To Guard Against the Monsters in My Life, I Became a Monster Myself

A lifestyle of violence and addiction nearly destroyed me, but it brought me to the foot of the cross. I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, in a home filled with chaos. Home was an ever-changing address, with my parents’ fights the only constant. My dad enjoyed his plethora of drugs, and my mom enjoyed pushing his buttons and being the victim. They finally decided to call it quits when I was 11 years old, but not before I got some startling news: The man I had called my father wasn’t really my fat