My name is Lita. I’m a mid 40’s mother of 3, legal guardian of four more,  and multiple pet owner. I’ve frequented mental health facilities since I was 14. The diagnosis got worse over time. 

I’m a Hispanic woman from East LA. I was raised single handedly by my mother,  a hard working woman who dedicated all her time to keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table. My father lived nearby but was more of a shadow I chased through my childhood hoping for his love and affection. 

My father was a cold Jewish man from New York who was raised in the foster care system while his parents chased stardom. He used this as an excuse why he was unable to love me. 

My mom,  a third generation Latina from a strict household. She was the baby of her family.  From what I get,  she was a little spoiled.  She knows what she wants and works hard to maintain her favored lifestyle.  That included working seven days a week and 12 hour days. 

I was her only child till I was 18. I was cared for by my grandma who barely watched me.  I spent my childhood riding bikes on the street,  walking barefoot to play with the neighbors,  and digging holes in the back yard by myself. 

I walked to and from school alone.  I actually had a key on a string around my neck.  I let myself in,  prepared my own snacks,  and attempted to do some homework with no help. 

My mom put me in weekend classes at ELAC for tutoring. She signed me up for the swim team.  But I went to practice alone.  

My friends all had both parents.  They were strict Catholics.  Today I feel as if they took me in hoping to save me.  I went to church with them,  studied the bible with them,  had meals with them,  and of course played with them.  

My gramma was a Sunday school teacher and also had me studying her religion.  Both my parents were atheist and laughed at me if I showed belief in anything I was being taught about God. 

Being an only child with no male role models,  I lacked human interaction.  I never learned about male relationships.  I didn’t know how to be social.  I always felt awkward around people.  I thought it was strange for siblings to be close,  warm,  and loving.  I didn’t know how to be warm.  I hated for people to touch me.  No hugs,  no hand shakes,  just don’t touch me!

At 10 years old,  I found a letter from my dad to my mom asking her to leave him alone.  It basically stated that he didn’t love me and wanted nothing to do with me.  He wanted us to leave him alone so he can raise his new family in peace. 

I loved my daddy before then.  That was a huge turning point.  My first heartbreak. Around the same time,  my mom left a ten year relationship with a man I loved like a dad. Jim took us camping,  fishing,  and 4x4ing. Now that was over too, and my mom replaced him quickly.  I hated her new boyfriend! That’s when I began to act out. I stopped reporting to her where I was.  I stopped coming home on time.  I started to make acquaintances with the other troubled kids in the neighborhood. 

I went from studying the bible with the catholic girls to breaking into the attic of the local Union Hall and using it as a club house. 

When I was 11, a little gang member girl started to bully me and my catholic friends.  She would walk by my yard and threaten us if we played outside.  She told us to go inside and that we weren’t allowed to be in our yard. One day I finally decided to stand up to her.  She came with another homegirl and a homeboy followed them on his bike.  Bambi had a 40 ounce beer in her hand.  She stopped in front of my yard and yelled at us to get inside.  She was 14 and had a reputation of a bad girl.  I stepped out of the yard as she broke her bottle against a car and pointed the jagged edge at me as if she was going to slice me with it.  I blindly continued to approach her.  All I did was give her a little shove and she fell to the ground with her legs in the air.  Her homies laughed at her and left her there.  She got up,  dusted herself off and promised me she wasn’t finished with me as she walked away with her tail between her legs. The event gave me a great sense of power.  I learned not to ever walk away from a threat.  I realized these wanna be gangsters were actually weak minded attention whores. My catholic friends weren’t allowed to hang out with me anymore after that day. 

I lived next door to a four unit apartment building.  I played with the kids in every unit.  We all hung out together.  But the culture in that crowd was different.  All those kids were being raised by single moms.  Except one unit.  The upstairs unit outside my window was a druggy couple who fought violently everyday.  They beat their kids and gave them drugs.  My friend Yuck Mouth started smoking weed at 7 years old. All those kids smoked cigarettes and drank beer.  The downstairs unit outside my bedroom window consists of two boys and their single mom.  The older brother was four years older than me.  He was on the wrestling team in high school.  He was always a bully.  He constantly called me names.  He made up a nick name for me that stuck.  They called me Frankenstein,  Frankie, Frankie baby… because of my large forehead. I hated it! But those were my friends.  Plus, that wrestler had a nick name too. He was Moco, Bugar or Snot because he was always sucking down his snots with his throat.  

I would get so angry with snot I began swinging at him everytime he called me names.  He would get me in some kind of painful wrestling hold and I’d give up and leave.  He was popular with the girls,  but the neighborhood guys didn’t like him much.  Moco’s name calling progressed into violence.  He began snatching my belongings as I passed his house after school. I had to fight for my stuff.  I didn’t have anybody to defend me.  No brothers,  no cousins,  no scary uncles or a dad to intimidate people on my behalf.  I was free game.  

One day Bugar snatched my backpack off my back. It hurt and humiliated me.  All the neighborhood was outside watching and laughing.  The drug dealer across the street, Mel, sat on his porch laughing cynically. I chased Moco into his apartment determined to get my stuff back.  Moco body slammed me and put me in a position he called The Saturday Night Live. He somehow pried my legs open farther than ever.  He grabbed my privates as if he was trying to pull my vagina off my body.  I don’t know how I escaped but I ran home and went straight to the book shelf where my mom hid her 25 caliber handgun.  I was 12 years old.  I ran outside.  Snot was standing on the corner with a group of kids from the neighborhood.  I drew my weapon and everybody scattered.  Snot ducked behind a car pleading with me to put it down and claiming it wasn’t real at the same time. I clicked off the safety and aimed. Snot began to cry and everybody laughed.  I began to laugh at the sight of him whimpering in tears.  Now he was the target.  He was the center of negative attention.  He wasn’t the big bad wrestler anymore.  A kid came from behind me and asked if the gun was real.  I flashed it at him and he confirmed to Snot that it was real.  I allowed Snot to run in his house and I went home.  

I gained a whole new respect from the neighborhood.  Moco became the bullied.  The gang members started punking him everyday.  He got sucker punched and robbed.  I almost felt sorry for him. 

Im 13 now,  and hanging out with the drug dealer’s six kids.  I made them my new family.  I looked up to Mel like a dad. He would give me money and buy me stuff from the ice cream truck.  I was invited to have dinner with them every day. His kids and I walked to and from school together.  He was so comfortable with me,  he’d conduct business in front of me.  I became familiar with all his customers.  One is a Monterey Park politician today.  Lol!

Now the neighborhood gang was trying to recruit me.  The guys liked how I carried myself.  They respected me for standing up for myself. Plus the fact that I was accepted by Mel put me up higher on the recruitment list. 

But my family valued education.  I was still into school.  I was in the choir and the bannerettes/band. I continued to get good grades and took honors English classes.  In elementary school,  I was tested with a high IQ and put in a magnet school.  I worked towards being accepted into a medical magnet high school until it was determined I didn’t live in the right neighborhood to attend that great school. I got moved from LAUSD to the Montebello school district where there was no advanced classes or college prep. Honors English was the best I could do there.  

In the mean time,  my friends were starting to ditch school,  smoke weed,  and sell drugs. Getting drugs was easy.  Mel was a drunk and often ingested his own drugs.  We’d find him passed out on the couch with liquor bottles,  pounds of weed,  and pills scattered all around him.  He had a huge fish tank in the entry way with guns as decor in the tank.  He threw in the grill of his Rolls Royce too. His oldest daughter would stuff a couple sandwich bags with weed and we’d sell it at school.  We also sold his pills.  

At 14 I began to lose interest in school.  I started drinking and attending ditching parties.  I began hosting ditching parties in my mom’s home.  I started stealing her second car and driving it everywhere. By 15 I was kicked out of school and sent to a continuation.  

Fifteen years old, I found a boyfriend.  He was older than me. He drank,  smoked weed,  and used drugs. The sherriff’s would go by his garage frequently and beat him.  They’d come by and beat up anybody they found in the alley.  It didn’t matter what they were doing.  They could be working on their car and the sheriff’s would stop them and beat them.  Mel was popular with the sheriff’s. I watched him get beat several times.  Mel would laugh wickedly through the whole thing.  

My boyfriend was an abusive cheat.  He cheated on me with Mel's  daughter/ my best friend.  He slapped me around.  He kicked me in the face once and broke my jaw the day after prom. Yes prom! And I somehow graduated from Montebello High School. 

Now Im done with school,  fresh out of a long term relationship,  jaws wired shut, no clue about college,  no knowledge of credit or bank management,  no job experience,  nothing to do nowhere to go.  My relationship with my mom is almost non existant.  She had given up on me.  She actually took Tough Love classes and learned how to push me out of her heart and home.  She literally changed the locks and didn’t let me in.  I never stole from her.  I never took undesirable people to her house.  I never hit her.  She just didn’t like the person I had become. She was infatuated with her 6 year boyfriend and had a baby from him a month before I graduated.  She missed my high school graduation because of the baby. And she hated me enough to throw away all my high school memories.  She threw out my pictures from my trips to Hawaii and Florida with the band.  She threw out my cap and gown.  She even threw out my year books.  She was the poster girl for Tough Love. 

Im 18 and the neighborhood is still trying to get me to join the gang.  My best friend just got jumped in and I was hanging out like I was one of them but I continued to turn them down.  I didn’t feel like getting jumped at  all. 

One day,  my friend hosted a hood bbq. I still had my jaw wired shut. Everybody seemed to disappear into the house.  Finally,  the door opens and im called inside.  As soon as I stepped in, I found the girls standing in a circle waiting for me.  I got jumped in by eight girls for 30 seconds. I was flattered that they went through so much trouble for me and took on the role they gave me with a vengeance.  For the next 18 years I wrote on walls,  used drugs,  sold drugs,  stole cars,  robbed liquor stores,  shot at people,  got jumped and hit by a truck,  got raped, went to jail where I also got raped, then somehow,  at 35 I got “ jumped out”. I didn’t ask to get jumped out.  They were just tired of me.  I was making four thousand dollars a day and not sharing.  

One day I was selling crack to one of my regulars when my homeboy walked up and pulled out his 9 millimeter. It was 3 pm on a warm Sunday afternoon.  He yelled st the kids playing outside to run home because he was going to kill me. My customer ran too. He was satisfied enough to put his gun away.  But I wasn’t.  I jumped in my car and pulled up beside him.  I pulled out my 9 and pulled the trigger.  He fell to the ground in tears,  but he wasn’t shot.  I had forgotten to click off the safety.  He immediately went and told everyone I tried to kill him,  leaving out the details where he had threatened to kill me. Later that evening I got jumped, stabbed,  and dragged by my hair hanging outside of a moving car.

But that didn’t stop me.  I had too much pride and wasn’t about to allow those people to think they got the best of me.  I went back to where they hung out,  everyday,  and shot at them.  I tagged threats on their houses and changed my nickname frequently so they didn’t know who was writing on their houses.  I stood on my corner smoking weed and dealing drugs,  waiting for someone to say something.  I chased the girl who stabbed me out of the welfare office and watched her jump into a random moving car.  I held them at gunpoint and made them tell me that this was my neighborhood. In three months,  they all moved out.  Everyone who had jumped me was gone.  Their followers got shot at too. I wasn’t playing!

Back up a little,  I was disabled for two weeks after I got jumped.  I had just ruined with an old friend who just got out of prison and needed a place to stay.  He took care of me,  washed my clothes,  cooked and cleaned for me.  He was just a friend so when he disappeared two weeks later,  it didn’t bother me much.  I gathered his stuff and put it away neatly in the garage. But a week went by and he returned.  But he came hi on something,  pounding on my door demanding me to let him in.  By this time,  paranoia had set in. I was on edge,  peeking out my window for anyone who wanted to finish me.  I kept a gun in my pocket at all times,  even to use the restroom.  So when this guy showed up pounding on my door like a mad man, I drew my weapon.  I told him to leave and shoved him down the stairs.  It seemed as if he was gone.  I went into the garage to get his stuff,  but he caught me.  He came up behind me and socked me in the temple,  knocking me out cold.  He kicked me repeatedly in the head causing me to get 20 staples.  My head is gushing, I came to and ran outside.  I caught him walking down the street with a girl and his stuff.  I ran up to them and began to beat the crap out of his girlfriend.  I ran home and jumped in my car and ran over sidewalks and islands trying to run them over. The police pulled up and asked if everything was alright.  Out of fear of the repercussions,  I said nothing,  hoping they would notice the blood all over my face and body.  The guy I was chasing said, “ Everything is fine,  sir.” And the police left.  I tried to drive myself to a hospital but began to lose consciousness.  I pulled over at the first phone booth and dialed 911. I waited 45 minutes,  sobbing on the ground.  They never showed up. I finally got in my car and drove myself to the hospital.  There,  they took a police report and promised they’d protect me. I didn’t hear from them again for four months.  In the mean time I was getting death threats on a daily basis.  

At 21 I became a single mom.  My mom watched my daughter for me while I was in jail,  while I used drugs,  while I went through all these crazy experiences.  My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD at 5 years old.  I had her in therapy,  I took parenting classes,  kept her in sports,  and kept up with her school events,  meetings,  IEPs, and defended her against bullies. I couldn’t keep a job because she had so much trouble with school. I had to drop what I was doing at least once a week to tend to her school issues.  Our relationship became just as toxic as mine and my mother’s. 

A year after all the violence,  I decided to go to Cosmetology school.  I started collecting cats and settled down for a while. I got into a relationship with a drug dealer and put up with his cheating.  At least he didn’t hit me. But eventually I hit tired of it.  I switched to barber school where I met my current husband. I had a second child with the drug dealer then soon found out about him bringing a prostitute in my home to service him.  I kicked him out.  That’s when my current husband made his move. 

Hubby came from a horrifying childhood! He was rough around the edges,  had no manners and knew no etiquette. We’ve grown together.  We were married a year later.  I had my third child and we took in five of his sisters kids.  Within months of taking in those kids,  we began to get job offers and better opportunities.  We were able to save up enough to open our own barbershop in DTLA and dedicate our time to paying it forward.  We cut hair on Skid Row, in local parks,  and riverbeds,  servicing the homeless community.  We provided a place to work for nine people.  We take in apprentices and teach them how to cut hair.  The kids are excelling in school and sports.  My life looks beautiful from the outside,  but I’m always depressed.  Im never satisfied.  I think about revenge daily.  I hate the government,  people,  and life.  But nobody knows how I feel.  Nobody knows my story.  

I went to therapy for 20 years.  Iv been diagnosed with bipolar, borderline personality disorder,  anxiety,  manic depression,  adhd, sleep disorder… among other stuff.  I’ve taken several different types of meds but never found the right one.  Now my mental health services have been discontinued due to lack of funding. Im coping fine on the outside,  but my mind is a an obstacle course in a dark room.