the Black Country about urgent mental health issues or concerns.
MIND: Call 0300 102 1234 (Monday to Friday 9am-6pm) for a safe space to talk about your mental health.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST LIVING MISERABLY (Calm). Call 0800 58 58 58 (from 5pm to midnight) or visit the calmzone.net for a conversation or online chat if you are having suicidal thoughts or have been affected by suicide.