“You Don’t Have to Give In to What You’re Born Into”: Elizabeth’s Story of Breaking the Cycle

Content Warning: This text contains references to trauma and sexual abuse. 

Elizabeth has spent much of her life trying to understand where she came from while deciding that it would not determine where she was going.

 “I wanted to make a difference in the world, and I want to change the world with my story,” she says. 

“You don’t have to give in to what you’re born into. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it.”

A Legacy She Did Not Choose

Elizabeth was born in Baltimore in 1962, but her story begins before her birth. Her mother used drugs and alcohol during pregnancy, and Elizabeth grew up without her. While Elizabeth was initially raised by her grandmother, her younger sister entered foster care as an infant. Eventually, her grandmother’s alcohol use disorder impacted her ability to care for Elizabeth, and she also entered foster care. Her severe hyperactivity was difficult for foster placements to manage, and she moved through three homes, all friends of her grandmother from church. With a multitude of transitions very early in her life, she was only 7 years old when she returned to her father’s care. 

Trauma was not new to Elizabeth’s family. Her mother was sexually abused as a child and abandoned by her mother, who spent significant time in psychiatric hospitals. Her father, who experienced abandonment and foster care himself, struggled with anger and substance use. Her grandmother lived with serious mental illness and spent her entire life fighting alcohol use disorder. Violence, instability, substance use, and mental illness were woven through multiple generations.

As a child, Elizabeth experienced physical and sexual abuse herself. She describes growing up hearing that she was incapable, that she was bad, and that she would never amount to anything.

“I heard these things constantly,” she recalls. “It took me years to realize I had worth.”

Looking back as an adult, Elizabeth has come to understand her childhood differently. Pursuing education about trauma, substance exposure, and mental health has helped her make sense of behaviors that were once misunderstood.

Finding Direction in Chaos

This understanding did not come easily. As a teenager, Elizabeth was academically successful, earning herself a scholarship to college. She played the flute and had a strong GPA. Yet, years of being told that she was “bad” shaped the way she saw herself.

At 17, she found herself on the streets. She experimented with drugs and alcohol. “I was a mess,” she says, describing herself bluntly during that period.

Beneath the chaos, however, was something much simpler: “I only needed therapy, but no one would help me.”

Ultimately, Elizabeth enlisted in the Army. She describes this decision as the beginning of a long road toward recovery, one that would include painful setbacks, difficult relationships, motherhood, education, therapy, and faith.

Choosing Something Different for Her Children

Years later, Elizabeth would enter another abusive relationship. She married someone whose behavior reminded her of her father. Like so many with similar experiences, she remained in the marriage for years, trying to do her best for her family. Elizabeth adopted two boys who had been in foster care and feared that leaving would jeopardize their adoption. Her family eventually grew to include both adopted sons as well as two biological children.

Motherhood became one of the places where Elizabeth most deliberately confronted the cycle she inherited.

In the beginning, she describes being tough on her children, much like her father had been with her. But when her son was three years old, she began noticing his reactions to her. She did not like what she saw. 

“I didn’t see love and bonding,” she recalls.

Elizabeth knew she wanted to parent differently, but she also recognized that wanting something different was not enough. So, she learned.

She took parenting classes through her church and volunteered at a domestic violence shelter, where she accompanied women to parenting classes. She read college textbooks, homeschooled her children, and sought out information about mental health and child development. When her daughter began struggling with ADHD, depression, dyslexia, and an auditory processing deficit, Elizabeth advocated for her to receive psychiatric care at a young age.

“The more I learned, the better I did, and the better my children did,” she says.

Learning Her Way Forward

Education became one of the most consistent threads in Elizabeth’s life.

She pursued nursing while raising her children, working through the challenges of school, family, and complex relationships. Throughout nursing school, Elizabeth worked as a CNA in a locked psychiatric facility, where she remembers easily connecting with patients. She eventually became a registered nurse and worked for 11 years in medical-surgical and telemetry units.

Now, Elizabeth works as a case worker responding to child abuse hotline allegations. As someone who has lived through childhood abuse, foster care, domestic violence, substance use, and mental illness within her own family, this work is deeply personal.

She believes her experiences have taught her how to meet people without judgment. This perspective is especially meaningful to Elizabeth when working with parents struggling with substance use. She recalls being judged by healthcare professionals while giving birth to her daughter because of her history of intravenous drug use. Early in her pregnancy, she advocated to be tested for HIV because she used IV drugs two years earlier. She was introduced to IV methamphetamine while serving in the Army, after being told she was overweight. She felt that her past substance use colored how she was perceived by her healthcare team. Now, she tries to offer families the understanding she once needed.

“Knowledge is power,” she says. “You need to give them as much information as possible about their illness.”

For Elizabeth, education is about giving people a sense of agency. Her approach to healing is rooted in helping people understand their experiences and empowering them to take an active role in their care.

Healing Takes Many Forms

Elizabeth’s recovery has taken many forms, with therapy and religion playing important roles. Elizabeth’s grandparents brought her to church as a child, and she returned to faith more intentionally as an adult. At 28, she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an experience she describes as transformative. 

“My faith changed me,” she says.

Today, faith remains an important source of hope and connection for Elizabeth. Her church community has supported her access to therapy and provided opportunities for service and fellowship. She describes learning to recognize what she calls the “daily small miracles and tender mercies” in her life.

“Every day I wake up and thank God.”

For Elizabeth, faith is one part of a broader foundation for recovery. She has also worked through PTSD-focused cognitive processing therapy, hypnotherapy, and mental health skill building. Over time, she says, the voice of her father’s insults grew quieter: “I don’t hear his voice anymore after a lot of therapy.”

Eventually, Elizabeth was able to forgive her father. Near the end of his life, he lived with her for four years while facing advanced asbestosis. During that time, he acknowledged the harm he had caused her.

“I am sorry,” he told her. “I could never accomplish what you’ve accomplished.”

“For me, that was healing,” Elizabeth says.

Together, therapy, education, family, friendships, work, volunteering, and faith all form part of the network she relies on to keep moving forward.

Turning Struggle Into Purpose

Elizabeth is candid that recovery is not a straight line. She has faced serious illness, difficult relationships, PTSD, and the challenges of watching people she loves struggle with mental illness and substance use. Elizabeth strives to help her loved ones seek treatment while offering support for them and their families, recognizing that breaking a cycle does not mean hardship disappears.

“The trauma has made me tough, resilient,” she says. “And I just have this drive in me to do better than what I came from, and never have my children deal with what I dealt with.”

At 64, Elizabeth is still working, volunteering, learning, and caring for others. Her experiences have shaped not only how she sees her own life, but also how she shows up for others.

“I’m the motivator,” she says.

She describes herself as someone who pushes people beyond where they think they can go, whether her children, friends, or the families she serves. Having experienced what it feels like to be defined by her mistakes, she works to see beyond others’ struggles and recognize their capacity for change.

A New Day

“What would you tell your younger self?” she was asked.

Her answer was simple: “Go outside your comfort zone for good.”

Elizabeth’s story is not one of escaping trauma untouched. The effects of her childhood experiences have followed her into adulthood. But over time, she has found ways to understand those experiences without allowing them to define her.

Today, Elizabeth draws on what she has learned to help others navigate their own difficult circumstances. She continues to choose hope, finding meaning in the opportunity to serve others.

“I have hope every day,” she says. “I look at every day as a blessing and a gift from God. What can I do to help you today?”

That question captures much of what Elizabeth has built from her life.

“Somehow, through all this craziness,” she says, “I became a person who makes a difference in the world.”

For Elizabeth, that sense of purpose is also about what she leaves behind.

“I want to leave a legacy for my grandchildren.”

Elizabeth’s journey is a reminder that breaking the cycle does not mean erasing the past. It means understanding where you came from, seeking the support you once lacked, learning a different way of living, and choosing not to pass the same pain forward.

“Today is a new day, and tomorrow is never promised. Let’s make the best of today.”