Help Haley Attend In-Patient Rehab!

He loves Blippi and Peppa Pig. He also loves dinosaurs and schoolbuses. His favorite color is purple. 

Odysseus attends a daycare where he is learning and preparing for kindergarten. He has two girlfriends and says he is in love with them both.

My musical tastes are just as extra as my clothing choices. I love Britney Spears and Madonna, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, all the way to Insane Clown Posse. I am a lifelong juggalette, without question. My favorite animal is the highly misunderstood fancy rat, and I've had many of them. 

I like anime and Chuck Palanuik books. I'm scared of the dark, and would be late to my own funeral.

My favorite color is glitter. I like collecting bones, and rearticulating skeletons. I love John Waters movies. 

It's safe to say if you live in Anderson, even if you do not know me personally, you know me simply by my admittedly outlandish appearance.

I'm basically an eccentric scene-kid who still lives in the days of MySpace. I care with my whole heart. 

And I have been an addict for nearly as long as I can remember - I think 12 was about the age I started drinking, and the rest was history.

I have struggled with body dysmorphia, anxiety disorder, and depression for so long I literally cannot remember a time I was not affected by them.

I have also recently become aware that I am on the Autism sectrum, which paired with my other mental health issues that were documented early on, made my life feel incredibly difficult and hopeless from a very early age because I was different... though I could never quite put my finger on how or why exactly. 

I saw my peers around me creating connections with pure ease, but something just wasn't clicking for me. It was always clear, in my mind at least, that I didn't quite fit in no matter how hard I tried.

I went to school in Belton, SC for the majority of the years that attended. I made good grades and participated in gifted and talented classes starting in the second grade. I took karate classes after school in elementary school and had earned my brown belt by the time I quit due to my worsening depression.

My mother's mother had developed Alzhiemers disease and after a very long and excruciating process, she died in NHC in Anderson on March 27, 2004. I was 12 years old at the time. Alzhiemers disease is a very ugly way to go, if nothing else manages to kill you, your memory will fail you to the point that you even forget how to swallow food or water, resulting in death by a combination of malnutrition and dehydration. I remember sitting on the end of her bed that night, watching her choke on bile then suddenly I was standing in the parking lot with my family, and hearing them talk about how she had passed. To this day I cannot remember the in-between.

In seventh grade, I earned the title of "Junior Scholar", which included a full scholarship to Duke University. The next two summer breaks our mailbox was flooded with scholarship offers from different colleges.

It was that same year that I finally settled in with a clique of oddballs that I felt kindredship with. We wrote and drew our own manga comics from scratch and had entire fantasy lands that we immersed ourselves in.

We basically were all were a bunch of weeaboos that worshiped the movie "Escaflowne", and were into the Wiccan religion. I bonded most with a girl named Lexus, and spent a great deal of time at her house, making comics and teaching ourselves to sword fight. But then at the end of eighth grade, I had to switch schools and start all over again.

By the time I entered high school at TL Hanna, I was drinking very heavily and smoking a large amount of pot just to get thru the day. I had made friends with a guy named Tommy over the phone who lived in Iva. I spent an ungodly amount of time on the phone with him the summer before ninth grade, and he helped me thru the surviors guilt I had from the death of my maternal grandmother.

Right before the school year started, the safety was purposefully disengaged on a gun he had been playing around with by a "friend" that was jealous of the happy relationship Tommy had recently begun with a girl they both liked and he accidently fatally shot himself in the head. Despite the bond that we had built over the hundred and hundreds of hours over the phone, I was never in the same room as Tommy until the day of his closed casket funeral. 

Between the loss of my best friend at the time and starting a new school in a new school surrounded by strangers - highschool definitely started off rough. Though I had a small group of friends, I still didn't feel like I belonged. 

I grew bored in my classes and started using tiple c's heavily and often. Though I still got good grades, was held back my 9th-grade year for truancy and when I was told I was going to have to repeat the grade, I instead dropped out of school entirely and dove headfirst into a bottle of whiskey. 

Instead of studying for classes, I instead studied the most extreme diet plans I could find, how to hide my eating disorder, and obsessively counting calories. 

I experienced many failures in romance, attracting mostly toxic people and feeling more and more alienated by my partners all having the same basic complaint that I wouldn't open up to them or talk to them - something I could never explain exactly until when I recently became aware of being on the autism spectrum. 

Thru these years I had a best friend who I described as "my left arm", Gage Gunter. We were always together. I depended on him greatly to navigate the social aspect of my life, and he did it well.

To the outside world, I looked a lot like a typical party girl, but on the inside, I was desperate for a sense of control in my life that I couldn't find anywhere except in the numbers on the scale and since that wasn't enough, I escaped by drinking and using drugs.

Anything speedy I loved, because it kept my appetite low, my energy high, I could drink longer, and kept me from sleeping. Anytime I slept I had horrible apocalyptic nightmares.

Alcohol helped me forget that nagging feeling that I didn't belong. I used it as a crutch for my poor social skills and for my anxiety. 

I briefly saw hope in my teens when I attempted to enter the world of modeling and entered a competition to compete for a contract out of Atlanta. 

While I found myself to be naturally talented at it, winning not just the Atlanta contract but one out of New York as well, due to financial reasons I had to abandon modeling and thus fell deeper into depression.

I continued for awhile doing private photo shoots with local photographers that I knew for awhile, but eventually I gave up on that dream. It was too big, and I figured if I wanted something that badly, if it didn't happen it would hurt too much, so I abandoned modeling. 

One of the few real escapes I found in those times that wasn't directly related to substance abuse or limiting calories was in the Insane Clown Posse's infamous juggalo family. 

I became a fan of ICP at age 8, slowly branching out to Twiztid, ABK, Boondox, AMB, Young Wicked, Tech N9ne, Pyschopathic Rydas, Ouija Macc, and the rest of the now countless juggalo family associated artists, some on Pyschopathic Records' label, some not. 

They rapped about not fitting in, about how even if you're a weirdo, you should embrace that about yourself, and love yourself - we belong, regardless of race, weight, gender, its all about love within the  juggalo family. 

I knew I belonged within the juggalo misfits. This belief was solidified after my first juggalo show - a random one-off Boondox show at The Masquerade in Atlanta, GA in 2009.

I was beyond anxious the whole trip to Atlanta, because I still had a deep fear that somehow I would be wrong, and that I still wouldn't fit in. 

But when we arrived at the venue, early of course, to join in on the pre-show festivities that were traditional for juggalos at this venue - I was blown away. EVERY single painted face in the crowd wore a legitimate smile. 

Strangers ran up to me, offering blunts, faygo, beer, liqour... anything they had, just as earnestly as they did to the people they'd known for years. I felt included in a way that I had never exactly felt before. Every show I've been to since has only deepened this treasured connection of "family". 

But alas, there were few and far between many other juggalos/juggalettes in the area, so that escape only really existed in the show environment. The rest of the time it was just another thing that other people didn't understand about me. 

My grandpa, Gary Thornton, died in July 2011. My whole life until this point, he and my dad owned and ran an upholstery business together. Grandpa was a huge part of our family. He came and ate dinner with us every night, and on Sundays he would come early in the morning to bring the Sunday paper. Unless he was very sick, it was like clockwork.

Grandpa was a recovered alcoholic already by the time I was born, but I've heard some pretty gruesome tales of his drinking days. He wanted so badly for me to quit drinking, because he didn't want me to suffer thru what he did. I deeply regret that he never got to see me quit drinking. 

When Grandpa died, Dad went into a very deep depression. Grandpa had been around his whole life, they were never more than 15 minutes or so apart really his whole life, and they were not only father and son business partners, but also best friends. It didn't take long before the shop went under and we lost our upholstery shop, and along with it, our main source of income. 

Around this point in my life, I decided I didn't need to learn any life skills or prepare for much of a future. I intended on dying early while I was still "young and pretty", and had full intentions of suicide if I were to survive until my 25th birthday.

However, my daddy always told me that if I didn't make a plan for myself and my future, that life would make one for me. Unfortunately, I had to learn that the hard way.

When I got pregnant with my daughter, it saved my life, and I mean this very literally. 

Drinking had turned into a nightmare for me and everyone around me. During the last two years of my drinking career, I did not end a single night without locking myself in the bathroom of the house my boyfriend and I shared with a few roommates, blacked out drunk.

Every single night I would try to escape myself bashing my head into the sink or with my fists, leading to many, many concussions, and cutting myself with anything I could find to do so with.

Every night my boyfriend would have to unlock the door with a butterknife, and my roommate would have to talk me down from this frenzied state and out of the small bathroom so my boyfriend could doctor my wounds and lead me to bed.

I still have many scars all over my body from these days, and whenever I have been asked why I did these things, I could only say because I hated myself.

Despite not being malicious to anyone, quite the opposite for the majority part, I hated myself for not functioning like everyone else around me and chalked it up to deserving it somehow or being a bad person.

Looking back, this also would be explained by not being aware of being on the spectrum, but back then I was frantically confused and just wanted it all to fade to black.

I was spiraling uncontrollably with my anorexia as well, following extreme diet plans like the Ana Bootcamp Diet, if eating anything at all. When I did eat more than 100 calories or so a day, I called it "binge eating", though in all reality it was only what a normal person would consider a light meal. 

But, that's when the powers that be gave me my Vivica. 

My pregnancy was not easy, I was violently sick 90% of the time for the whole pregnancy and I was also severely underweight at 5'10" tall and a whopping 90lbs. 

I was having major issues making myself eat normally again and relied on smoking pot to not panic about every calorie I took in and to soothe ever-present nausea. On July 22, 2015, I gave birth to my daughter, Mandolin Vivica Felicity.

Although I had I quit smoking pot after the 6-month mark came along, due to my "alternative" appearance, the hospital decided to drug test my daughter's meconium, which came back with the slightest traces of thc metabolites.

Even though I had quit using any sort of substances, other than doctor-prescribed mental health medications, was working a steady job for the first time in my whole life, and for what it was worth had found hope again - this positive test landed me forever on a child abuse and neglect registry that I can never get removed from.

DSS got involved and stayed involved for one year. I had no choice but to make the best of it. My daughter was and continues to be my whole world. I tried my best to be a super mom. I breast-fed her and the bond it created is something beyond comparison.

Vivica taught me the true meaning of love.

But my relationship with her father, Marsh Bowman, was on the rocks and I discovered during my year of sobriety that the majority of my friendships were shallow and only existed because of shared habits, so I found motherhood to be bittersweet. 

Over that year I tried a slew of different combinations of mental health medications, and while the last combination I was on worked for the most part, I still experienced some pretty significant break-thru depressive episodes. At one point I had to even be admitted to the eighth floor of the Anderson hospital.

The day DSS closed our case was the same day I went back to using meth. My daughter's father and I decided to split up before things between us got too bad between us, for both the sake of our daughter and to retain the friendship we had built over the years before and during our relationship. 

I am blessed that we made this choice, because to this day Marsh is still one of my best friends on earth, and one of the largest supports in my life. He knows more about me than pretty much anyone period. 

That's when a new boyfriend taught me how to shoot up and that was the beginning of the current problematic cycle of addiction. 

I found myself without anywhere I thought was acceptable for my daughter to stay with me, so, distraught, I left her with my mother. This choice was one of the hardest I'd ever made, but with my newfound habit and no place to take her, I still stand by it. 

I hated myself and felt more alone than I ever had in my life, so I ran from all of it and spiraled into my addiction, as well as my eating disorder. 

That same year, I decided to discontinue my mental health medication after trying to kill myself with it. I drank heavily that night at a house party, did massive shots of dope, and when no one was looking, swallowed a months worth of kolonopin, wellbutrin, gabapintin, and lithium. My legs didn't work for about 2 days after this night, but by some miracle I went back to normal on day 3. 

September 23, 2016 I lost my best friend Brooklyn Hughes, whom I had immediately bonded with from the moment i met her. For her familys sake, I will omit the how, but the loss of my Brooklyn still weighs heavily on my heart and soul. 

Brooklyn left a friend's house we had both been staying at for a few days that night, and I have horrid survior's guilt over not insisting harder on my sinking gut feeling that she shouldn't go. I feel as if I could have saved her somehow, but I couldn't force her to not leave that night, and since I didn't tag along on the excursion either, I couldn't. I am haunted by the "what-ifs".

For the majority part, addict life was interesting and there was always some sort of insanity going on that I used to keep my mind off how I'd failed, and what I had lost. My good-hearted nature made me a target however and I took it to heart every time that was taken advantage of. I have always tried my best to never gave up my sense of morality and dedication to treating even those who wronged me with kindness. Meanwhile, I was loosing precious time with my daughter that I can never get back. 

I had it stuck in my head that she and everyone else was simply better off without me there, because again, I was a "bad person". I felt I didn't deserve my family, even though I loved them desperately and they loved me just the same. In my head, I'd made myself into an incurable monster, and day-dreamed earnestly for the testicular fortitude that I would imagine it would require to jump into moving traffic. Before I knew it, I'd been running the streets for years.

I was part of more than a few dysfunctional relationships, and eventually found the man I would marry, Matthew Timms. 

The first part of our relationship was spent for the majority part with Matt incarnated. 

Eventually Matt entered Anderson's drug court program. It was an incredibly difficult yet rewarding time in our lives to say the least. 

After 16 months into his first real period of sobriety in his whole life, we found out I was pregnant with our son.

Despite not wanting another child, I told myself that with time I would adjust to the idea. We were both working ((he worked two - daytime at his dad's upholstery shop and third shift with me doing janitorial work at Glen Raven)), paying bills, and had bought our first car. He had 16 months of sobriety under his belt and I began to find my sobriety yet again. 

On July 31, 2019 before we went in for our shift at work, without telling a single person, filled out all the paperwork required for a "courthouse wedding". other than the clerk in the courthouse who handed me the forms and the minster friend. 

For many reasons, it turns out that this was not the best decision. The drug court panel decided that despite having approved our living together and clean background checks, and my participation in the weekly meetings he had with them - we did not think to ask their permission to get married and without hesitation, they kicked him out of the program entirely and sent him to prison for the next year and a half. I was beyond devastated.

When he left, his father decided that I no longer had any place in the house that we were renting from him, so I had to move out. My morning sickness caused me to miss too many days at work and was fired soon after. Suddenly everything came crashing down around me, and I was alone, living out of my vehicle, jobless, and pregnant with a child that I didn't want to have. I immediately relapsed and did so hard. I hoped every day that I would die and it would be over. 2019 remains thus far the worst year of my life.

I gave birth to my son, Odysseus Mordecai Tobin, on May 21, 2020. 

He tested positive for meth, as did I, and DSS got involved once again. This time I lost custody of both my children, and Odysseus went home with my mother from the hospital. I was not allowed to go stay with them. I felt a disconnect with my son that plagued me deeply. It has taken a long time to create a real emotional bond with him, but thankfully that bond is finally starting to form - for both of us, really. We are beyond lucky that he is now proving to be a happy, healthy and "normal" child.

Before my release from the hospital i was told i had developed inferior vena cava thrombosis. When I was released I tried my hardest to shoot enough dope to dislodge the clot and die, but it never happened. 17 days after Odysseus born, my placenta, which had been altogether forgotten about at the Anmed Women and Children's Hospital in Anderson, came out while I was in the shower at my daughter's father's house - rotten.

I am forever traumatized by the experience. And it was no surprise when in the following months I was admitted into the hospital with MRSA coursing thru my veins, something I very nearly died from. I stayed in the Greenville Memorial Hospital for two weeks in isolation, attached to a IV drip of very strinf antibiotics. Upon my my release, DSS demanded I go to inpatient rehab in Greenville. I was there for less than 24 hours before the staff at The Phoenix Center decided they wanted a doctor's note saying I no longer had MRSA for me to stay in their program... and since that's not how that works, ((once you have gotten MRSA, it can be inactive or active, but you will have it the rest of your life...)) I was made to leave the treatment facility after less than 24 hours, but... as it turns out it just wasn't time for me just yet. 

Fast forward to my husband's release from Palmer, a low-level security facility that is part of SCDC in Florence, SC and his immediate relapse. It was in every sense a textbook definition of a toxic relationship. 

We fought increasingly so. Every place that we tried to stay at, we would be kicked out of because of my husband's outrageous, drug-fueled behavior. This is when I decided to go home... to the property that I grew up on.

During this time we met a guy named Nick and his dog, a redness pit and Labrador mix breed, named Brooklyn Rose.

Nick was living somewhere where he couldn't have her, so when I met her she was living with a mutual friend of ours. My husband and I both fell in love with her, she was so loving and sweet. 

Not long after we met them, something came up where she had to leave the house she was staying at and Nick was trying to figure out the best place for her to go where she would he happy and healthy. It just so happens that Nick had just started working at the same upholstery shop by dad hangs out at, so with a little help from my dad, we persuaded Nick to let Brooklyn come and stay with me at our property, where we had a big fenced in yard. Initially she was to go back to Nick whenever he was able to get her back... but she would end up playing a much bigger part in my life than I had anticipated. 

i have never been much of a traditionally religious person. But about a month ago or so, after floundering with attempting to hit a vein, i instead grabbed a DMT vape and that's when it happened. God, or something akin to it, told me it was time to go to an inpatient rehabilitation center. Before I ever got out of the bath, i was making calls, and making big plans.

The cheapest option in the general area I could find that suits my needs is a place called Brite Life, located in Hilton Head, SC. Unfortunately I was told I couldn't bring Brooklyn there to their South Carolina Location - however, they do have another location that does, on a case by case basis, allow registered emotional support animals to accompany their owners to treatment. 

Brite Life Recovery in Hanover, PA not only occasionally allows ESAs, but is 4k$ cheaper than their South Carolina Location - but it still offers the same basic treatment plans. Brite Life was the first Rehab Center I contacted, and somehow I knew when I first talked to Clay from their admissions department that this was it - this was going to be the place where I could finally, finally heal and find myself. My heart is filled to the brim with excitement and fear and most of all hope - in a way that I can't recall ever feeling. Somewhere in this far away town in Pennsylvania, by some miracle of fate, is my saving grace. 

As of May 23, 2023 I have managed to get a therapist's letter "prescribing" me an emotional support animal, and she is now officially on the registration. 

I don't want to waste my time and energy going to a rehab that doesn't suite my needs, but Brite Life seems to be an exact fit for me. Their treatment plans include individual therapy, group therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, relapse prevention, gender-specific group therapy, trauma informed therapy, dialectial behavior therapy, motivational interveiwing, adventure therapy, life skills education, case management, 12-step integration, a variety of wellness programs including activities like yoga, and the treatment of co-existing mental health disorders like mine.

Finding out that I am on the autism spectrum freed me from my own self-label of "bad person", and I no longer hate myself. That's the big difference here - I hated myself so much before that I allowed myself to drown and destroy myself for most of my life, and didn't want to be saved. Now that i have the answer to the problem I've had since, well, forever... I am finally ready to save myself, to love myself, and make use of all the potential I have squandered over the years.

BUT I desperately need help to get here. Brite Life, unfortunately, does not take my current insurance. Their detox and residential inpatient programs are 20k$. Once I have the money to attend, I will go to Hanover, PA as soon as possible. I will also have to have money for traveling there and back after the inpatient program is completed. Here is a link to the "what to bring" checklist - which includes an additional 50-100$ cash for store runs while there, and mentions having to bring money for any medications prescribed while there, which I'm unsure of what the total cost for that portion shall be until I am there. Thankfully upon returning to South Carolina, my insurance will then go back to covering any medications that I am prescribed.

After completing the program, I will then have my aftercare set up for somewhere the Charleston, SC or Savannah, GA areas. While I am going thru treatment, my family will be making arrangements to meet me where I end up doing my aftercare, after i get roots planted so to say, so we can all relocate from this town that has nearly destroyed me. 

So our goals here, friends, are as followed:

So, I am laying myself out on the table before the world here on gofundme, humbly asking for help. For the first time in my life, I want help. I want to survive and to thrive. I want this nightmare that I have created to be over so I can be there for my children, and take care of my parents as they are not getting any younger. They've picked up my slack for far too long, and its time for me to step up and allow them to relax, instead of trying to keep up with two extremely energetic and strong-willed youngsters and constantly worrying about their addict daughter. From the bottom of my soul I am thankful that they have done so for all these years, but its my time now. 

It seems as if most of my life has been a series of blunders and mistakes. I am not here to seek forgiveness or pity from anyone, as they were all my own choices - the only forgiveness I seek is from my family and from myself. It is not an easy task by any means, but I am learning to earnestly say that I am sorry, and not catastrophize it all when I say it. I am, however, asking for donations to help it all come together. 

Any amount helps, small or large, and will be processed into a bank account that's dedicated specifically to funding my treatment. Even the smallest donations add up. 

Feel free to check out my facebook or instagram for more pictures or words of encouragement. And please, if you have the means to do so, help me to save myself, save my kids, and save my family... because this is the only way I see of doing so. And unfortunately, I can't do f all on my own. Every donation gets me one step closer to closing this chapter and opening the doors of salvation.

Much love to you all, and thank for your role as donors in helping me save my life before it is too late. 

                      ❤️