16, Addicted, Pregnant: My Motherhood Story

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Here's Terry Neal with her story, beginning with her childhood. The earliest memories of me, like four or five, I knew what drugs were. It was just out in front of us.

It wasn't hidden. You know, they were so wrapped up in their addiction, they just used kind of in front of us. I could remember just being at different houses, like I would be with her aunts or our grandma or just back and forth. There was fighting between both families. When I was one, my mom did leave my dad, and she met my stepdad about a week later and started using heroin with him. So me and my sister were constantly back and forth between my mother and my father.

My dad wasn't addicted to heroin, but he was an alcoholic and addicted to other, like, psychedelic drugs. So we weren't cared for really well. My mom started getting arrested when I was almost two, so she was in and out of jail a lot. So when we were with her, me and my sister were with my grandmother, her mother, and my grandmother didn't just have us. She had my cousins and I and my sister. Out of my mother's family, there is five children.

All of them were drug addicts. So we weren't cared for as well as we were supposed to be because, you know, my grandma struggled having to take care of a lot of her grandchildren. At one point, there was, like, ten of us in one home with my grandpa and her. We didn't get our own bed. A lot of us slept on the floor, in the living room, on the couch. It was, you know, the hard part about it was that, like, my grandma and my grandpa worked a lot to try and provide for us so we weren't cared for properly.

You know, not that it's their fault. It was just, you know, too many kids. So there were times where we didn't have food.

You know, we weren't taken care of properly. I was not in school very often. There were times where my sister and I missed, like, two years of school. So, like, for me, I never went to the fourth or fifth grade.

I went straight from third to sixth grade. So there was a lot of missed opportunities or learning in our family as well because my mom was in and out of jail and using drugs. And when she was out here, she really wasn't taking care of us.

We kind of did what we wanted. So because my mom didn't really care, we didn't really care. Like, I didn't feel like I needed to go, so it wasn't really, like, an important thing. I remember because even when she was around, like, my grandmother would be the one, like, they need to go to school, she needs to go to school, you know, stuff like that. And then, so I remember, like, my mom would say, you need to pretend you're sick. Like, she would even encourage us so she didn't have to hear it from my grandma. So it wasn't like, it was just the norm.

It wasn't an important thing. And I think the only reason my mom would make us go, because back then, when you get welfare, which my mom got for us, you had to get things signed showing that your kids were in school. So I remember even when I got to junior high, my mom would just go, like, you need to go, like, just to get that thing signed off so we could get money.

Like, it was, school just wasn't important. I started using drugs and drinking at 11. I had joined a gang at 12.

I had been, you know, messing around and doing stuff that I wasn't supposed to do. I started hanging around gang members. Like, that's who we were partying with when we were younger. So, like, my girl cousins and they, you know, my girl cousin and, you know, some of us, we all hung out with the same gang members. And so we decided to join the gang.

It was just accepted in our family. My mom was in a gang. My dad was in a gang. My mom's brothers were in it. You know, they had it tattooed all over them. And when they were in and out of prison, too. So my stepdad was in it, too.

He was all tattooed up. So it's just the way we grew up. And that's kind of where, like, all the drug addiction, because when you're in a gang, you're doing drugs or being a part of this whole other world. And that's how my parents got involved in that as well. At the age of 12, my grandmother, my dad's mother, actually, not my mother's mother raised us, but she had talked to me about Jesus. And it was really hard for me to come to faith in Jesus Christ because my mom got saved in prison. But when she would talk about Jesus, she would say, like, Jesus saved me. I'm going to be sober.

I'm going to die. But then she would backslide, you know. And back then, when I was young, I would think, OK, whoever Jesus is, he don't work, you know. So I got saved at 12. But because I went home to the same chaos, nobody poured into me.

So I believed in God, but I didn't know who really Jesus was. So I had met a boy, partying, was on and off with him. My mom at the time had got arrested again. And back then, you would get a lot of prison time for certain things if you continuously reoffended. And so that time she had to go away for quite a while.

I believe it was almost three years that she went away. And in between that time, I started my freshman year of high school and I kind of just dropped out. My stepdad at the time, who was my brother's father, he was taking care of us, but he struggled with his addiction and also sold drugs and things like that.

So we were kind of like the drug dealer house in the neighborhood. So I really didn't have to go to school because he didn't make me. So at the age of 16, I had already been dropped out of school and I ended up pregnant at 16. I was scared. I didn't really believe that I was pregnant. I remember sitting at the age of 16, sitting at the clinic and thinking like it wasn't real, kind of. And I remember once the lady said, oh, you know, you're positive.

I just started crying, like uncontrollably crying because I think it just hit me. And mind you, I was still using drugs. I was still drinking and partying. So I remember her telling me, oh, no, it's OK. You know, you have options. And she gave me pamphlets. And I kind of didn't even look at the pamphlets because I was so scared and just not really sure like what was going on.

So I went home and I called my boyfriend and I said, hey, you know, I'm pregnant. And and I remember his reaction and I remember telling him, you know, oh, but we have options. And at the time I had already read the pamphlets and the pamphlets literally were just to abort my baby.

They weren't any other option but that. I just said, hey, you know, this is the choice. And he's like, no, we're not killing our baby. Like this is going to be my baby. You know, something kind of clicked in me.

I don't know exactly. You know, now that I'm older, I believe it was the Lord. But something clicked in me and I was like, OK, I got to make a change in my life. Like I said, I had been dropped out of high school. I was drinking, doing drugs and stuff like that. So I was like, I can't do this anymore. There were times in my life that I remember like going over a friend's house when I was little and seeing their mom or seeing how they live in their family or they have a nice house or like I never felt right.

So there were times that I remember that I thought like, well, that's different or that seems, you know, that must be normal or something. So I remember when I got pregnant, I had my son. I thought, you know, I don't want my kid to hurt. I don't want my son to see me go away or be on drugs because it hurt to see my mom like that. It hurt to not have her there, you know, even though like I was still, you know, doing drugs or drinking, stuff like that. You know, when you're a child, you always want your mother or, you know, your father. And we were so poor, like we didn't get clothes to go to the next school year.

You know, we were seeing the same old run down clothes, only one pair of shoes if it didn't have holes or anything, you know, which even sometimes because we didn't have, we would go still. And it's funny because when you grow up like that, you don't think anything of it until you see other people with, you know, better. But I know that when I had my son, that really woke me up because I wanted better. And we've been listening to Terry Neal share her story with us right up until the moment she got pregnant. And what a rough childhood she had. What a rough deck of cards she was dealt. Mom was an addict.

Dad was an alcoholic. Soon she was just about raising herself. Found her way into gangs, was doing drugs by the age of 11. At 16, she was a high school dropout and pregnant, but she and her boyfriend decided to keep their boy. And as she said, when I had my son, it woke me up.

I wanted better. When we come back, more of Terry Neal's story, a great overcoming story here on Our American Stories. And we're back with Our American Stories and with Terry Neal sharing her life story. After coming pregnant at 16, while she was in a gang doing drugs and drinking, Terry's boyfriend told her not to give up, to give their baby a chance at life. This led to a change in her life.

Let's return to Terry. Something switched in me where I was like, OK, I know I need to get a high school diploma because I need to get a good job and I need to get out of this house. I was still living with my stepdad at the time and my little brother, but I just knew that I needed to go back to school. At the time, the district had a teen parent program, so my sister helped enroll me and I began going back to school.

And that kind of triggered a series of events that were good. It was hard. My environment didn't change. My my stepdad was still selling drugs and using heroin and stuff like that. But I made a conscious decision every day to get up, go to school when I was pregnant. And then finally, at the age of 19, I did graduate high school. My son was almost three when I received that diploma.

But it just kind of helped me. I managed to get a job. My sister at the time got a house, so I moved out with her and my son for a while. And then I got pregnant again with our second child. During that time, I was still working odd jobs. And then I remember thinking once I got pregnant, like, there's no way I could continue doing this.

I hadn't moved out of anybody's house or got my own place. So I had my son, my younger son and my older son, and I went back to college. I ended up becoming a single mom. Me and their dad didn't stay together. So I then became a single mom and had to raise my kids.

And so at the age of 21, my younger son and my older son and I went back to college. And I was just going to get like a certificate of completion or something, because I remember saying when I when I went to college to sign up for classes, I told the college counselor I want to work in an office because at the time I was doing manual labor. I was like detailing cars and stuff. So I was like, I need a better job. And I just knew like an office.

I thought like an office would pay well. So when I did that, he kind of laughed at me. But he kept asking me, like, you know, what do you do? What have you always wanted to do? You know, things like that. And I remember when I was younger. It's a funny story, but when I was younger, I used to go with my mom to go see her parole officer. And I remember thinking, I want to be that lady because she tells my mom what to do. So I was like, I know when I was younger, I wanted to be a parole officer or something in law enforcement.

And so he's like, you could still do that. And so that kind of changed my my direction and what I majored in. So I ended up majoring in sociology.

They super encouraged me to continue to go. And I was the first person in both sides of my family to get a master's degree. So I have a master's degree in educational counseling.

I didn't go into parole or probation. I ended up liking the education side because I had the counselors that really motivated me to go. When I'm almost 30 in my master's program, because it's a counseling program, I had to choose a change. And I remember I was like, oh, I'm going to become more spiritual.

You know, so that was like my goal. And I was like, one of my young aunts had asked me to attend a Christian church here in our area. And so I went one day and I just remember I felt good.

That's all I remember. So when I chose the change in my master's program, you know, and you have to record it and write about it. I was like, I'm going to become more spiritual. So I'm going to attend church every Sunday, no matter what. And at the time, I wasn't using drugs or anything, but I was drinking and I drank a lot. I partied a lot with friends and going out to clubs and stuff. I was single and, you know, doing that.

So when I didn't have my kids, I would go out. But then, you know, because addiction runs in my family, it became almost, you know, alcoholism in a sense. So I go start going to church and I would literally still go when I was hungover. Like I'd be Sunday. I was that person Sunday morning, hungover in church.

And mind you, I was only going every Sunday because I wanted to write a good paper for my master's program. But what ended up happening was the Lord just got a hold of me. And I remember our pastor saying he was giving an altar call, but he said, like, everybody's like, oh, you have ever seen Jesus? And I remember I was like, oh, I had Jesus when I was 12. I remember that. But then he said, maybe you gave yourself to Christ before, but you haven't surrendered your life. And so I was like, that's me.

But everything didn't change then. You know, I was trying to give my life to Christ and really surrender, but I was still hanging around with the same friends, my party friends. And one day I remember I was so, you know, one foot in, one foot out, I was going to watch a Laker game because, you know, I love sports. And I was like, I'm going to go watch a Laker game. And I remember praying, God, please don't let me get drunk.

Like I thought that was going to work. And so there I go. But I ended up getting so drunk that I woke up and I didn't even know where I was and I was beat up. Apparently I had got jumped. And so I went home and I was crying and I just cried out to the Lord. And I just remember God saying, like, you're not bigger than your sin. So I remember praying, God, I need new friends. I need new that. And I kid you not, within a week, the Lord put a girl in my path who went to my church that I had never met. She said, there's a women's retreat.

Let's go. And I was like, I can't afford that. Like, you know, I was raising two kids on one income.

I didn't get any child support. And I was like, that's a lot of money for me, blah, blah. She's like, if you want to go, the Lord's going to provide.

This woman had so much faith. And I was like, OK. And what ended up happening was I got a scholarship from our church. I went and that Sunday I was like, I'm done, God. I don't want to leave this mountain because it was up in our mountains here.

I don't want to leave this mountain the same person. So literally that day I surrendered my life to Christ. I came back down and I never drank again. I stopped having sex outside of marriage. Everything, the Lord just took a hold of me because I said yes.

Like it was just amazing. My faith in Christ has helped me through everything. Prayers of family members throughout the years, believers. It's made me a strong believer in praying for anybody that I meet because I truly believe that we could literally be the only person praying for that person.

And I know that prayers got me through my life and it's literally gotten me to where I'm at today. My first real job was working with at-risk youth, so pouring into kids that grew up just like me. There were kids who, same thing, I have drug addicted parents, didn't have really anybody assisting them. I started working in group homes, which are homes with kids that are not fit enough for foster care, but they're like in placement. Currently now I'm working in a high school district and I work part time for our local police department for a youth grant. So I go into the juvenile hall once a month with the group to talk to those youth and pour into them and talk to them about me being an ex-gang member, me changing my life. For my local district, there's the same teen parent program, like I said, but it's now at the high schools that I went into. So I gathered a few of my teen friends from back in the day who are now grandmothers and older now with me. We've gifted young teen moms with Mother's Day gifts and things like that to show them how much we love them and how they matter and how they can continue on. And it's so funny because when you go to school and you learn all the statistics and things like that, you're like, Oh my gosh, I should have been this way, but I'm this way.

You know what I mean? So it's crazy, by the grace of God, I'm able to be where I'm at right now. Both my boys are doing wonderful. My older son ended up joining the Marine Corps after high school.

He is currently on his second term. My younger son ended up following in his brother's footsteps and he's also a Marine. So both of my kids are Marines. And for me, when I look back at my life, my struggles are what made me stronger. My struggles are what built character in me, resilience in me. You know, and by the grace of God, my kids have been able to, you know, we've been able to stop the cycle of addiction and abuse and teen pregnancy as well because it's run in my family for so long. There was times where I was poor to the point of there was no food in our house because of my mom's drug addiction. We were even living out in the street sometimes in a trailer, you know, homeless. I've lived in some pretty horrible circumstances, but our family overcame that. I look back and I tell my son, like, he saved me. I didn't care about my life because nobody cared about me.

When you don't have parents to pour into you, I was only one when she started using soap. I never had anybody tell me, you know, I'm beautiful. I love you. You know, you're going to be somebody. You know, and I know my life would not have changed if I didn't get pregnant. I know I would not be where I'm at if it wasn't for that moment.

And a beautiful job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own Madison Derricotte and a special thanks to Terry Neal, twice pregnant, putting herself through high school, then college, majoring in sociology, the first person on both sides of her family to get a master's degree. And she goes to that woman's retreat and prays for new friends. I don't want to leave this mountain the same person. So many of us have been on that mountain and prayed that prayer. And it was answered. She has two sons, both Marines. And as she said, I look at my son and tell him he saved me.

And so did her God. The story of Terry Neal here on Our American Stories. Savings vary from football playoffs to basketball madness. TCL Roku TVs are the best way to stream your favorite live sports with all the biggest sports channels, a sports zone with all available games in one place and apps like I heart radio sports podcasts such as The Herd with Colin Cowherd. Cheering on your favorite team has never been easier. A big screen TCL Roku TV offers premium picture and sound quality.

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