by TJ
My name is Taviyea. I was born on January 2, 2003 in Arizona. I am the third oldest out of all my siblings witch there is now six in total. I have an older sister and an older brother so that makes me the third oldest.
Growing up my father really wasn’t around at times so my two younger sister’s father stepped up and was that father figure that I needed in my life. And not only did he teach me how to be a man of the house when he isn’t around at times he also taught me how to protect my sisters and mom at all times no matter what the situation is. And by him teaching me that it turned me to be over protective even though I am the third oldest I still try to protect my sisters as much as I can whenever I am around. Because now that my sisters father is in prison doing life and there father isn’t around to protect, I had to step to not be a father but an older brother that I am.
The night the incident that caused him to get locked up for life, the whole situation came back around and tried to get revenge and because he wasn’t around they tried to come take his family out. But thank god it didn’t happen so after they shot our house up, we ended up going to my aunty house for the night because our house wasn’t safe to be at anymore. When we left the house, I didn’t really leave with too many things. I barely had things to get through the nights and days. So at the time my uncle had stepped up because my mom was struggling to get the things she needed.
After everything was over my mom ended up going to Sacramento, California and she ended up leaving me at my aunty house witch is my mom younger sister. I ended up staying with her for a couple days until my father came around and tried to step back into my life. He took me into his home and bought me clothes and shoes at the time I was living with him. But then after a couple months went by my mom ended up coming back to Sacramento and taking my back without any of the things my father had bought me. So I ended up not having anything again. After a while, my mom and dad ended up going through some tuff situations with each other and that led me to live with my grandmother witch is my dad’s mother.
While I was living with my grandma, she had a husband that was always addicted to alcohol so he was drinking every day and every night witch I didn’t really like. And the reason I didn’t like being around that type of things is because it always caused my grandpa to get angry and take his angry out on her. So whenever they got into an argument, I always found a way to get away from the situation because I knew that the police would end up coming anytime soon. I remember one night I was in the house with them while he was drunk and he started making my grandma upset and she got so mad she broke a glass table and there was blood everywhere around the kitchen. The police came and ended up having him leave for the rest of the night. And the night he left, I felt a heavy weigh lift off of my shoulders because I didn’t have to deal with the situation for the rest of the night.
After a while as I was still living with my grandma in Sacramento, California, I started hanging around my uncles and being with them. We always got into some type of trouble with the police witch always scared me because I always thought something was going to happen with us.
As I got older, I wasn’t really in the house. I was always running around the neighborhood with my friends and we always found some type of trouble to get into. While me and my grandma was living in Meadowview apartments, my mom ended up moving into the same apartment so I ended up going to live with her. Then she ended up moving us into the Valley High area and she became pregnant by the person that was living with us, which made four siblings, and that is my youngest sister, Lyric, who is now seven years of age.
While we was living in Valley High, I was always running the streets with a couple of my friends that I met at my elementary school which was John R. And during the time I was in elementary, I always got into some type of trouble and got sent home during the days and it wasn’t because I was always fighting, it was always because I hung around with the wrong crowd.
I started trying new things, I started playing with guns, I started smoking weed, and I started getting into even more trouble than what I used to.
When I hit seventh grade everything seemed to start getting worse and worse because I was continually getting into trouble because as I got older the more I hung around with more people. I was too busy trying to go with the girls and my homies all the time, my head wasn’t really into the books like they should’ve been and that caused me to get into more trouble.
During the time I hit high school everything was just out of control. My mom couldn’t take it no more, she found out I started smoking, she found out I knew how to sell weed, she started to find out everything which really broke her heart deep down inside but she couldn’t do nothing but try to take the things away from me and tell me to stop, which she tried doing but I never really listened.
And as I started getting addicted to doing those things, everything was out of control. I got into so much trouble that she kept me in the house until she got tired of the things I was doing and just kicked me out of the house. But it was like I was fine with that because I knew I had somewhere to lay my head but for her to choose her relationship over me, just made me do more than what I was doing and that was because I tried to hide all the pain because I held all of it in and I didn’t let it go, I felt like she did me wrong.
I had so much pain in me that all I did was smoke and do things that made me feel good. I didn’t have any appetite to eat any food. I had to force myself to eat and that’s because of the situation she had put me through. It caused me to be that way. I had to struggle to get the things I wanted, had to find ways to make money. It was hard for me to keep my grades up because I couldn’t stay focused without smoking. It’s like when I got that high feeling all my pain is nowhere to be found but when I tend to be sober, I be angry all day until I put some smile in my lungs.
After a while I wasn’t in school for a while and my mom didn’t want nothing to do with me so she took a while to put me back into school. When she did, I wasn’t really interested in going back to school. I was too busy trying to make money. And so many people asked me what was wrong and I never told them what was wrong so I always kept everything to myself and just dealt with my own pain.
After a while I started getting tired of living with my aunty. I was tired of following her rules so I ended up leaving her house and I went to live with my friends. I tended to get myself into more trouble because at that point I just didn’t care anymore. I was out all night, I was carrying guns all day. I was smoking, driving cars under the age and under the influence.
My dad acted like he was worried about me but he really wasn’t. He kept telling me I need to go to school and I told him I was but really I wasn’t. I was tired of everything. I wanted to be done with school and I just wanted all my pain to be gone but it wasn’t.
My girlfriend always tried to ask me if I wanted to talk about the feelings that I felt but I couldn’t explain it because I wasn’t really ready for all that and I know she understood that. Everybody says they remember when I used to be so nice and always smiling but things aren’t the same anymore, people say I mean and always angry and true, fully I do see that in me. I did see a change in myself after that situation happened. I had so much pain and stress that I was dealing with that is cause me to be the way I am not and by not me expressing myself to somebody, I know that’ll understand my situation, it caused me to hold all that pain and anger in.
Everything I felt I kept it in and just kept stacking it with even more pain. And yeah, there was times where I broke down because I kept telling myself that I’m not gone make it far because I didn’t have nothing. My girlfriend and her family always tried to help me out but I never took their offers because I didn’t feel the need for them to do that for me. I always felt if somebody was doing something for me, I would have to owe them something even when I don’t ask for the things they try and offer me. I just prefer getting it by myself so I don’t feel like I have to owe anything.
After a while I started doing what I knew best to get money and make sure I ate every night but sometimes I wouldn’t even buy food because I never really had an appetite to eat anything. Everything that I liked turned nasty to me and it was all because the stress and pain that I was holding in. My girlfriends parents used to always tell me I need to eat but I just never did. Even when I tried I couldn’t, everything seemed nasty to me.
But now I’ve been sitting in juvenile hall for six months, I wish I could rewind everything so that I could do everything the right way instead of the way I knew. But also I hope for a second chance so I can try to do better and accomplish my goals that I have set in life and when I do accomplish my goals I can look back at my situation and be like wow I did come from doing bad things and turned it around into something positive. Because now that I look it if I was to be doing things the right way, I could’ve been somewhere in life already instead of being in here beginning for a second chance.
I’ve been trying to change my ways of doing things since I’ve been in this situation so that these things won’t happen again. And I think with the support that I have in life, I can actually make it far and back track to where I was just at because next time it might not just be a second chance.