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From Then to Now, Ashley Le Sage

The goal for many people that have mental health conditions with or without substance abuse, is recovery. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, (SAMHSA), defines recovery as a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live self-directed lives, and strive to reach their full potential.

 

Ashley Le Sage first came to The Gathering Place around 2 years ago to work on her recovery for both her and her children. At that time, she did not feel that she was good enough for good things to happen to her. She was having anxiety, panic attacks, bouts of crying and social anxiety. She had struggled her whole life to let people get close to her. For Ashley, getting close to someone meant that she would inevitably get hurt.

 

Ashley’s journey started out as a child victim of generational trauma. Her parents were raised by parents that did not have good parenting skills which in turn carried on to her mother. In her first years of life, Ashley’s sister who was 11 yrs older, was forced to care for her and her other sister. Their mother battled her own mental health challenges and addictions, so she was not very present for them. The only time that she got attention was when she was “naughty.” 

 

When Ashley was five, her mother and father got divorced. Her mother took only two of the girls and moved. She left her oldest daughter, the one whom Ashley knew to be mom, to live with their grandma.

 

Being in a new school was hard. She was severely bullied and had to stand up for herself often. She received consequences that seemed unfair. She started feeling more like a problem than an equal to her peers.

 

During the summer months, Ashley had to spend more time with her father who was an active alcoholic and addict. Her father worked night and day, so she was often left alone. She started experimenting with drinking and smoking. “Shirley Temples, virgin Mary's and bar darts,” soon became the normal for Ashley. Her demeanor changed very quickly, and she just started doing whatever she wanted. At 16 she would DJ at parties. She became the one everyone wanted to know and the girl all the boys wanted to be with. She did not care about the consequences.

 

Soon Ashley found herself in and out of foster care because of her behavior. Her poor behavior was just a cry for attention and love from those around her, not the hate that everyone thought she had for her mother.

 

Ashley had had enough, she found herself standing on train tracks in a small town in Indiana. She was ready to step in front of the next speedy train that was scheduled to come through. She was going to kill herself. “I stood on the tracks looking down in tears and just felt this push back, like someone wouldn't let me do it, so I didn't.” She did not know why she could not and then a few weeks later she found out that she was pregnant. Knowing this and educating herself thru local WIC program, she knew that she had to stop drinking for her child and did. She began to live for her child and felt it was her duty to continue on and be a mom.

 

Ashley fell victim to bad influences and found herself drinking again. She was going back to the same thought patterns that she had prior to her pregnancy. She found herself pregnant again. The children’s father did not want a family.

 

Ashley could not go on everyday knowing that she was alone. One August night after working her second job of the day, she packed up two diaper bags, her two babies, and her Cat Molly into her beat up Pontiac and left her tiny apartment behind. She headed to Green Bay, WI. where her mother was waiting to build a healthy relationship, free from neglect, with her and her children. Ashley’s mom provided the hope that Ashley needed to continue on.

 

Green Bay was the biggest city that Ashley had ever lived in. She was excited about her new life, and she learned lots of things about responsibility, independence and maintaining a routine.

After several years, Ashley’s life was coming together. She was doing well for only being in her mid-twenties and having gone through all that she had gone through. She had a fiancé and a relationship with her mom. Ashely decided to stop working sixty hours week and started to go to NWTC full time in their accounting program. She still worked part time.

 

One night Ashely started feeling extremely sick. Her fiancé would not drive her to the hospital or watch her child, so she drove her and her two-year-old to the hospital herself. While sitting on the hospital bed, a two-year-old on her lap, the doctor came in and informed her that at 26, she had had a heart attack. Finally, her fiancé came to the hospital but instead of being compassionate, he told her that she was, “too much drama” and left them.

 

Since her fiancé had watched the kids, and he was gone, she ended up having a friend take care of her children. This friend was drinking heavily, and Ashley did not have the tools yet to handle this. She started drinking again. She got caught driving drunk and found herself in legal trouble. The courts allowed her to live at home but with an ankle monitor bracelet. Ashley could take her kids to daycare, go to school and work. In 2015 she learned that she had an addiction. She went through an intensive outpatient program for her drinking.

 

By 2016 the children’s stepdad and her moved to a different house. A family member of his from Arizona was having a hard time. They let him move in. What she did not realize was that he was using meth. Soon her husband was using meth. There were many broken promises to her and her kids. Promises of doing things with them and then it not happening. Ashley put her kids into softball and started hanging out with the “softball moms.”   She made sure that the kids got to do things. After the kids were in bed, the moms would start drinking. Ashley was reintroduced to a guy that she knew from when she first moved here. One night, they went out. Ashley got pregnant with her last child. That was that last day that Ashley had a drink.

 

Ashley’s husband wanted to get married and have a fairy tale life. They got married just days before her son was born. They ended up getting evicted from their home because he, unknown to her, had not been paying the rent. After Christmas of 2019, she was approved for housing. She did not take the housing but moved into a beautiful 4-bedroom home with a backyard and had a new car with her son’s father. Everything that she ever wanted was coming true.

 

Then Covid happened. It was so hard raising kids during Covid. Her husband started bringing drugs into the home again, but she did not pay attention to it. She kept thinking that it would be all right, and it would get better. He said it would be and she believed him, but it did not. They lost the house and became homeless again. They had to give up their dog. They could no longer eat dinner together because they did not have a table to eat at. The dinner table was a point of connection and communication for her and her family. They had to move from house to house. Finally, they found a two-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood. All the kids were in one room and she and her husband had the other. There was no privacy for her daughters. Her daughters started staying at her sister’s house. Her husband was using and was having psychosis from the drug use. It was scary. Things were not going well for Ashley and her family. CPS got involved. Ashley felt like a horrible person who did not deserve anything, including help.

 

Ashley became homeless and lived in her car for 2 years. She was so depressed. In August of 2022, her husband picked her up. They got into an argument about if they should stay together and work things out or separate. She just could not do it anymore. In an attempt to end her life, she jumped out of the car. He ran her over and she had head trauma. He brought her to the hospital where she stayed for a while. After being released, she had no choice but to return to living in her car. She could not take care of herself so her husband told her he would take care of her. She went with him to his families for a couple of weeks, but she could not communicate the care that she needed so she left.

 

Finally, Ashley made a friend who gave her work and a rundown house. She helped him fix it up and has been there for two years. She found Celebrate Recovery church and that helped her with her sobriety. She worked hard at making a home for her children to come back to.

 

Her oldest daughter confided in her that she had an eating problem. Ashley took her to Rogers Behavioral Health in Milwaukee for help. When she got out, she did not want to come home. She had been told many untruths about her mom. Ashley feels that her daughter also blames her for not leaving the chaos that her husband’s drug use had brought into their home. Her daughter is very angry at her.

While in the hospital for her anorexia, Ashley’s daughter saw how the nurses cared for her. She took the anger that she had inside of her and is now going to school to become a nurse. Her daughter graduated early from high school and is in a college CNA program.

 

Ashley is so proud that her daughter has the same strengths of consistency and resiliency that she does. She hopes that that will carry through to her other children as well. Ashley has spent the last four years on her own, striving for a better life. Her 16-year-old daughter is home with her. Having a relationship and getting her 6-year-old son home is very motivating for Ashley. She has a very deep love for her children and is practicing the healthy parenting skills that are needed to hopefully break that generational trauma that she was a victim of.

 

Ashley said that once upon a time, she was very mad at her mom but eventually, her mom became her best and only friend. Her mom was trying to help Ashley, as often as she could, to get her kids back when she died in February of this year.   

 

Ashley has struggled her whole life to let people get close to her because she had been betrayed so many times. It is hard for her to trust someone again or develop new friendships, but she stumbled across The Gathering Place and says, “The kindness here is something that I always loved and needed and spread.”

 

In working on her recovery, Ashley has learned that she has strengths such as resiliency and persistence, compassion, and the ability to do the right things. Now when the challenges arise, she no longer turns to her addictive behaviors as she uses her learned coping skills and support network. She says, “You either make moves or excuses and I am constantly moving.”

 

Ashley has learned that being honest with herself and setting boundaries is especially important to her recovery. She says that "Everything can be figured out, you just need to go into your toolbox and use what you've learned to be able to figure things out. EVERYTHING can be figured out."

 

“The Gathering Place teaches you skills to figure the things out appropriately. I am living my life for me now. This whole time, I have been doing everything for others because that is what I was supposed to do.  Many people do not know what to do when life changes or that they have options. I am learning that I cannot take care of anybody else until I take care of myself.”

 

Ashley volunteers her talents with us. Her service to our staff and members is very appreciated. She has compassion for people and a passion for helping them however she can. As a nonprofit, volunteers are so important to our success, and she adds to that success.

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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