Chapter Oneee

Three e's in one, because one is taken.

My name is Kandyce, I was home schooled, raised in a conservative christian family, oldest of seven kids, addicted to pills, rehabilitated, became a mother at 22, relapsed, rehabilitated, and now i'm here.

Here is my parents house. The truth is, I rent a bedroom from some family friends down the street from my parents house. My daughter lives at my parents house, I sleep down the street because I can't afford an apartment for us both.

I wake up early, walk to my parents, and wake my daughter up. I tell myself she doesn't know the difference, but I know she does. Sometimes she asks if I'm going to sleep on the couch, other times she asks if I'm bringing her a flower in the morning, which I always do when I walk.

My social media presents a beautiful life, full of whimsical adventure and soft filters. I keep it well groomed because when I feel like I'm falling short (which is always) I can look at the photographic proof that I'm doing alright.

I bullshit myself a lot, it's a coping mechanism.

That's my intro, that's the most honest thing I've written and it's still greatly lacking.

But that's not the story I want to tell right now, I have a story that's been on my heart for a long time, that i've been afraid to write, afraid to be that vulnerable, afraid nothing will come of it.

Once i went to rehab. I've been to three rehabs, but those are all separate stories.

This story is about the time I went to the Walter Hoving Home in pasadena.

I went because i relapsed, i went to get better, to be safer, to help myself and to help my future.

Walter Hoving Home was the single worst experience of my life.

Every night I would lay in my top bunk, watching the shadows of cars passing by, it was my only comfort. It was proof that real life still existed. It was one of the only reasons i was able to keep going. In my world, at that time, there was nothing.

There was my desk, a small cubicle that was the span of two forearms, fist to fist my elbows outreached my allotted space. I spent hours in my plastic chair, from after breakfast till lunch. From after lunch to dinner. For an hour after dinner till bible study, where we sat at long tables in the same chairs, silently reading our bibles. Then it was bedtime. Then i would stare at my wall, and watch shadows of real life, happening right outside my window. One of those "so close, but so far away" experiences.


I got the Walter Hoving Home with faith. I believed in God, I believed in the power of faith, and prayer, and worship. I left the Walter Hoving Home in a unprecedented state of fear and disorientation.

My pulse is already going faster, and that spot between my eyes is getting warmer as my eyes start feeling the pressure of held back tears. These memories are hard for me to dig up.

I remember sitting in the office, in a rare state of tears, begging to call my parents.

An adult women, of 25, pleading, pleading, for permission to call her parents.

Your first month at Walter Hoving Home is a black out. No phone calls, and all outgoing and incoming mail is screened by staff. After three weeks of not being able to even call my 2 year old daughter I broke, and attempted to use the pay phone upstairs to call home.

Staff caught me and told me to hang up as I was desperately pleading to my mom in a frenzied explosion of a plea for help.

I hung up. I was made to write a front a bank 10 page essay on why I was a sinner for breaking the phone rule. I had to site at least 10 verses about obedience, and give examples of my past sins that lead to this behavior.

I wrote the essay, in my plastic chair, where fist to fist my forearms outreached my entire world.

My whole life was that desk. and my binder. my white binder, filled with back to back hand written pages, the blister on my finger from holding a pencil which was foreign to my technologically adjusted fingers.

Listen to this tape, its an hour long, fill in the blanks from this transcript so we know you listened.

Write one page, back to back, about each chapter in your assigned book. Matthew and Paslms. Mark and Proverbs. Luke and James. etc, etc.,

Walter Hoving Home is set up on a 12 month program. every month you have your assigned "level" to completed. these levels were rudimentary and designed for women with basic learning skills. For those of us who were blessed (and i genuinely mean that) to have acquired an education before Walter Hoving Home, we were under challenged, and moved through the levels quicker then designed.

My "big sister" was a saint, she was assigned to me upon arrival. She had progressed through her levels quicker then the program was designed, and was penalized by being given longer work hours because she wasn't taking time to absorb the program.

I followed her path, I made it to level 6 in the three weeks I was there. 6 months of program, in 3 weeks, and only held back by waking hours. The work load was basic, but more then that, it was damaging.

We are addicts, we are sick. this is a disease, and we are trying to treat it.

but at Walter Hoving Home, we are sinners. We have failed, we need to be stronger, our morals are corrupted, we are bad people, but jesus can save us.

Mom B, the owner of Walter Hoving Home, once sat in her office with me and another women, we were both new, she had a history of prostitution, we both had a history of abuse and rape. Mom B told us point blank that rape happens because we put ourselves in a bad position. if we had made better decisions, dressed differently, staid home, that we wouldn't have been raped, abused, taken advantage of. It was our fault, our mistake, our sin.

I looked the girl in the eyes next to me, she was sobbing, begging to call her pastor, I told her that it wasn't true, that rape is never your fault, and she just broke down into spanish and sobs, pleading, a grown women pleading to make a phone call to her safety net. She was told no, but that she would be allotted half an hour of "personal time" to pray in her bed.

Theres more i should talk about, like the fact that you can only get visits if you raise your monthly $500, women cut off from their children and families because they aren't likable enough to the passerbyers infront of CVS the three chances they get to raise "donations".