Single parents are not alone.

I can speak from experience that when you are a single parent no matter how big or small your support system there are often times you feel alone. The hardest part was remembering I was not alone. I, unlike so many others, was not alone I have a very loving family who was there for me every step of the way but turning to them was sometimes hard. For some reason I felt like I had to do this by myself that by asking for help I was weak. Looking back now I realize that asking for help takes a very strong person by realizing that it takes more than one person to raise happy healthy children. It doesn't have to be a competition to prove you can do it all by yourself. In actuality you need help it's not healthy mentally to try to do everything yourself. I was working a full time job and raising two children how I ever thought I didn't need any help is beyond me now. I chose to work third shift so that when my children were home and awake I could be with them and while they were at school I slept. This worked very well for a very long time but when the summer months came I slept very little, it's hard to sleep when you have two young children home they don't want you to sleep and who can blame them. Of course they wanted to be off having fun either at the beach or going to the movies. Going to the drive-in was a big deal for them and it worked for me too while they enjoyed the movie I could get a nap in although that meant I never really got to see the movies but that was okay with me as long as they were having fun. I tried to take them many places even though we didn't have much money I always tried to do something fun for them. We ate out often and I took them to amusement parks as often as I could things were going well. We lived at my parents home for about a year until they came home from Virginia that's when I got my own place where we still live we have been here for about 8 years now. It's been a very hard road I have made many mistakes along the way. I became dependent on alcohol for a few years I didn't realize at the time how much I was hurting my children. At first I was the fun mom I joked around, played games and wrestled with them but as time went on I drank more and more I started calling out of work on a regular basis and lost my job. I found another right away but it didn't take long before I started doing the same thing and again lost that job. This actually went on for a few years then the day came when I got pulled over drinking and driving although I never would drink and drive with the kids it still is a very stupid thing to do. I lost my drivers license but that didn't stop me from driving I had to get back and forth to work to support my children. I wasn't receiving child support so my job was all the money I had. I became very depressed which caused more drinking it wasn't long before I was caught yet again and charged with another DUI only this time they would not go easy on me. I hired a lawyer who told me to plead guilty, which really I was. There was no way around it I was going to jail. I couldn't believe what I had done. What I was putting my children threw, my family and myself. I honestly felt like I allowed my life to spin out of control the only thing left at that point was to put my life in HIS hands and hope for mercy from the court. Which I did not get.