“Scars That Speak Series: Deep in the Thorns (Amanda McKenzie)" Ep#49

In this raw episode of Spiritual Hot Sauce, Amanda McKenzie shares her powerful story of surviving childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, human trafficking, severe addiction, and the tragic loss of a child—and finding redemption, recovery, and a new life on the other side.

Listener discretion is strongly advised.

Transcript

Chris Jones 0:00

Scars That Speak is a series of people sharing their real life stories of adversity, suffering, and trauma, the storms in life that strip us of our identity, where the path ends. Yet they find life where there should be no life. These are stories of hope.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

My name's Amanda McKenzie, and I have Scars That Speak.

Chris Jones 0:21

Welcome. I'm Chris Jones, and this is Spiritual Hot Sauce. Amanda, welcome to the sauce.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Hi.

Chris Jones 0:32

Before we get started, I want to give everyone a real heads up. This conversation goes deep in the thorns. Amanda shares a candid and heavy story that includes childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, human trafficking, severe addiction, and the tragic loss of a child. It is an intense, raw discussion, but it doesn't end in the dark. It leads to redemption, recovery, and a brand new life. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Amanda, if you would just kind of start there and tell us about the beginning of all of this. Tell us about a little bit of your history.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Growing up, I was surrounded with alcoholism, addiction, poverty. I grew up with alcoholic and addicted parents. The grandparents had to step in and, you know, kind of take over from me and my siblings. And it just was really chaotic. There was never any structure. How old were you through this? I was so little. I was probably five when I started remembering just how really bad my environment was. Yeah. It was when I got in school and seen other children that I realized. And, you know, we went from the eastern Kentucky in a holler to the Newport, Kentucky in the projects in the hood. And I seen so many things in that environment: drugs, alcohol, violence, domestic violence, prostitution, drug selling, everything was just out in the open. And no one guarded me. No one guarded me from that. Nine years old, some bad things happened to me with a grown man in my neighborhood, and uh he abused me. And, you know, no one was there to defend me.

Chris Jones 2:08

He wasn't prosecuted or he wasn't arrested, or there wasn't any charges brought against him?

SPEAKER_02 2:13

There was an investigation because of who he was and how he was connected in the community, you know, and I was just a little poor girl from the projects. They didn't care. It was swept under the rug. No sexual crimes was ever prosecuted on him.

Chris Jones 2:31

Did you get therapy or did anybody do anything to try to help you through this?

SPEAKER_02 2:35

No. A year later, um, I was about 12 years old. I was really struggling. I went to a public school over in Covington, Kentucky, and it was meant for the bad kids, you know, the kids that just couldn't get it together. And I loved it going there. And yet again, another male sexually assaulted me in the classroom when no one else was in there. That situation did get prosecuted. It came out that he offended hundreds of kids in his many years of being a teacher in that district, and he went to prison.

Chris Jones 3:03

Yeah, I would imagine through that you are made to feel that you are less than everybody else.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Yes.

Chris Jones 3:09

Wow. Wow, that's horrific. Now you had mentioned that it's in this time you started dabbling or using, I guess, some drugs.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yeah. At the age of 12, because it was around 10, 11, 12, when all of these events took place with the sexual abuse, I started to become sexual active. I thought that that's how you showed your worth was doing these things with these men. That's the attention that I was getting. It caused me to not have a good self-worth system.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

And I started drinking alcohol. I I just started getting into the life of the streets because I had no one else to show me differently.

Chris Jones 3:48

I've always thought of it like this: where you have crime and you have people that don't seem to care, that it's a lack of hope. When you take hope from people and they are made to feel less than, then that's what you get.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Absolutely.

Chris Jones 4:01

So I can see where that would definitely, definitely start taking you down that path. Now, was your parents supportive through this, or did they try to help you through this?

SPEAKER_02 4:11

So at this point in my life, my dad he met someone else when I was a very little girl. Because of animosity between him and my mom, I didn't get to spend a lot of time with my dad. At this point in life, he did get sober. He wasn't really able to be there for me in a lot of ways. And my dad, he was angry, and his first reaction was to kill someone that hurt his daughter. He couldn't process that, you know. My stepmom was really able to be able to help talk to me with that and tell me, you know, hey, you didn't deserve this. In this moment of time with the second offender, my mom was able, even inside of her alcoholism and stuff. She was able to try to somewhat pull it together and be there for me. I remember her picking me up from the school and I was shaking and crying. And she said, I wanted to go home and take a bath. You know, I felt filthy and I wanted to go home and take a bath and she would not let me. She said, You did nothing wrong. You're not going home and taking a bath. You're going to go home and rest. I'm going to make you some food. We're going to sit down. We're going to put a movie on, and you're going to take some time. But we're, you're not going to go home and take a bath because you didn't do anything wrong. You can take one later on tonight. But that stuck with me because that was one of the times looking back where my mom, you know, really was there for me. Yeah. And, you know, I do want to say in my story that yes, I it was unfair that I didn't have the parents that I deserved. Later on in my adult life, I learned that they were struggling with their own demons, their alcoholism, their addiction, they loved me the best way that they knew how.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

There's no resentment, love lost now, you know. Right. Obviously, that took me on a journey for the rest of my life as a child and early adulthood until things changed. But still, looking back, I can find moments where my mom showed up. You know, she was there for me.

Chris Jones 5:54

We get through this, and now you're on the street a little more. Is drugs becoming more of your normal activities?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Yes. I started, it started out just smoking marijuana, you know, fitting in, drinking a beer. You know, I thought we was big and badge, drinking beer, stealing it from my grandpa. And then it became, oh, we're gonna take some acid. Oh, we're gonna do some of these pills. They're cough and cold pills. And if you take like 20 or 30 of them, you hallucinate.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

And uh, and I started dabbling in that, but I found myself in trouble. I was really just acting out for attention at this point. I was crying out for help.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

The adults around me in school didn't know really how to handle bad. I stole what would be my last car.

Chris Jones 6:35

And you're 12 years old.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

I was 12 years old. Oh my god. I stole my I stole my uncle's car. I went on, I ended up doing a high-speed chase with the police into Cincinnati. Wow. I came back over to northern Kentucky, four o'clock in the morning. And now remind you, I picked up my cousin. They're all older, 17, 18. These guys I had no business being with. They all have cocaine and drugs and, you know, and beer and alcohol and all these things, right? And we get back into Newport and they had no idea that I just took these police on a high-speed chase. They think we're all just joy riding. Little did they know. We got raided immediately when we went to the location where we knew we were going to end up, and the police knew we were gonna end up there. I took the charges for every single drug that was in that car that night because I knew I was already going down and I knew that they couldn't charge me as much time as they would the adults. And once again, in my life, I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be part of something, and I wanted to feel like I was important.

Chris Jones 7:38

How does a 12-year-old know about charges and that they're gonna take it? I mean, I think that speaks to where your life was at the time and what you had knowledge of. At 12 years old, I can't even imagine that.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Back then, it was just everyday conversation with my family and parents about what felonies were and charges. Wow. Something else happened that I need to talk about. There was an incident with my mom. She was drinking, and there was a situation where her boyfriend and her got into a fight, and it was traumatic for me. Late at night, they locked themselves out, they're drunk, they couldn't find their keys, and they're yelling at each other. And I yell down, and at this point, I'm so angry at them. I'm so sick of living like this. And I yelled down, good luck getting in. And finally they found the key in their pocket and they made their way up the steps. And it was chaotic. So I started feeling really scared. I thought, oh my God, they're gonna hurt me. So I barricaded the door and he choked my mom out.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Just grabbed a knife that was around me. I was terrified. I thought he's coming to get me next. And he was beaten in the door. And I just took this bread knife and I just whacked it at him and I cut him and I cut him hard. Now, this is a man that's always been good to me. That man was never like that, but he never showed a single sign of violence until that night. Police got called. They arrested me for an assault first degree.

Chris Jones 8:54

How old were you at this time?

SPEAKER_02 8:56

I was 12. This is 12. At the same time, all these other charges. Oh my gosh. 12 years old. So I went to the police station. One of the officers that arrested me was my stepmom's brother-in-law. So I called him Uncle. He called my dadaby and said, you know, Bob, you got to come and get your daughter. She's in, I'm going to release her to you, but this is crazy. She's got to get out of the situation. You know, no kid should ever be in this situation. And he really advocated for me. And I didn't have to go back to my mom's at that point. And then they did drop the charges. They realized it was self-defense. I was scared. They my mom told the truth about what happened. The man, he admitted that it was their fault.

Chris Jones 9:30

So this wasn't an isolated situation. This was a heightened version of it, but there was a lot of abuse and violence through this time.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

So many nights. Yeah. So many nights where if I didn't do the dishes and she comes in drunk, cuts a beat and you know.

Chris Jones 9:45

Yeah. So when you got to your dad's, did things start to change? What does life look like then?

SPEAKER_02 9:51

My dad picked me up. I stayed there a couple weeks, but I didn't know my dad very well. I loved him and he was good. And I love my stepmom. She's the best, you know, and still is to this day. But I just was scared. I was uncomfortable. And you know, there's a certain sense of familiar and and and even in the crazy environments, you know, there was a comfort in knowing, you know, your environment. Your chaos is comfortable for me at this time. You know, there was, it was quiet at my dad's house. It was peaceful at my dad's house. It made me uncomfortable. I was used to the chaos. So I went back. But at this point, this is when the judge was like, listen, we're gonna declare you a menace to society. You're getting sent off for five years to the age of 18. We're committing you to the Department of Juvenile Justice till the age of 18. And you cannot come back to this county until then. I was then sent to juvenile detention centers, group homes, foster care.

Chris Jones 10:40

What caused you to be sent off like that?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Where the judge The charges with the stealing the car.

Chris Jones 10:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

You know, I look at that part in my life where God actually saved me because this is the part where I was introduced to Christian group homes. There weren't as many convicted felons, as that's crazy as that sounds, with every all I wasn't surrounded by felons, you know, and drugs and alcohol. And I started to really start to feel some peace, you know, and he and he started putting people in my life, staff at the group home, members of those churches that we would visit. Those people poured into me. Around this time, though, the 15 years mark, my brother, who I haven't really mentioned a lot of, just out of respect for his life and his story. We committed a lot of the same crimes together. It was the same situation for him. And he too got sent off. He was coming back home. He turned 17. They was releasing him. And I was 15. And I ran away because I was like, my brother's home. I'm going back. I was gone on the run for a month or two, I think. When I was coming back, we went to eastern Kentucky to hide out with our family in Breath of the County because he did something as soon as he got out and was on the run from the police. When we came back to Northern Kentucky that first night, my brother was hanging out with some of our mutual friends, and something happened. I wasn't there. A fight happened where my brother was given a gun, was wrestling with somebody and it went off, and he shot the boy in Guilty.

unknown 12:07

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

That changed my life forever. He was my savior. My brother was my rescuer. He was my parent because, you know, he had to be. He he helped raise me. He helped keep me safe in a lot of situations. I knew he was gone for the rest of my life. I didn't think I'd ever get to see him in person again. And immediately they retaliated. People were looking to kill me. So my mom turned me in, called my DJJ worker. Her name's Michelle. This lady, Michelle, Chris, she's she's such a woman of God. She had been in my life since I was nine years old. She was my brother's worker well before that. She knew my family. She never gave up on me. She was like, Amanda, I'm gonna take you somewhere where I think it's gonna be good for you. I want you to let them help you. I want you to try at least this time. You have no reason to go back to North Kentucky. There's nothing there for you. Start over. Go, go find your life. Go explore it. Go find the Lord and find your life. You know, and I did for about two years until I was 17. I really started to work on myself. I started to get therapy. I started to get some healing. I started to really dive in educationally. I was, you know, starting to go back to school and focus on the things that a 15 and 17-year-old kid should be focused on, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

17 years old, once again, I got an itch to go back home. I wanted to see my grandma. She's ailing, she's getting sick, you know, and I wanted to see her. I was worried she's gonna die and I would be gone. They told me I could visit for Christmas, but I couldn't stay. And I ran away from a very happy foster home I was in. The parents were great to me. I loved it. I loved a school that I was going to. I had goals, a normal life. That night that I went back and ran away, I went to a house party. And, you know, these are things where when we talk about choices we make, put us in situations that get us in trouble. I took myself to a party. I wanted to fit in. I left that party after drinking with two men I didn't know, grown men. They decided to go on a road trip and they took me to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and they proceeded to get a hotel room where both of them sexually assaulted me. They knew how old I was. They knew I was on the run from state's custody and the police.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

But luckily, they left to go to the bars. I wasn't old enough, obviously. I was 17 years old. Then I ran into somebody and I was like, hey, what are you doing? And I knew he was a young guy. He looked from like he was from a good family, you know, and he had an older uncle. And I come up with a story because I was good at lying back then. I at this point I become good at manipulating lying, you know. That it was a coping skill. It was a way to survive.

Chris Jones 14:37

It's a tool you learn.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Absolutely. Yeah. And so I left with them people and went to their chalet in Dollywood or wherever we were at. And the next day they took me to Kroger and they dropped me off and I turned myself into the state police. I was scared. I didn't know what was going to happen. And that worker, she drove to Tennessee and she picked me up.

Chris Jones 14:58

Did anything happen to the two men that you had met?

SPEAKER_02 15:02

And they never caught him.

Chris Jones 15:03

So Michelle showed back up again.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Michelle picked me up. It was the first time in my life that I felt completely broken. Without hope, without any, you know, I was an empty shell. It just takes something from your spirit. You know, it takes a piece of your innocence that you'll never get back. I came to Louisville, Kentucky when I was 17 to Maryhurst. And I'm very grateful for that program. And I stayed there until I graduated and turned 18. And this part of my story, I want to talk about strongholds. There was a stronghold on me over North Kentucky. I it's all I ever knew. It had such a hold on me that I went back. I I thought I was missing out, you know, I was missing something. And Michelle begged me, Amanda. She said, Amanda, don't go.

Chris Jones 15:50

Yeah. Did you feel like it was home and like that's just kind of where you belong? That's where everybody was, even though it's poison. You just felt like, I mean, where else you gonna go?

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yep.

Chris Jones 16:00

So what did Michelle want you to do during this time? What was she suggesting?

SPEAKER_02 16:04

She wanted me to go into independent living. There was a program that I could recommit myself to the age of 21. They would find me an apartment, pay for it, they would pay for all my needs, and I could go to college. But my grandma got sick, and I used that as an excuse to go back home. And I told my grandpa I would take care of her and I stayed there. And I did. It was a year later, she passed away, and that really hurt. So I drowned it with alcohol.

Chris Jones 16:25

Was you using through all this time?

SPEAKER_02 16:28

No. I was sober from the time, except for the one time that party when I was 17. I hadn't drank since I was probably 13.

Chris Jones 16:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Yeah. I didn't get back into drugs and alcohol until I was 19 and came back home.

Chris Jones 16:42

When your grandmother passed away.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yep. Several things happened in that year. My grandma passed away, which devastated me. And I got involved in human trafficking.

Chris Jones 16:52

Oh. How did that happen? How do you get involved in human trafficking?

SPEAKER_02 16:57

That's a very controversial topic. A lot of people, when you think of human trafficking, you think, oh, she got kidnapped. You watch the movie taken and you think, oh, that's how it looks. You know, they got stolen, they're forced to do this. No, that's not how it happened for me. How it happened for me was that I was in need of a job, and I learned early on that you could exploit your body, and men would do anything for that. And that's how I got security financially and physically. And so I I learned about an escorting service. And I quickly learned that they were in charge. You did what they said. They started feeding me drugs and it started this cycle. Then I didn't have a choice of the customers that I took on and I didn't have a choice anymore. And they were in charge. And uh, I luckily was able to get out of that escorting service after a year of being involved in that. And I told myself, you know, if you go to the strip club, you get to choose your customers that you sit with. And they glorified it. I know people that worked there that my mom, I didn't mention this, but my mom was a dancer when I was growing up. So it was always around me. I knew about it from a very young age. So it was just something I knew you could get a lot of money for. At 20 years old, I walked into that business and I made more money than a doctor that year. All of it wasn't cash tips from working on the stage. A lot of it was, you know, older gentlemen that come in from out of countries and out of towns that visit frequently throughout the year and they picked me to come in and spend time with. And I will say that nothing was legal that was done in those visits, you know, and I will be discretionary in that. But I do want to say that at a certain point after that first year, I didn't get a say in that either. They controlled where I lived because I rented from them. I always knew that I could go to them and have a house, but I knew what the expectation was that I would just listen, follow their rules, do what they say, and I could make as much money as I ever wanted to. Drugs became rampant. I started to do pills and cocaine and alcohol.

Chris Jones 18:56

Are you even 21 yet?

SPEAKER_02 18:58

No.

Chris Jones 18:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

I wasn't even supposed to drink at work, but I mean, I think we all know how that goes. And in fact, I was getting alcohol intoxication charges because I was walking home from work or I went out with friends, fight would break out, and I would be there, get arrested, go to the drunk tank, and get out the next day. And this happened over and over and over. I think when I finally got sober, I looked back at my record and I had 17 alcohol intoxication charges.

Chris Jones 19:26

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

I turned 24. This is where my story shifts a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

I started to get addicted to pain medication, pain pills, narcotics. A, first of all, I had a boyfriend that was a huge drug dealer, and back then the oxycotton world was blowing up.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

So that started my opiate addiction. This is gonna sound kind of off to certain people, but I want to say that when I say addiction, I mean I did it for several months and then I stopped. I didn't do drugs all the time. I did them in increments, and then alcohol was my main drug of choice. It numbed me. It numbed all the wounds, it numbed all the pain. I was able to do the things that I was doing in my life and not feel disgusting. It just numbed me in all sense of the ways. And that was where how I was coping.

Chris Jones 20:13

You were self-medicating.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Yeah. I ended up getting pregnant.

Chris Jones 20:17

And how old are you at this time?

SPEAKER_02 20:19

I was uh 23. And you know, I want to say that I stopped doing drugs and that, you know, oh, I have this epiphany, that this baby was a precious gift from God, because he was and he is. But that's not my story. I was in the midst of the cocaine addiction and I couldn't stop.

Chris Jones 20:36

You were deep in the thorns, as we say on the show, you were you were locked up.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Absolutely. I would stay up and I would feel my baby, and I would just be disgusted. I was so dark and so like just so without hope. There was no hope. At this point, I I realized that I was really not doing well. I reached out to my mom. They said I could come and stay with them. And so I was able to get off the cocaine. I was about five and a half months pregnant and I was malnourished. You know, I know this isn't always the story of moms that use while they're pregnant, but I'm so, so beyond grateful. My son had nothing wrong with him. I had the most healthy, beautiful little boy, and he is such a good kid. He's 18 years old now. I had him. He was perfectly healthy. And I look back on that and I think that's nothing but the grace of God because by all rights, what my by my choices, he would have been mangled. Like I know children come out born addicted with major, major deficits. And I just kept praying, Lord, don't let him suffer from my mistakes. These are my thorns. Don't let them be his, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

I was so thankful. And when I had him, I I struggled. We didn't know what it was then, but I had postpartum severely. I talk about in my life and in my past where there were moments where there were people that stepped in my life and tried to love on me. My aunt Patty, she She helped raise me. I called her and I said, Aunt Patty, I'm really scared, you know. And I asked her, Will you come get him and take care of him until I can get on my feet? And uh she said, Absolutely, I'm on my way. And she picked him up and she got all of his things and she says, sis, I'll take care of him. It's okay. Just get on your feet. I failed. The one thing that God meant for me to be is and I failed it. And so I went immediately where I knew to go is the the club to make quick money to get out on my own. And I did. I went, I went to work shortly after that, got an apartment. I had intentions on going back for that child. I had intentions on going back for my son. Oh my gosh, he's my son. How could I not? But you know, the little things that people don't understand about postpartum is I didn't have an emotional attachment to him. There was no emotional maternal attachment to that child. Like I loved him with my whole heart, but I did not connect on an emotional and maternal level with him. So when my aunt Patty took him, that was her child from that moment on. I never got him back. It was a year later, and I went out one night while we were out on the block. And then people make fun of me now when I tell my little church friends now, yeah, we hung out on the block with 40 ounce in our paper bag hand, and you know, we just hung out, you know? And I was hanging out and somebody did a shooting and it ricocheted and it bounced off the concrete and it went up my leg. So I had to go to the hospital. Right before this took place, a girl that was there was jealous of this guy that I was hanging out with because I only had like one or two beers. I was wasn't even gonna drink. She slipped some Xanexes in my drink and I blacked out. So it kicked in right when all this happened. And I went to the hospital. Didn't know my name, didn't know who I was, what I was doing there. I was unruly. You know, they called the police. And so I got put in the back of a cop cruiser. And when he threw me in that cop cruiser, I kicked up and to get myself on my feet and I kicked him in his chest. I had no money. My family, come on now, they weren't coming for me. I can guarantee they didn't, you know, they didn't care. And so I went to jail for an assault on an officer. The judge is like, you're gonna get five years probation. I'll probate this sentence, though, if you go to rehab. I went to rehab, I went and stayed nine months, and I never completed anything in my life. So, right when I was about to complete that program, I was like, this is a little too good for me. I'm gonna go ahead and mess everything up again. So I ran away, ran for my problems because how do you face them? How do you really stop and face your life at this point and all the things that you failed at, all the things that happened to you? At this point, there's no turning back. Funny thing about not completing treatment, they make you do what they said. So they sent me off to jail for five years. I got out in 2012. This was from 2008 to 2012, is when all this kind of took place. So I got out and went back home to the same place. I went to work after I went out at the strip club. I had a scooter. I was on a scooter then. It's funny to think about. And I'm at I'm leaving the strip club in my little scooter, right? And I'm leaving and I wrecked, took me to the hospital. This is where the addiction started for me and pills really bad. The doctors prescribed me opiates and a lot of them. This is when the opiate addiction started to really take place. Doctors would just give you medication like nobody's business. You could get it anywhere.

Chris Jones 25:09

Pain management clinics popped up everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Oh, yes, yes. I started doing this and I was on pills for about six or seven months, and I ended up getting pregnant. Addiction doesn't stop because you get pregnant. I know in the world that we think that it should, and it should. By all means, you should be like, yes, this is a reason to stop. But the truth is, is when you're in the grips of addiction, you know that you're gonna have to physically detox off this medication. And I went to a doctor and he said, you detox and this baby dies. So they started prescribing me. Back then it was subutax or subox, and I don't know which one. It was one you could take when you were pregnant, one you couldn't. So they're like, you have to take something now or the baby will not make it. I had my son. So I found myself back in the strip club, working nights, going to school during the day, all the while trying to raise this baby on my own because the dad wasn't really helping at all. And then I ran out of Suboxan. They didn't cover it on the medical insurance like they do now. You had to pay out of pocket. Well, I didn't have $300 a week for that prescription. Now I'm addicted to another substance. I stopped the Suboxan, ended up doing pain pills because I could afford them more than I could, and they it was easy to access at the strip club, you know. Started to realize I couldn't afford those either. And someone introduced me to heroin. There's so much to heroin in that world of addiction. It's a just different, just a whole nother beast. And then it quickly took me down within a month. And I ran into a drug dealer, and this is crazy to hear out loud, but he said, This isn't you. You need to go get help. And my drug dealer gave me money and told me to go to the methadone clinic that I needed to get away from that because he's seen I was going to college all the while. I'm still going to college. I'm still showing up to class. I'm still paying people to watch my baby so I can work at night. I am still trying to keep it together with all my might. I took the money and I went to the methadone clinic. I never been around anybody on methadone. I never knew what the methadone clinic was about. My son was five months old. I had been there about six days. They herd you in like a cattle. Like you just get in this big line and you go to the nurse desk and it's like this glass wall in front of you, and they give you this dose. You take it and you go on to your next part of your programming in there. The amount of people that was in that line was it was wrapped outside the building. I and my treatment plan was supposed to stay at 35 to 40 milligrams methadone a day. If you know anything about that kind of milligram of dosage, I had no business even being on that. I wanted to do what they called a tapered detox, a rapid detox. I wanted to go in, do this for a couple weeks, and be done. Taper me down so I can be off of it. I wanted to be done. This is the first time in my life where I'm like, I love this little boy. He deserves better. I'm gonna be the mom. I did have an emotional, mental, and physical connection with that baby. I did love my son very much. This was a totally different experience. I wanted to do better for him. My aunt Patty, she's like, sis, you could do this, you know. And she was letting me see my son. And she was supporting me, you know, telling me if I needed to help watching Liam that she would help me. You know, that's my little boy. I was really trying. I had some good people in my corner trying to root me on. On the sixth day of going to this methadone clinic, they upped my dose to 60 milligrams. They did not tell me. It looked like a lot more. And I asked the nurse at the window, like, hey, this looks, are you sure this is mine? It looks like too much. I don't think I'm on this much. And she's like, that's up to your doctor, prescribing doctor. It has nothing to do with me. I just clicked your name and this is what's in here. You'll have to talk to them. You're having a therapy session after this, go ask them. And I drank and I didn't have a choice. She was like, You either drink it or deny your dosage. If you deny your dosage, they kick you out of the program. So I was like, Oh my God, I was terrified. You know, I'm relying on something once again to let me function. I needed this to function. I went to that therapy session, everything was fine. Talked about how I felt about the dosage, asked what was going on. She said she'd look into it for me, see if they did something different or got it mixed up. I left, I went home, everything was normal. My babysitter, who's a dear friend of mine. And she said, Hey, you know, Liam had thrown up a little bit, and I tried to wipe him up, but he might need a bath, you know, before you all lay down. And I was like, Yeah, okay. Me and Liam, we connected. This baby, I told you, it was just a different feeling, Chris. It was such a different feeling. It was for the first time in my life. I loved something that was so beautiful and it was a part of me. And I was like, oh my gosh, God, what a beautiful feeling. You know, thank you for giving me this baby. I loved him so much.

Chris Jones 29:34

You felt like this was the good thing in your life.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Yes. He was the light of my life. We had such a sweet relationship, and him and I, we'd get a bath and he'd play, and you know, we'd take baths together. And, you know, we did things like that because I was told when you have skin to skin with the baby that that helps, you know, that that helps that bond. So we always did skin to skin, took warm baths together and stuff like that. I had a roommate that one of the girls that was working at the bar, she had got off work too. She was in the other room, her and her baby was sleeping. So I took a bath with Liam. What they don't tell you about the methadone is when you sit down, you go to sleep. And I had no idea. I had no idea. And I took a bath with my son, and I just remember laying in the bathtub and just really quiet and peaceful, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

And just the next thing I know, I'm being pulled out of the water, the water in my roommate. She's like, Amanda, you gotta get up, you gotta get up. And he's not moving, he's not moving, and you know, I was just like, What do you mean he's not moving? You know, we were moving. It was just like I was out of this realm of reality. It was just a nightmare. And I got out and I was able to compose myself just a little bit. And I started CPR and I told her, like, you know call 911 immediately. I just remember working on him, and you know, when I close my eyes, I can remember it the same right now, today. What do you look like? And that's an image that'll never be out of my mind. You know, spent in water. He's trying to, you know, I'm trying to get him back. I'm trying to get him back. I'm brain and the whole time. God please save him. And everybody's coming outside. My cousin's coming outside, my uncle's coming outside, the ambulance is there, and they're working on him for a long time. The police are asking me what happened, and I was like, you know, we were just taking a bath and I fell asleep and I worked all night because I did. And they took him to children's hospital, and I ended up going to children's hospital. And when I walked in, I knew they, you know, everybody was just really still. And they pulled me in a room and he was gone. And um at this point, my family called my dad. My dad showed up at the hospital, and I was out of it. You know, I was still high on this medication that these doctors had just given me. I had no idea what was going on. I was so confused. I couldn't understand what was happening. I thought it was a dream. I just kept it was so crazy. I can't even hardly explain that.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

And, you know, I got to stay at the hospital with my son for several hours. I think mostly because they were trying to keep me awake to where they could take me to another hospital and and do the labs and blood test on me and see what was going on. And, you know, I'm really thankful to this day. And I pray that if if this officer ever hears this, you know, he was friends of mine.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

We went to school together, and he was so kind to me, and he didn't treat me bad. And he said, Amanda, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

He was like, I know how much you loved him, and he was so gracious to me in that moment, and he was kind and he didn't let anybody treat me bad. He he took me to the hospital, and the media, the media was going crazy.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

It was it was so hard because I'm grieving, and now I gotta do it publicly. And the the media was hunting me down, trying to get an interview with me, and my dad rescued me from the hospital, and he picked me up and he took me with him and my stepmom. And he still took me to the methadone clinic every day because I had to have that. I couldn't function without it.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

I had to get through the funeral, and at this point, I was empty. Once the tears and and the realization of what happened set in, I went to my son's funeral. And I remember walking around, you know, that Charlie, Charlie Brown thing where that principal's like, won't, wah, wah, wah, and the speakers, it was like everybody around me was doing that. I couldn't understand words. All I remember is my sisters, my stepsisters, my sister, my cousins on my dad's, you know, wife's side of the family, they all showed up for me. And my family members showed up, and nobody was mean to me. Everybody was just, you know, they felt really bad for me. And I'd never seen anybody from the shoulders up. I couldn't look anybody in the eyes. I couldn't look anybody in the face because how did I let this happen? You know, how did this happen? This is my fault. And um I didn't deserve to live. I wanted to die so bad after that. I tried, in fact, for like three months straight after this happened to die. I did as much heroin as I could possibly consume. I took a month off. The owner of the strip club where I worked, I was renting from her. She was like, Amanda, take all the time you need. Don't worry about rent. Don't they knew I love my child. They knew I was in so much pain and, you know, you know, as toxic as that environment was in the strip club, I think that they were doing what they knew how to do, what they grew up in doing. And I look back on it, I don't think they were bad people. I think they were just doing what they knew best, you know, product of their own environment. And things changed. And then I couldn't go back to work because then everybody was talking about me and they were judging me, and the media was hunting me down. It was like a witch hunt. They was trying to find me everywhere. And I want to say, my dad, my dad, my dad. That's when our relationship just shifted so beautifully. He loved on me and he took care of me. He was so broken, but it wasn't like when I was a little kid again. It was now he stood up for me. Yeah, he stood up for me, he was there for me. He didn't care what people thought. He knew how much I loved that little boy and he knew how good of a mom I was to him. And that impacted me for the rest of my life. And I, every since that moment in my life, my relationship with my dad has been really good. It's been very good. He healed a part of me, that little girl that craved her dad her whole life. He healed that in that moment. God did. They knew that I wasn't gonna go on in life on my own accord. I was gonna end it. And I have plans. I had plans. I just hadn't have access. And my dad made me stay at home. He didn't let me go anywhere out of his sight. This man who worked for a living, a blue-collar man, took off work for weeks because he had to be with me at all times. So I didn't do anything, you know? He took care of me. Finally, I told him I was ready to go back to my apartment. And I got there, and my son's empty crib was there and all these things, and I couldn't do it. I left. I started saying that boyfriend that shot me by accident. I started staying with him and he's on heroin. And I thought, here we go. This is how I'm gonna do it. This is how I'm gonna kill myself. And so I started snorting it. No more methadone clinic. I started snorting heroin, started working in a strip club outside of the one that I was at. They didn't know me there. I never looked people in the eye. I was the lowest scum of earth. I didn't deserve anything. Like I was punishing myself so bad. And it was only a matter of time before I took myself out. Three months later, December 2nd, 2013, the police arrested me for reckless homicide in the state of Kentucky. No matter if it's an accident or not, if somebody loses their life and you can be held responsible, you will be charged. I got arrested. They took me to booking. You know, booking was my second home for years. I knew all the officers. Some of my friends were sergeants there. They hugged me. It wasn't, that's not allowed. They hugged me. They they sat me down. I was on suicide watch. I had to stay in front of them and open booking where I seen people come in and out that knew me, officers, you know, they would just look at me and say, I'm really sorry for your loss. You know, first time in my life, the cops were actually not treating me like crap. They've just genuinely felt really sad for me. And one of the officers, the deputies there, Miss Chandler, she sat down next to me. She hugged me and she said, I'm so sorry, baby.

SPEAKER_03 38:07

I'm so sorry. She said, I've been following you on Facebook, and I know how much you love that little boy and how much you changed your life for him, and how much you were trying to get back on your feet, and I'm so sorry. And she hugged me.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

They put me in a turtle suit, and I'm cold and I'm naked under this green piece of fabric with no kind of comfort at all. No, it's not just paper, you know. And I'm laying there and I just beg God to kill me.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Just God, take me out, take me so I can be with Liam and you. I don't want to be here anymore. There's no sense in me being here anymore. There's no purpose. There can be no purpose left on this earth for me. I'm no good to anybody. Just take me out. And I cried. And I cried and I cried and I cried for days. I cried. I cried my soul out until I couldn't cry anymore.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

I was dehydrated and they sent me to the hospital and I had to get fluids. I wasn't eating. I was trying to kill myself, you know. Just trying to go, I was trying, and uh they put me upstairs in the group in the public open dorm. They called me a baby killer. The media was all over the news. It's all they could talk about. Mom fell asleep after partying all night at the bar, which they had no idea. I had one drink that night, by the way. I do want to preface that and say, you know, I didn't have a high blood alcohol content level, and it was just the methadone in my system. So I didn't have any illegal drugs in my system. You know, everything I had in my system was legal. They're like, you need to fight this. And I had the public defender's office, who she's now the prosecutor of that county. She was my lawyer back then. I was there nine months, Chris, and I called home to talk to Aunt Patty and my son Jordan, who at this time doesn't know him as mom. Aunt Patty, you know, we discussed that my life was chaotic. Let's let him have a life that he deserves with parents that are raising him. And I was totally okay with that. Uh and so he knows me as Mandy, his cousin, right? And he he told her when I was on the phone, he seen it on the news, that I had fallen asleep in the bathtub with my son, and my son had drowned. He said, Mommy, if we would have watched Liam for her, she could get a nap and he would have stayed alive. We should have helped her. He was five years old at that time. And I said, Aunt Patty, don't let him watch the news again until this is over, please. Just be careful. That conversation happened. I hung up the phone. I called my attorney. I said, take a plea deal right now, five years, get this out of the media. I want this done now. She said, Amanda, don't do this. I can win this case for you. I said, My son and my family are suffering. Nothing they could give me in that court will ever change the life sentence I've given myself. They came back and she said they offered you five years to serve. I said, I'm taking it. Get the court date signed. I want out of here. I want shipped out immediately. I'm not gonna sit in this county jail anymore. My family are suffering. They need closure and they need to move on in their life. And as long as I'm here, they're not gonna leave my family alone. As long as this isn't closed, they're not gonna leave them alone. They're gonna harass them. And that's what happened. I took that five-year deal. I went in front of the judge and he said, Miss Mackenzie, I'm so sorry this happened to you. He said, We all make choices in life. I truly think that you're trying to do the very best for your son. I'm sorry this happened to you. It's the first time where I have to hand down a sentence that I don't think I should. By the law in front of me, I have to hold you accountable. And he gave me my five years. You know, I just made a really quick public statement because the media was there, and I said, This five years isn't anything compared to what I'll give myself for the rest of my life. I said, Thank you for your time. I appreciate your kind words, and I'm just ready to move on and get this over with so my family can grieve. And he said, I understand, I respect that. And they sent me down to Casey County, and I did three years doing the same road crew. God sent me right back to the place where He sent me before.

Chris Jones 41:56

Did you have the same kind of experience you had before?

SPEAKER_02 41:59

I was worried that they would judge me. And I think initially some did, but these women that worked there, they knew me. They knew me. They'd grown attached to me like their own daughter. They loved me like their own. And so I got put on a road crew with the same woman, and she told me, Amanda, I know you love that little boy. I know you. I know you'd never hurt your child intentionally. I know that you love him, and I know that you're hurt. And she said, and I love you, and I'm gonna be here for you. And that woman loved me until I could love myself. There's some days all I could do was go on that road crew and cry. Quiet tears just streaming down my face, just grief, the loss, the the sadness, the emptiness, the hopeless, just completely just and utterly broken. And during those tears that I shed, God started to heal my heart a little bit at a time. Over those three years, I I started to be able to talk to people and look people in the eye a little bit, maybe, you know, and and my time was coming, so I had to find somewhere to go. And, you know, I didn't have anywhere to go. I I didn't care any either either, honestly. I didn't care where I went. And uh, so somebody said there was a halfway house in Louisville you could go to, and the lady's like, yeah, we'll take you. I knew I needed recovery. I knew that if I was ever gonna have a chance of living any kind of life, that I had to go and get in some sort of environment where I was, you know, okay. My cousin was like, You should come here to Maddie's house. I went to Maddie's house. It was at the west end of Louisville. I stayed at that halfway house for about four months, maybe five months. And I finally decided I was gonna go live with one of my friends I met in jail. We were best friends, and she had her own house. And, you know, I was tired of living with people. My whole life I had did community living, group homes, and foster homes. And, you know, I never had a place of my own. I knew if I went to Kelly's house, Have my own room, it'd be a little peaceful place, you know. Well, when I moved in, I didn't know she smoked meth. You can't go to a house in meth and not do meth. Come on, I'm an addict at heart. I've got all this trauma that's unhealed. And eventually, like everything in drugs, it got crazy. Again, guess what happened? I found myself pregnant. And I thought, God, you can't be serious right now. Why would you ever give me a child after what just happened? Why would you do it? I was so angry, Chris. I was so angry. And it was beyond the point of abortion. I called and tried. I called. I was like, this there's no way. And and and I had to go through this conversation and the whole time I'm sobbing because it's against everything I believe in. I'm sobbing. Even just a phone interview. I thought, there's no way I can go in person and do this. There's absolutely no way I can do that. I cannot knowingly kill my child. There's no way I can do this. And I I called Miss Deborah back at Maddie's house and I said, Mama, she's another person that God put in my life when I needed them the most. And I called her late at night. It was raining. And I had a little box of baby clothes. It was out of season. They weren't even going to fit my kid. And I had a couple bags of stuff for myself. And I said, come get me. We put them in her little car and drove back, and I never looked back. That was the last time I done drugs. I stayed at Maddie's house for a couple months. And I ended up having to figure something else out. I was going to have a baby. I was six months pregnant. You can't have kids there. And I was praying. And in that program, Miss Len Reese from Southeast would come and bring celebrate recovery to us. And she'd say, Amanda, I know a great program for you. And I'm going to bring you an application. And out of respect for Miss Lynn, I just loved her. She's precious. And I was like, okay, sure, yeah. And I had no intentions on filling that application out. I had, I had a plan. I had a plan. I was six months pregnant. I was working at the Bob Evans, and I was gonna, I was gonna get me a little apartment in the hood. Me and my little baby, we was gonna be all right, right? I was so far from reality. I was so, yeah, it was not. I laugh with the girls I sponsor today, and they say, I have a plan. And I'm like, oh, okay, let me know how that works out. The next day, she brings me this application, and I'm like, thank you, Miss Lynn. I thought that I gave her a hug and told her I'd fill it out. I had to go find some work pants. And uh, we went to clothes mentor on Dixie Highway. It's not even there anymore. I we're in this aisle, and the place was called Hosea's house with the application. And Miss Deborah is a very observant person. She sees everything around her, people's shirts. She's known for like reading people's shirts. It's funny. And she looks up and she's like, Oh, Hosea's house. We just heard about that place. And this lady, this beautiful blonde woman, piercing blue eyes. She looks like she could be a Barbie doll. Can't be much older than me. She looks us and she says, Oh, yeah. And I said, Yeah, I'm supposed to call Teresa. I'm supposed to call her for an interview. And she said, What's your name? I said, Amanda. And she looked me in my eyes and she said, I've been praying for you all morning. And I said, What do you mean? And she said, I'm Teresa.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

I am Teresa. The night before that happened, Chris, I hit my knees, which isn't easy when you're six months pregnant. Let me just say that. And I hit my knees and I cried out to him and I sobbed. And I said, Lord, please, if you send me help, send me help and I'll raise this baby to know you. I'll raise him to know you, Lord, and he'll never know the life that I lived. He'll never know it. Just send me help. And that very next day, he sends this beautiful woman in the earring aisle of the closed mentor on Dixie Highway. Every moment where I ever felt unseen, and every moment and every flashback where I felt alone, that God didn't see me, every prayer that I cried out and said, God, how could you do this? Why would you do this? Why would you do this? Why would you do that? How did you let this person hurt me? All those moments came to a stop. And he said, I never left you. I've always loved you. I never left you. And I'm sending you the help. I did the interview. I went to Hosea's house two weeks later. I surrendered my life to Christ. That was 10 years ago. I began a journey of healing. Teresa sat me down one day. I don't get ready to have this baby. And she said, What are you going to do when this CPS comes for your son? And I was offended. What do you mean CPS come for my son? I'm sober. I'm doing the right thing. I'm in this program. I'm doing all these things. It takes one second for them to look into your record, Amanda. What are you going to do? And I was like, I don't know. What do I do? And she said, You take every parenting class you can take. You take every Bible study course you can take, anything and every program I can find for you, I'm going to enroll you in it and you're going to take it. And you're going to get certificates and you're going to have a folder this thick. And when you go in front of that judge, if the CPS gets involved, they're not going to have a reason to take your son. I went to Beside You for Life. It's a place where moms that are either thinking of abortion or contemplating abortion or adoption or have single moms, they need support. It's a Christian-based. It's here in the city of Louisville. Amazing. They did Bible studies, parenting classes. They give you a gentle parenting class because a lot of us come from traumatic violence situations. We don't know how to gentle parent. It's not something we were ever taught, you know. And it was so helpful for me. It taught me to be a mom. It taught me how to love and be gentle and kind and gracious to my children. Like it taught me how to be a good mom. God had placed a group of women around me that rallied around me, and I have never experienced this in my life, that loved me. These are professional women. These are women of God. These are women that have their life together. They showed up. When that CPS showed up at my hospital room at four o'clock in the morning, my friend that runs the WIC program now here in Jefferson County showed up. This is Amanda. She's a friend of mine. I know her personally. She's changed her life. They all rallied around me, Chris. In seven weeks, that CPS case was closed. It went from in the hospital, you're not taking your baby home. You better find somebody to take your baby. Within two hours, that same worker that had an attitude with me that was treating me less than ideal once she found out my past, you know, she changed her tune. God changed the shift of that situation.

Chris Jones 50:21

So this time, instead of your world collapsing around you, the world rallied around you.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

That little girl, that nine-year-old little girl who had no one to protect her, finally was able to be protected, finally able to feel safe, finally able to have that family that I longed for my whole entire life. He lit a fire under me through these women. Then their narrative changed. It changed because at that point I vowed to never let my child experience the life that I did. Teresa said to me, You are going to raise him to not have to heal from his childhood. And I never looked back, Chris. I never looked back. I remained sober. I started to see my worth, who I was in Christ and not the world. I started to see that I was more than just what happened to me. I enrolled in college through a scholarship program. I got a degree. No one in my family had ever graduated college. I bought a house. I had another little boy. And me and his dad loved each other. And, you know, unfortunately, when he was 11 months old, trauma struck again. You know, people think when you get sober and your life has changed, it's like, oh, great. Yeah. Life still shows up. It still shows up. Things still happen. And in 11 months old, his dad passed away on a tragic motorcycle accident. There I am again, another loss that was so deep, that was so sad. And this time, though, I didn't get high. I didn't use drugs. I didn't use alcohol. I relied on the Lord to get me through that and carry me with his grace because every day I'm saved by grace and grace alone. I never want to forget that. I never want to, you know, think that I can do it on my own, you know, because oftentimes in people in recovery, we arrive, as they say. You arrive to this space where you think you've got it. I've got it. You know, those are famous last words, we call them. And I never want to arrive. I always want to continue to rely on the grace of God. He carried me through that. You know, today my kids get a mother that my son unfortunately didn't get to have. I always told the Lord that I would give back, I would serve in a capacity that I could. And it's through Celebrate Recovery. Every Thursday we meet. I'm on other subcommittees that involve recovery and housing in my neighborhood. But most importantly, just in my life, I walk alongside of people and I become that friend that I needed because I think that's the most important thing is that we don't have to fix people. Yeah. That's left up to the Lord. Let us just be a friend to them. Because sometimes all people need is that friend that just listen to them and love them and be there for them and show up. We just need to show up. And that's what I do. It's just second nature. I just show up. And God uses me how He needs to. And I let Him. I'm obedient to that because I know that it can change lives. You see people that are unseen.

Chris Jones 53:15

That is so powerful what you just said. When Teresa said, I've been praying for you, I can't help but think, you know, at that moment you felt seen by God.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

Absolutely.

Chris Jones 53:25

Now you could be a Teresa for somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

Yeah.

Chris Jones 53:28

That just speaks to it all. We can continue that on and do for others what was done for us. And if we keep doing that, then we can help heal the world.

SPEAKER_02 53:37

Absolutely.

Chris Jones 53:38

This is such an amazing story. What would you tell people who are hurting right now in their life?

SPEAKER_02 53:45

Never think that you're too far gone. Don't give up. Reach out and ask for help. I see you.

Chris Jones 53:51

If people want to get in touch with you or they have questions, is there a way they can get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_02 53:57

Absolutely. They can email me, amandalen12213 at gmail.com. You know, if you're looking for recovery, if you're looking for support for grief, human trafficking, I can get you help if you need help. Reach out to me and and I'd love to be, I'd love to be there for you.

Chris Jones 54:14

Amanda, you're a walking, talking miracle. There's no other way to say it. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for loving other people.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

It's a pleasure to be here, Chris. Thank you for having me.

Chris Jones 54:24

Thank you. From broken to healed to helping. As we move from the thorns and we move towards life, God's healing isn't fully revealed until it's shared. Remember to follow so you don't miss the episodes that's coming. And please share the sauce to those who need it. And remember, when you have the chance to throw the rock, throw the rock. And I'll see you in two weeks on the next episode.