BabyJill is My Streetname, Because I Was so Young

Well this is my story and feel free to use it if you want. I was a horrible hateful kid, I had been hurt and abused sexually and I was just very mad and angry
all the time. I started drinking and smoking weed and dropping acid when I was in the sixth grade. Then during seventh and eigth grade (ages 12-14) I was staying out for days at a time, running away for weeks at a time, using much more hardcore drugs, and lost my virginity at 13.

Now then my freshman year of high school came around and my parents kicked me out of the house for having a party when they were gone, and I didn't think twice about leaving, but I didn't think it would really be permanent so I jsut packed this small bag and left.

I stayed with friends mostly for a while, and then friends of friends, and then
friends-of-brother's-uncle's-secretary's-friends and suddenly I realized I was totaly lost and a lot of bad things were happening to me at those places where I was staying, so I took it to the streets.

My friend Amy and I ran away to Atlanta and lived on the streets and it was reallly scary at first because a lot of the ragged old homebums there are
very terrritorial and also very cracked-out. To be perfectly honest it was all scary but it was also very fun and exiting in a way. After a few weeks we had met more people our age and were living in and out of local squats. We met so many people and everything was new and everyone was so cool.... so
weird and eccentric, unique and political.

However it didn't last long because after we had been living on the streets for a while we began to use heroin and that was just... I dont know, that was it
for us. We were never the same. We couldn't support our habits panhandling anymore so I started running for this guy .. meaning I would sell his drugs for him and return all the profits to him but I would get paid in drugs, and Amy started turning tricks.

Thats when things got very sad and there's just this long sad blank spot in my life that spans those years. I remember just crying a lot, whenever we thought about life we cried and cried and hugged each other. The things that we witnessed together were so terrifying and painful but we always had each other.

This is fast forward 3 years and we were both 17 now. Well see there was always periods of days when we wouldn't see each other, but it had been really weeks. Amy was still whoring and I will admit I was servicing men at times as well, but it wasn't really my job-job. But I was starting to get worried because I hadn't seen her. But weeks and even months went by and the novelty of my search for her had worn off, I had to assume she'd either died or gone home, but I was still very lonely and confused about it. But she came to see me, it was months since I'd last seen her and as soon as I saw her... I knew she was clean. Like for some reason she had really filled out a lot in those months. Well she wasn't fat or anything. But she jsut wasn't all hollow anymore like me. Plus her face looked different, it was a different color
and even a different texture, and her hair and clothes were clean.

She didn't say much except that she hated me and I had ruined her life, and i was such a fucking mess and how could i Live in all my filth? It hurt so bad and
it still hurts to even think about it. When she was gone I thought seriously about going home or into rehab, but I decided instead what I needed was a
change of scenery.

Now I am 22. I am finally off the streets and in my own apartment. My mom helps me all the time buying groceries and just giving advice and stuff, and my
sisters are always coming over to hang out with me. I have been clean for just over 8 months and I intend to stay that way. It's hard because of the way I wasted my youth away, I have missed so many things. Like an education, and just.. the whole teenage experience.

It hurts me the most I think is the education. I feel stupid a lot. I also feel.. like people are looking at me like I'm dirty, even though I am totally clean and I know that they are not really looking at me like that.

The reason I wanted to write this story down is I know that just reading what I have to say would probably cause anyone to run screaming in the other
direction--away from the streets. I have to work so hard not to be considered, and not to consider myself to be, white trash. All the people that were just
like me are the same, they are either now dead or dying. I would never wish it on anyone, living on the streets. It isn't fair to you or or your family. You
think you're running from the pain, but you're really just diving headfirst into the worst pain of your life.

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