“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”
Anonymous

When I was sixteen, most people thought my fate was sealed. For many years I was told I would never amount to anything. I was told that I would drop out of high school at sixteen, get pregnant and just sit on welfare for the rest of my life. I was told drugs and alcohol would consume my life and I would be a mixed junkie forever. After a while I really started to believe people. Luckily I found out I had options.

Three weeks after I turned sixteen, I made the decision to no longer put up with the abuse I was experiencing and ran away from home for the last time. I found my way to Guelph and within two weeks I was living at Wyndham House for Young Women. I was only out of school for three days so getting back in was no problem and chores and curfew was a part of my life before so it wasn’t new to me. I never knew just how much my life could change in the sixteen months I would stay there.

Throughout my stay at Wyndham House, I know I learned all the intended lessons: laundry, cooking, proper hygiene, cleanliness and much more. Furthermore, I learned that my destiny was not set in stone and I truly learned who I really was and who I wanted to become. I once again found my passion for education, quit doing drugs, started going to counselling, got support for my mental illnesses and stopped self-harming. I changed my life from what pessimistic people thought I would be to who I wanted to be. Like I said, I truly found myself as an independent young woman.

It’s been over four years since I left the Wyndham House for Young Women and my life has grown even more. Not only have I completed two years of college to become a Child and Youth Worker, I just completed a field placement at the Wyndham House Resource Centre and the Wyndham House for Young Men. The staff and the program made such an impression on me that I wanted to make that same impression on someone else. The staff members were not my parents and the program is not the law, but the opportunity to learn to be an adult in an environment where it’s still okay to be a teenager, increased the value of the staff and program influence.

My time at Wyndham House was both the best and worst time of my life. I found myself hitting rock bottom in the worst way. Without the program, I would not have found myself in the positive way that I did and the fate predicted to me by family, friends and other community members would have come true. The names junkie, drop-out and failure used to hurt, but not anymore. Today, I am strong, smart, clean and moving forward everyday!

By: Amber (Campbell) Cece

Thank-you to Amber and Wyndham House for sharing this story from the Spring & Summer 2011 edition of the “Our House” newsletter.  United Way of Guelph & Wellington funds programs at Wyndham House, helping homeless young people get the support they need to grow into independance.