Zoe's Story

A Story of Hope

When I was younger I lived on a council flat estate and whilst in primary school I was bullied for where I lived and for not having any money. This rejection affected my self-worth in a huge way, and it became the root of all my problems.  At comprehensive school, where I decided I would do anything to fit in, I started rebelling in a big way: drinking, smoking, trying solvents, taking drugs, having sex and wagging school.

Then I got involved in the rave scene where I got into E’s, speed and LS. I loved it, this is the love that I’d been looking for, or so I thought. When I had the E’s I felt love for everyone and I became a confident and happy person. Gradually though my confidence turned into paranoia and my self-worth got worse. I gradually got into heroin and then I smoked heroin, it numbed me. I didn’t feel the rejection, the loneliness, the shame, the guilt, the feelings of no self-worth, so I carried on taking it as I didn’t feel all the hurt I was carrying.
 
Before I knew it I had three boys. I was so lost, hurting, alone and broken that I became a very selfish and hard-hearted woman, only thinking about my own needs. Over the 20 years I'd been in and out of prison, homeless for roughly the last 10 years and on and off in bad relationships for the past 15 years. Life was hard.

Whilst I was in Peterborough prison I used to see the Prison Worker from the Jericho Road Project who used to pray for me, fetch me clothes in and she helped me get a place set up in Leicester to do my tag there.
God was definitely drawing me to him with his cords of loving kindness because whilst in prison I read a book I’d got from the chapel by Gram Seed, “One Step Beyond”, and after reading it I can remember thinking if big hard blokes can find and believe in God, then there definitely must be something in it.

Jericho Road referred me to Hope House, the girl's centre in South Wales, in September and it has been the making of me. I thought my life was done, that I would be living on the streets, taking drugs and feeling worthless for good. Now life is now completely different