Their Stories

Victim

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet — this is where a survivor’s own words go. For years I carried it alone, certain no one would believe me. Writing it down was the first time I felt the weight shift. Replace this placeholder text with the full testimony, exactly as it was shared.”

— A. R., placeholder name

Victim’s Family Member

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet — this space belongs to someone speaking for the person they love. We watched it happen and were told to stay quiet. This is what it did to our family. Swap in the family member’s testimony here, kept whole and unedited.”

— M. T., placeholder name

Victim impact statementss

Sara’s Victim Impact During my mom’s incarceration in 1999, my life changed completely. I was placed in foster care while my brothers were sent to live with their father in California. We were separated from one another during one of the hardest times in our lives, and I grew up without my siblings by my side. Losing my mom and then being separated from my brothers left me feeling alone, abandoned, and afraid. At an age when I needed the comfort and security of my family the most, everything I knew was suddenly gone.

Although I was reunited with my brothers later in childhood, the separation had already changed our relationship. We had each experienced our own trauma, and instead of growing closer, we often struggled to understand one another. We argued frequently, and it was difficult to build the close sibling bond we might have had if we had been allowed to grow up together. Being separated from my brothers left lasting emotional wounds and changed the way we related to each other as a family.

Watching my mom struggle with trauma and addiction affected every part of my childhood. At the time, I didn’t understand why she was hurting or why substances had become part of her life. I just knew that I missed my mom. Even when she was physically present, it often felt like she wasn’t really there. I wanted my mom back, but I didn’t understand what had happened to her.

I often felt confused, lonely, and abandoned. It was painful to watch my mom not be the mom I needed her to be. I also witnessed different men coming in and out of her life, which made me feel unsafe and made it difficult to understand what a stable, loving relationship looked like.

Because our lives were unstable, we moved frequently. Constantly changing homes meant leaving friends behind and starting over again and again. The instability affected my education because changing schools made it difficult to keep up academically and emotionally. I never had the opportunity to develop lasting friendships or experience the consistency that every child deserves.

As an adult, I have come to understand that my mom’s addiction was not the beginning of her story. It came after she experienced profound trauma that changed the course of her life. As a child, I couldn’t understand that. I only knew that I wanted my mom back.

The trauma my mom endured did not end with her. It affected our entire family. It shaped my childhood, separated me from my siblings, disrupted my education, and left emotional wounds that I continue to carry. Understanding what happened to my mom does not erase the pain I experienced, but it helps explain how trauma can be passed from one generation to the next. My hope is that by sharing my story, people will better understand that when trauma goes unaddressed, its impact reaches far beyond one person—it affects entire families and future generations..

Joey’s Victim Impact

Growing up, I lost my mother because of her addiction and the choices that followed. She struggled with drug addiction and was sentenced to Jail and years later Prison. Because of that, she was absent from my life throughout most of my childhood and was not truly involved again until I was around twelve years old.

Her absence affected every part of my development. I grew up without the guidance, love, and emotional support that a child needs from a parent. I had no one to teach me how to understand or express my emotions in a healthy way. Instead, I carried around confusion, hurt, and anger that I did not know how to manage.

During my childhood, I was also teased and harassed by family members. Without my mother there to protect me or help me process what I was experiencing, I became an angry child. I struggled to communicate my feelings and often reacted with intense emotions because I had never learned another way. As a result, many people saw me as difficult or unstable instead of recognizing that I was a child carrying unresolved pain.

Those struggles followed me into adulthood. My difficulty managing emotions and building healthy relationships caused people to distance themselves from me, which only deepened my feelings of loneliness and depression. Even today, I continue to deal with the emotional consequences of my childhood.

The impact has been profound. There have been periods in my life when I questioned whether I wanted to keep living. I also developed addictions—including substance abuse and other compulsive behaviors—as unhealthy ways of escaping emotional pain that I did not know how to face. Those addictions made my life increasingly unmanageable and created additional hardships that I have had to work to overcome.

I understand that my mother struggled with addiction, and I recognize that addiction can lead people to make devastating decisions. At the same time, the consequences of those decisions profoundly shaped my life. The absence of my mother during my formative years left emotional wounds that have affected my relationships, my mental health, and my ability to navigate life in healthy ways. Those effects have lasted far beyond my childhood and continue to influence my life today.

I share this statement so the Court can understand that the impact of these events did not end with my mother’s incarceration. The consequences have remained with me for years, and I continue working every day to heal from the lasting effects of that loss.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet — a child’s perspective belongs here. I was too young to understand it then, and too afraid to speak about it later. I am telling it now because I am done being quiet. Replace this with the testimony as it was written, word for word.”

— J. L., placeholder name

Victim

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet — another survivor’s account goes here. I believed for a long time that what happened to me was mine to bury. It wasn’t. Naming it out loud, even here, was the beginning of getting free of it. Fill this in with their real testimony.”

— S. K., placeholder name