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Ashley, welcome to the program. Hi, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to speak with you. I'm very excited to see what advice you can give me. So I was pretty much raised by my

aunt and uncle. It's my late father's brother. And that was because your parents were dead or in jail?

Not in jail, thankfully.

So my father passed away from sepsis.

He was 36.

And then my mother, she did not take that well, and she had a mental breakdown that she never recovered from right after his death.

Very chaotic. She was diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder, lost custody.

For about a year, we experienced her downfall. It was crazy. We were living in hotels, living in cars, out of school. Dysus

finally came at the hotel we were staying at and took our mom away in handcuffs. I was about

five turning six and my sister was nine. So my father was kind of the glue that held my mom together, I'm assuming.

But after that, my dad's mom got custody of us.

She died two years later from a heart attack. And then my aunt and uncle,

who were living in the house as well because my grandma had a lot of medical problems. So my

and uncle, after my dad's father died, who is my uncle's father as well um they were in missionaries in

india they came back helped my grammy we ended up coming at their doorstep so it was me

my sister my aunt and uncle and my granny for about two years.

So after my Grammy passed away, mind you, she was a really amazing Christian woman, born-again Christian. She had so much love.

She really showed me and my sister's stability, and I think part of the reason why me and my sister are okay is the fact that we had a mom

and dad who really loved us up until, you know, formative ages that they instilled, you know,

we, we experience a cohesive family at some point.

I don't remember it, but I feel it.

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