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Magnificient Metamorphosis
“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” – Chuang Tzu
- Les Merson
- 2015
Stenberg’s Community Mental Health and Addictions Worker program was designed, in part, to accommodate students with “lived experience,” those who have experienced mental health and/or addiction issues in their own lives. The program not only offers support and hope for those still suffering, but also to those who have suffered and now want to use their experience, strength and hope to help others. At just 22 years of age, Justine Flynn has more life experience than most people twice her age and enough heartache to last several lifetimes. After getting clean and sober three years ago, Justine wanted to “be the change” and offer support and hope to those still suffering. No longer defined by nor constrained by her past, Justine’s transformation is inspirational. She is co-winner of Stenberg College’s prestigious 2015 Student of the Year award and receives a cheque for $10,000.
Justine grew up in poverty, surrounded by dysfunction and addiction. By the time she was 13, she had attended over 22 elementary schools and had never lived in one place for more than 6 months,. “Growing up I had no safety,” she recalls, “and experienced all forms of abuse … There was no religion, no god, no culture in our house. The culture was drink, drugs, rock n’ roll … From the time I can remember I pretty much raised myself: cooked for myself, made sure I got dressed and took myself to school.” She was the good little girl trying to make everything right and she couldn’t understand why her love wasn’t enough for her parents to change.
"When I was a child, I wanted to be a Princess or a butterfly doctor. I did not want to be an addict."
When Justine was 13, her father’s ex-girlfriend adopted her. Unbelievably, things got worse. “I don’t like to use the term Cinderella but it is fitting … For 3 years, I raised her 5 boys. I was 13 years old and the youngest was 3 months old.” Her stepmother introduced her to drugs and alcohol and they drank and used daily. “I barely went to school because I was taking care of her kids, cooking, cleaning, and partying with her.”
Justine fell into addiction quickly, exacerbated by the shadowy memories of a lifetime of trauma. Shortly after her 14th birthday she attempted suicide and it was only a matter of time before she “became everything I swore I would never be.”
At 16, and like many other teen addicts, Justine decided that getting pregnant was a good idea. “I thought I would get pregnant and my baby would love me. I could do all those things my parents didn’t do for me. It would be unconditional love.” She can look back on that period of her life now and realize it was “complete insanity to think that way after being raised the way I was. But at that point I didn’t even realize I had a problem, even though I was drinking and using every single day.”
Justine became pregnant but couldn’t stop using and had a miscarriage. Her voice gets quieter as she remembers. “I felt like a murderer. It was the most guilt and shame I have ever felt in my entire life … because I knew what I had done and knew I couldn’t take it back.” Called “hitting bottom,” that place an addict must reach before she is ready to admit she has a problem and reach out for help, this was Justine’s bottom. Full of remorse and not wanting to use anymore, she left her step-mother and for the next two years, tried to stay sober. Remarkably, she completed high school during this time.
"I spent every day of my 21 years of living wanting to be someone, wanting to make a difference, wanting to do something big with my life."
Tired of the life she was living, surrounded by friends living on welfare and having babies, Justine reached out to her biological mother who had been clean for a number of years. For the first time in her life, Justine opened up to her mother about her fears and the things that were going on in her life. Over time, as trust developed and the relationship grew, Justine’s mom became the mother Justine so desperately needed. Eventually, Justine moved back to BC to live with her mom and stepfather and that is when the caterpillar began to emerge from the cocoon.
Justine spent the next nine months working and hiding in her mom’s house. Still unable to admit she had a problem, she seldom drank. On her nineteenth birthday, Justine got drunk and came home and passed out. Her mother cared for Justine throughout the night, afraid her daughter might stop breathing. Justine chokes up thinking about it. “That was the end for me. I felt selfish. My mom is sober and I’m still doing these things. It clicked for me that all those times as a child I held her while she puked or made sure she was breathing … I had become my parents.” Justine’s last drink was five days after her nineteenth birthday.
Her sobriety did not come easy. For the first time in her life, she was looking at her life through a sober lens. “Four and a half months into my sobriety, I was absolutely crazy, crazier than I had been in my drinking days,” she remembers. In addiction, an addicts darkest hour often comes just before the dawn. “I was becoming more and more suicidal because I could not handle life. I went to treatment, fighting for my life.”
Filled with anger and resentment but also with the acknowledgement that she needed help and could not do it on her own, Justine went to treatment. She was the youngest person there. “When I was a child, I wanted to be a Princess or a butterfly doctor. I did not want to be an addict,” she explains. While living in second stage housing after treatment, she worked in the treatment centre for a year, first as support staff and then in the kitchen. “The women looked up to me,” she says proudly. “They trusted me. They asked me questions. They were people like me who came in dying and I was the light for them.”
"For anyone who thinks there is no hope left in this world I dare you to spend time with people like the women I have met in the shelter."
One of the women Justine supported in the centre writes: “I was scared, alone and wanting to die when Justine and I first met. After years of alcohol and drug abuse, reluctantly I decided to seek help. I was introduced to this young, vibrant girl with an infectious smile, and to myself I thought ‘What does she know of struggles and hardship? She’s only a kid.’ That ‘kid’ would become a guiding light for me: an inspiration and a mentor. I have watched her grow into this strong, warm, open and positive being, who is selfless, kind and compassionate … She has made a significant difference in my life.”
After successfully completing treatment, she surrounded herself with and was active in a community of positive and supportive individuals including her mother and stepfather. Her life was better. Much better. But there was still something missing … “I spent every day of my 21 years of living wanting to be someone, wanting to make a difference, wanting to do something big with my life.” Her mother suggested she take a course supporting people with addictions. Justine never imagined she would go to college. She barely graduated high school. But she knew she wanted to help others find their true potential. “I was afraid to go to college. Am I even smart enough to write the entrance exam,” she wondered?
When Justine started at Stenberg, she did not think she would succeed but she was willing to try. It is said that success begets success. Justine “cried so hard” when she received her first “A.” And that first “A” became many “A’s” and she ended up graduating with a phenomenal Grade Point Average of 91%. But beyond the grades, Justine learned to believe in herself. It was not easy. As one of Stenberg’s student bloggers, Justine wrote about her experiences 4 months into the program: “There are moments when I feel so overwhelmed that the option of giving in and giving up seems like a good idea, but then something happens that makes me want to keep going for one more day … Something happens that restores my hope for a better future. The hope for a life I never in a million years imagined I could have. I know it’s been only a few months but my life has already changed, I will never be the same person I was at the start of this journey.”
Justine is appreciative of the support and encouragement she received from Stenberg’s faculty and staff “as she grew up in their classrooms.” She remembers one faculty member in particular. “I learned so much from Ferzana. She was always real with me, encouraging me to keep going and to move forward and to not give up. She was the one who would stay with me and talk with me and let me cry and let me feel and then tell me it was going to be ok … That didn’t happen a lot in my life.”
"I will never be the same person I was at the start of this journey."
When she did her first placement in a women’s shelter it re-affirmed for her that she had made the right career choice. In her blog she wrote: “For anyone who thinks there is no hope left in this world I dare you to spend time with people like the women I have met [in the shelter.] They are shining examples of hope, courage and strength. It takes a lot to stand back up on your feet and keep fighting when the rest of the world says give up. My heart goes out to all the women I have met and will continue to meet.”
From the little girl who had no choices to the young teen who wanted to die, a butterfly has emerged, full of strength, compassion and confidence. Today, Justine is a 22 year old college graduate with a purpose. “I find myself over whelmed by choice, choices that I didn’t think I had a few years back. I know today no dream is too big, no step too small. I can be anything and go anywhere if I set my mind to it. It took a lot of people to teach me how to believe in myself, to teach me to never give up and to follow my dreams. To those people I am grateful.”
