I’ve always managed to get by. I live off a small pension now. It’s not a lot, but I make it work. I don’t need much – just to know my daughter is okay.
Simone is 28. She's been struggling since her second year of University, when she fell in with a bad crowd she met through work. Mental health, addiction, her dad left us when she was just little - a deep pain that she's never been able to shake. I’ve tried everything I could to help her and thought we had curbed the addiction many times. I never saw the "addict" that other people told me she had become; I only saw my baby girl. My little pigtailed toddler giggling at me whenever I'd take her socks off and use them as puppets before bed.
I could never give up on her. I let her move back home, again and again... I’ve spent nights on edge, listening for the sound of her in the hallway, waiting for that moment I could finally stop holding my breath. But it never really came.
Nothing prepares you for watching your child suffer, I can promise you that... especially when you can’t do anything to fix it.
At some point, I had to admit I couldn’t help her anymore. Not in the way she needed. I love her more than anything – and I truly mean anything, but my home was no longer safe for either of us. It was getting too heavy with all of her demons, with unsure when she was going to come home, if she was going to come home, what mood she would come home in, how much money she’d ask for this time... It was too much for someone my age, living on just a pension. I felt like I was failing her, but I also knew that keeping things the way they were would only make things worse – for both of us.
She ended up at the YW. And to be honest, I felt a mix of heartbreak and relief. I cried for weeks. Heartbroken that it came to this. Relief that she finally had something steady. A place that was finally just hers with her own breathing space. People around her who knew what they were doing and what she was up against. Who could show up in the ways I just couldn't anymore. People who understood the grip of addiction and never forgot the little girl at the root of it. Staff who didn’t flinch when things got hard. Who kept showing up, even when she didn’t make it easy. Who saw her as a whole person, not just a problem to solve.
They could offer her the kind of support I couldn’t give anymore, including structure, boundaries, and stability. A community that didn’t depend on me holding everything together. And that was the shift. It wasn’t just that she had a place to sleep. It was that she had people in her corner. And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like we were in this alone.
She’s not magically better. I know that. I also know the YW can’t fix everything. But they’ve given her a shot… a few times now. A safer place to land. Some real support, if she’s open to accepting it. While she’s been in shelter, she’s had access to the WARM program - support for her addiction. And maybe most importantly, she’s not alone. There’s someone there in the middle of the night when she’s scared that she can go to. Someone who knows her name. Someone who stays calm when things spiral. I see she’s trying. I see her a little more grounded now. A little more present. That’s everything.
I can sleep at night now. Not perfectly, but better. Because I know she’s not out there in the dark, alone. I know she’s eating. I know there are people checking in on her. That matters more than I can explain.
The YW hasn’t just helped my daughter. They’ve helped me let go of something I was never meant to hold alone. They gave us both a bit of breathing room. I am still her mother. I will always love her. But now I can be that again, instead of a lifeline stretched too thin.
And that’s something I’ll never stop being grateful for.
With all my love,
