Parents
Orondé's story

What have you done to give your parents the chance to listen? Orondé is the youngest of five boys in his family. Things got tough for him in middle school – until he opened up to his mother.

I was a model student, had good grades, plenty of awards and everything. I tried to stay respectable, but it just turned bad for me. My teachers didn't like me, I could tell. I really had no real friends at that school. So I just became kind of drawn back, dejected. I was out on the streets, hanging around with these people I didn't trust. But I'm hanging with them because I just needed somebody to be with.

I always was cool with my parents. We clicked. But once things started going bad, that's when we couldn't find that common ground anymore. They couldn't understand what was happening. I didn't even know either, at that point. Even though my parents tried to talk to me, I was sad. I felt alone felt like I had nobody to turn to. My mind was messed up, started traveling to drinking, using other drugs just to forget about everything.

I was at a party late at night. We was all coming downstairs. I just stopped on the landing, and a friend just walks out in front of me. As soon as he hits the floor, shots were fired, and he just drops to the front porch, bleeding. So we all running back in the house. I always think if I just walked on that porch first, what could have been the outcome?

Man, it was tearing my parents apart. Me and my mother, we had just come from shopping. We're driving along. My mom's just talking to me. She's like “So how's school going?”

“Oh,” – the same answer I always give her – “everything's fine. Everything's excellent. It's just great.”

She's all happy about it. We're listening to gospel, and I just ask her, “Mom, what do you honestly think about me?”

And she tells me, “Oh, you're great son, you know I love you, you're my baby.”

I was like, my mom really thinks that? I knew exactly what I had been doing that whole time around her, in her own house. That's what just broke me, right there. I'd never cried before. She started driving slow, just to make the car ride last longer so we could talk. I was opening up to her more and more.

That's when me and my parents honestly decided it was time to make a better go of things. We were going to be tighter as a family.

I made a list of all the things that I definitely had to change in order to make myself a better person. For one thing, I had to stop running with the wrong crowd. I had to try to leave the drinking and the drugs alone, and try to just do something with my life.

When I look back at it now, I do wish that I had been more open with my parents, because they honestly talk to me. They don't judge me. They don't try to bring me down. They just talk and listen, and tell me what they thought they could do to help me through this point.

If somebody was in pain like that, just don't keep it to yourself. Don't keep it bottled up.