by Anthony “Aemys” Young
Where I went wrong in life, I made the choice to become a follower and be a part of a gang. I was always the type of person who didn’t care what the next person was doing, I did my own thing. When it came to school I loved it. I was a wonderful student, I also played sports basketball, football, and baseball. Through out my whole life gangs were always around me from family to friends but I always look passed that part of my life.
I was born June 10th 1992 in Gardena, California, my mother and father were strongly involved in my life, I have two older siblings and one younger brother and we all lived together in Compton, CA. My father was my best friend he was my baseball coach, and a supporting father, even though my father sold drugs and was a gang member he kept then thing from the household due to the respect of my mother and due to his family. My older brother was a gang member but I didn’t find out till I got older. My sister was a sport and school nerd as myself and younger brother. My family was a very close family until things went down hill due to a few deaths in my family.
When I was about ten years old I found myself around a lot of gang parties and around fights and shootings and I started to see my whole family was a gang family. I still was a school and sports kid until one day my father passed away due to some illness. When that happened I was so lost and hurt. I started to hate life and I acted out because I wanted my dad back and at ten years old I didn’t know how to express my feelings to people or my own family.
Two years later my brother was shot dead in cold blood in a gang shooting. After losing my older brother my family was so messed up and trying to deal with the pain of losing family members. My own family wasn’t there for me because we were so in shock. So my brother’s homies started giving me all the love and support I needed and treated me more like family than my own family. My mom and sister used to fight all the time for unknown reaosns and since my sister was mad at my mom, my sister used to beat me and my young brother for no reason. I said to myself what did we do to her to get beaten every day for no reason. Due to years of abuse from family and people who were supposed to keep me safe, I turned to the support and love of my big brother’s gang! That day was when I went wrong in my life.
My brother’s homies treated me like family and I fell for it. I was taught a gang was a family and we look out for each other no matter what. I was brainwashed and turned into a monster without knowing there was something bigger to the picture. They showed me how to deal with my pain by drinking and getting high off weed and coke. They showed me how to support myself so I don’t need nobody. They showed me that the gang was my family. I was so blind to what I was doing was so wrong because the gang family showed me it was right. I was a man and need no one but myself and my gang to be okay in this life. I was so in tune to find love and support I didn’t care how I got it or where it came from, but it all changed when the people who loved me left me once again!
I started hurting myself by drinking and smoking at a young age to block all my pain and to stop me from feeling. Me and a group of homies started to rob people to support ourselves and to support our drug habit. I started to sell drugs to the people around me, but didn’t know I was hurting my own people just to get by or to get new clothes. I was a person who lost all the care in the world for all human life and my self worth. I went wrong with drug use and gang life because I thought it was all helping me, but it was only hurting me and the ones around me!
To stop others from making the choices I made I tell my story to show people gangs and drugs are not worth it in no way at all. I hurt family and friends because I stole from them or to get high or to get money for gang life.
Drugs destroy the mind – your thinking and your way of life. Gangs only hurt you and others and there’s no good in it at all. I hope you look at the people you hurt or people you lost to drugs and gang life and make a change to your life for one self and others. Make peace to one self and others and make a difference and stop hurting yourself and do better for yourself because it is never too late to make a change to your life to better your life!
I went wrong with drugs because I thought they were helping me with my problems. I also thought I could control the drugs and not let the drugs control me. I was wrong. I’m now no longer a person who goes to drugs to run from all my problems. Now I talk to people who care about me I went to classes to help me learn how to stay clean and use my skill so I don’t go back. I went wrong with gang life because it gave me some things I needed, but in the wrong way. I was misused and I was hurt all over again because I had to find out that love from the streets don’t love no one. You can get love from God and learn how to love one self before you can love someone else!
A lot of people find love and support in all the wrong places and all along the right place was in front of us the whole time. Now I reach out to people who are doing wrong in their life and willing to make a change for the better so they can help someone and so on. Just because you made some bad choices in your life doesn’t mean you have to keep going. You just have to want to change and also want better for yourself. Everyone has their own problems and we all deal with things differently. I’m here so people know there are better ways to do things in life. You don’t have to go to the first thing you see or be afraid to reach out to people you don’t know or people you do know. I hope this will help some on and show them a better way.