Kristy Johnson shares her heroic (and difficult) story of living through addiction, incarceration, rehabilitation and into recovery — all through the eyes of a loving mother. Her story proves that the small moments we have with anyone are influential and can have unimaginable impacts (for good or for bad). This leads us to believe the true value of “loving the one you are with” or simply being a non-judgmental force of hope for the future — to whomever we are with in any given moment.
00;00;01;22 – 00;02;10;27
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
Hello and welcome to the Community Matters podcast. We are breaking through into a second season on rehabilitation and incarceration. This time we’re focusing on preventative and family slash multi-generational solutions to rehabilitation. And the season is being kicked off with Kristy Johnson. She is an amazing woman who has firsthand experience with addiction and incarceration, with a lack of stability in growing up in her childhood, parents that also have faced challenges that influenced her life directly.
She has so many ideas on how we can make things work better. The importance of community, and really how we can all make a difference to make the world a better place for everyone. I hope you enjoy episode one of this second series, Rehabilitation The Next Generation by JLG architects.
Christy, I just want to thank you so much for this conversation today. As you know, we’ve been exploring through this Community Matters podcast, incarceration. And to be 100% honest, we’re extremely ignorant at the beginning, just really not understanding on a personal level what people go through from the beginning of their life to whatever may have led them to incarceration.
But we’re learning a lot, and I’m really grateful that you can help us kick off the next evolution, which is looking at it and renaming it. We’re using different vocabulary rehabilitation and thinking about the next generation and how we can do better, which I know you dedicate your life to every day. So before we get into your personal story, which is really important to set the stage for all this, I want to ask you what your gut reaction is in your mind and in your body.
When I say two different words and I’m going to start with the first one. What do you feel and think when I say the word incarceration?
00;02;10;29 – 00;02;58;19
Guest: Kristy Johnson
So subconsciously, the second that I hear the word incarceration, I think of the the stigma that is associated with it. I think anytime somebody hears the word incarceration, they instantly just pinpoint, okay, a bad person that got caught for doing something bad and then they were locked up. However, they’re not thinking about all of the things that are tied to that person the family, the children, you know, the community, the parents, you know, any victims, so on and so forth.
And then with that person’s history was their own personal traumas. Incarceration is it’s a very loaded word, so to speak. As you know, I have personal ties to incarceration quite a few times. And it’s very I think there’s a big stigma on incarceration. And I honestly wish that more people in the community would try to understand it better, if that makes sense.
00;02;58;25 – 00;03;07;03
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
That makes a ton of sense. And what about the second word? What do you feel and think when you hear rehabilitation?
00;03;07;06 – 00;04;11;14
Guest: Kristy Johnson
So when I hear the word rehabilitation, I think of I think of a powerhouse of different entities coming together for the success of somebody. So when I hear the word rehabilitate it or rehabilitation, I don’t think like, oh, that person just, you know, maybe woke up one day and started doing something different. I think of a whole bunch of different entities and communities working together from before that person leaves incarceration to when they get out, and they’re successful in their new life, so to speak.
Rehabilitation is it’s, I think, very important to all these issues that we have in the community, whether it’s safety, whether it’s foster care for kids, everything. But I don’t think rehabilitation is possible without people working together. So I instantly just think of an entire community wrapping their arms around somebody and loving on them. And a lot of people hear me say the term, you know, believe in somebody so much that they start to believe in themselves because some people will say, well, I’m not going to put more work into their life or their recovery than they are.
But what if you put enough work into them? Then they start seeing the value in themselves, you know?
00;04;11;16 – 00;04;38;19
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
Yeah, it almost feels like it’s some of the most important work that a community can do is to support each other in those ways. When you don’t believe in yourself, everyone is stronger with the community. So would you tell us your story? Leave out what you don’t want to share. Yeah, sure. Share what you think is the most important.
But just to let everyone kind of understand all that you have experienced, which is a lot in this world.
00;04;38;20 – 00;10;09;08
Guest: Kristy Johnson
Yeah. Okay. So I am a product of the 80s. My parents were big partiers, young when they had me. And, you know, I got shuffled around a little bit. You know, my parents had their own personal struggles, kind of went from, you know, mom, dad, foster care, grandma. And it just kind of rotated over my childhood. And so I never really knew what stability was.
I never really knew what what it looked like to go to the same school from birth to graduation or wake up in the same place and stuff like that. And so, of course, you know, as statistics would say, I started making my own bad decisions. You know, I was running from the pain. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.
You know, there became a point where my grandfather, who was a big part of my childhood and upbringing, got very sick, and I wasn’t even very close to him because I had already started making bad decisions. And I really started to shut down. And so I was kind of just running around, you know, north Minneapolis, Saint Paul, you know, all these little communities around the Twin Cities and just doing whatever I could to kind of just get away from, you know, my childhood and all the things that had hurt, you know, chasing love in the wrong areas and stuff like that.
I was introduced to a hard drug, which was meth at about, I don’t know, like 17. Didn’t think anything of it really, you know, dabbled in it, but it wasn’t really a big deal. And then, keep in mind, I dropped out and I think it was like ninth grade. And when I was like 17, I was in foster care, and I actually ran away from foster care until I turned 18 because, you know, they’re not gonna they’re not gonna look for you.
Unfortunately, you know, so I ran away, aged out, and started hanging. I was always hanging out with the wrong people, but really started to hang out with, like, people that were probably even, and I shouldn’t say the wrong people, but people that had their own big, big struggles. And I got pregnant with my first child, and my biggest goal my entire life was to be that mom, the mom that my friends used to complain about, the mom that was there annoying you about your homework.
I wanted, like it was my lifelong goal to be that mom and I found out I was pregnant and I was like, I am going to nail this. I am going to do great, you know, was Skippy, blah, blah, blah. His dad came from a great family. Him and I just dated for a while. It wasn’t anything serious and then got pregnant, had him, and then shortly after his birth, I was hanging out with some friends that were not like they had good lives, you know, they, you know, were doing good things.
They weren’t people that you thought maybe had, you know, a pocket full of meth, you know, and stuff like that. And I was reintroduced to it, and for some reason I could not stop from that day. I was like, oh my God, I’m getting everything done. My laundry is done, this and that. But it quickly turned into waking up and only thinking about getting high, to the point where my grandma started taking care of my son.
My, you know, who I was living with started taking care of my son. I just I could not stop. I would wake up. I would want to get high and not stop getting high all day, every day. There’s a lot of people in the world that do not understand addiction, and they seem to think, oh well, you could have stopped at any time, or you woke up and you chose getting high over your son.
Pardon my language about bullshit, you know? Yeah. A close person to me always says, you know, when he shares his story, he’s like, you know, you could have given me a lie detector test and asked me if I loved alcohol more than my kid, and I would have passed. No, I didn’t, but I could not stop and I could not stop.
It resulted in my son going to live with his dad, his dad getting custody, and again, a big thing that a lot of people that don’t understand addiction is, is they think, oh well, you could have stopped. You’d think losing your kid would be enough. No, it does the opposite. It made it worse. I wanted to shut down my last supervised visit that I had with him when he was two, maybe three.
He was very guarded, very disconnected from me, and him and I were very close. We had a very special bond. And right when they came to get him, he ran across the swing and he wrapped his arms around me and he started screaming, mommy, mommy! He didn’t wanna let go. And I could hear him screaming, mommy! All the way out!
And I shut down. I told myself that I was just hurting him at this point. Every time he saw me, he wanted to come home with me and he didn’t know why. And so I stopped my visitations and went running. And gunning did all of the beautiful things that are tied to addiction criminally. You know, my mug shots were billboard material.
I was in and out of prison, in and out of jail, and even all of those times, I just I could not imagine not getting high. I could not imagine not having enough to sell people to make money and get by. And so as my addiction deepened, my criminal history record got longer. And through the course of my addiction, I also gave birth to.
So after my son, I had a little girl. I had a couple little beautiful humans that were given up for adoption. I knew from day one that they needed a life that I couldn’t give them. And I, you know, I couldn’t bring myself to terminate. I wanted them to have good lives.
00;10;09;11 – 00;10;11;10
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
That had to be so hard.
00;10;11;11 – 00;18;49;02
Guest: Kristy Johnson
Oh, gosh. It was and it was, it was, it was hard. Yeah. And so I just I kept going and I just kept doing my thing. And then my I like to think that my rock bottom started when I was pregnant with my second daughter. So I could not I was not in a place that I could even manage staying sober throughout my pregnancy, and I felt like a monster.
I was like, what kind of person does this? Like, what is wrong with me? What the frick is wrong with me? Why can’t I kick this? You know, and I had felony warrants and I ended up having a placental abruption, which is where your uterus starts to tear away from the lining of your stomach, ended up having an emergency C-section, you name it.
I was in the hospital, and I woke up and like, I didn’t have a baby, my belly anymore. And there was this lady hanging blood. And, you know, she kind of just looked at me and shook her head, and I knew why she was shaking her head. You know, they knew that I tested positive. My daughter probably tested positive.
Of course they knew that. Right. And I this cute little nurse came in and she was like, you have a beautiful baby. You should go see her, you know? And I felt like that five second interaction with that nurse was like the first time somebody made me feel human, regardless of the circumstances that surrounded me. Right. And you know, and keep in mind, you know, I had I had people in my life that were trying to support me, you know, like my, my grandparent, my grandma, my my dad, my mom from a distance, you know, all sorts of people that tried to but eventually got so sick of my BS that they just disconnected from
me. Right. So this little nurse was so pivotal because it had been so long that I had felt like a human. And so I was like, okay, I’m going to go see her, you know? And I went into the little thing, the I see the ICU, the NICU, and they had her in this little incubator, and this nurse was like, she had her hand in there and my daughter was holding her hand.
And so I went in there and that nurse looked up at me and shook her head. And so as I went to put my hand in there, I pulled it out, and I went into my room, and I took the IVs out of my arm, and I walked out of that hospital with felony warrants. And I left her there because I knew she would go to foster care, and it was arranged so she could go to the same family that adopted my other kiddos so she could be with them.
Amazing adoptive family. They just wanted to have all of them together anytime it happened, you know? And so the irony in this is that when I left that hospital, I left that hospital with one goal, and that was to unaligned myself. I just was like, I’m doing nothing but hurting people. To me, it wasn’t about, oh, I won’t hurt anymore.
It’s I just kept hurting people in my life. And so I went to this house in north Minneapolis, where I used to do a lot of bad things, and it was empty, you know, by then. And I went down in the basement and I proceeded to end my life at that moment. And I should not be here. I woke up, somebody had taken me down, put me over their shoulder, and I remember waking up over the shoulder.
They were walking up the stairs. So I don’t know if somebody was squatting there. They laid me in the front, the front grass of this house and this within minutes, not maybe not even minutes. This Minneapolis police officer came around the corner and he knew who I was. He knew I had felony warrants. He was like getting Christie.
And what I did not realize was that was that would be the last time that I was ever in the back of a cop car. So I went to court for my felony warrant. Felony fleeing in a motor vehicle. Thought it was a great idea to just run from the cops one day in a car, not stop. Warrant was old.
And so I went to court and I was like, yeah, I’ll do treatment. I’ll get out faster and I’ll go back to getting high, you know? Sure. Send me to treatment, went to treatment, went to some halfway house living up here and still was like, I’m not. I’m going to go back to that lifestyle. Had a couple slips while I was, you know, when I first moved up here, got a job, and then I was working at I met a boy.
That’s just what we think we should do when we get sober. Let’s jump into a relationship, you know, and I found out I was pregnant. Because that’s just what Christie does, right? You know? And so I instantly was like, I am not equipped to be a good mother. History has proven that I need to give this baby up and give him the life that he deserves, because I’ll never be able to give that to him, you know?
And his got a great dad, you know, he’s, you know, never had the struggles that I did, you know, great family. And that was my plan all the way up until the week that my son was born. And I decided to keep him. Didn’t know how the hell I was going to do it. You know, they tested him when he was born.
He was clean. I was clean, you know, I was totally doing good at this point, you know, had a little job, didn’t know how I was going to do it. Had this ghetto little apartment in Rocky Park, Moorhead, which is not a great area, but it was the only place that would run to me as a felon. And I was going to keep him.
And so we came home and when my son was seven days old, social services knocked on my door and they removed him from my care even though I was sober, even though I had a place in a home and a job and everything. And in the state of Minnesota, there is a prior termination of an involuntary rights law.
So with my youngest daughter that tested positive at the hospital who went to foster care, I never went to court, you know, and they terminated my rights. Well, because of that, for the rest of my life, they can take any children that I have in the state of Minnesota. And so I went they took him and I had just had a C-section.
This was in February. It was like 20 degrees below zero. And I on paper, I was a monster. I had this criminal history. I had all these beautiful babies that I didn’t have custody of. They looked at me like, nope, I sign off on it. That baby will never, that will never. That baby will never call her mom.
Right. And so I like what do you think I wanted to do when they want exactly. With my baby? I was like, fuck it. I might as well just get high, right? And but I didn’t. I still don’t know how I managed to just stay strong when I look back. But anyways, so they set up supervised visits for me and I will.
Initially I wasn’t going to go, but I had like this little thing that was like, just try, just try. Even if you’re gonna, you lose. Like you’re probably going to lose. Just show up. And I was so scared to be late to a supervised visit that instead of taking a bus in 2020, degree below. Whether I walked after my night shift at Perkins, after my shift in the morning, I would walk from there all the way to the social service building in the winter because I did not want to be late, and I would sit outside the door and I’d wait for them to open, and I tried to breastfeed them.
I tried to keep doing that, and every visit that I had, I looked at him and I just, I was like, you’re never going to know me as your mom, but I love you to death, you know? And the irony is that the entire system wanted to write me off and terminate my rights and let my son go to another family.
But I had this judge, and she saw something in me that I did not see at the time. She looked like I could see her up on the bench, looking through all her paperwork, and she just. I don’t know what it was. I think I kind of want to ask her, but I’ve never asked her, you know, but she.
She wanted to give me a chance, and she threw the book at me. She’s like, I am going to give you a chance because she knew there was something there. Even if I didn’t know what it was. I went through all these hoops and classes and parental capacity evaluations, all of these things. And miraculously, it ended with me having my son and I couldn’t believe it.
I was just like, and that’s so earlier when I shared with you, you know, believe in somebody so much that they start to believe in themselves. That was that judge for me. It was amazing. It was pivotal for me. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I didn’t know, like, okay, let’s read a book. You know what I mean?
Like, this is all brand new to me, even though I’m, you know, I’m in my 20s, you know, going to be 30 in a few years, you’d think I’d have this down. Right.
00;18;49;04 – 00;19;11;17
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
It’s so interesting how when you are on this kind of pathway telling your story, you have these people who either made you get a lot better or a lot worse. And the judgment people that hold this judgment are actually making it so much more difficult for you.
00;19;11;19 – 00;19;12;14
Guest: Kristy Johnson
So 100%.
00;19;12;14 – 00;19;24;05
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
And these people that are able to see you as a human being. R the only way out in some instances, it just kind of feels like these people are the ones that are the only way.
00;19;24;07 – 00;20;02;22
Guest: Kristy Johnson
Well, and the hard part for me was the people in the places that should have been supporting supportive, were not supportive. The social worker and I am not going to like bash any realms or anything. But the social worker was very adamant about just sign your rights away, just give the baby up. He’d have a better life and, you know, focused more on the bad parts of my life than, hey, this is what I’ve done since I’ve cleaned up.
And so to me, I’m like, how many families or moms have been approached by that vibe from a social worker that gave up? Do you know what?
00;20;02;22 – 00;20;03;13
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
I already gave up.
00;20;03;13 – 00;21;58;07
Guest: Kristy Johnson
On them. Yeah, because of that advice they’re giving from somebody that is entrusted by the system to support families and reunification. How many parents have given up because of that advice, so to speak? And it breaks my heart to think about it every day. But yeah, fast forward. So I have my son and I. I don’t know why, but when I got my son back, just being a person and recovery in the community, it wasn’t enough for me.
I was bound and determined that I did not go through all of that from being a child to adulthood, you know, pushed nearly 30 years old. I didn’t go through all that not to do something with it. Like, to me, it was a resume. I don’t know how. I don’t know why, I don’t know what I’m thinking. Maybe I’m crazy, but I instantly was like, I just kind of threw myself into, okay, how can I give back?
How can I set the bar higher? What can I do? And I started I was working at a little nonprofit when peer support just started becoming a thing up here, and I was a volunteer, and then they hired me, and then that evolved into me helping kind of with the first, you know, steps of creating a beautiful nonprofit that serves North Dakota and Minnesota.
And I was able to be at the table to help that growth, you know, and form it based on, you know, my lived experience, other people’s lived experience to just, you know, really kind of set the bar high. And so now, you know, keep in mind, I have felony records. I have these beautiful babies that don’t call me mom.
And I just I couldn’t stop I still I still sit here like in front of you right now while we’re doing this podcast. And I’m like, well, can I look how can I set the bar higher this week? You know what I mean? What more could be done to even if it’s just one person? Right.
00;21;58;13 – 00;22;26;19
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
So it’s such a burden though, you know, I mean, I’ve noticed with myself, I started with, we need to fix this entirely. And I’ve evolved to a point where, how can we make it better for this moment or some part? And maybe that’s a coping mechanism. Yeah. But I think it’s great that that you really have this, like, how can wanting to always and always do more, but do you feel a burden with that?
00;22;26;19 – 00;23;11;25
Guest: Kristy Johnson
I do, but I think I’ve kind of mastered a good balance with it. I don’t. Yes, I would love to wave a lawn and fix everybody’s pain in addiction and reunify everybody with their kids. But if I can wake up and know that I made a difference. That’s all that matters to me. Even if it’s answering the phone.
When somebody calls from prison or writing a letter back to somebody that I get a letter from, from the prison. Like it’s the little things to me, you know? So I don’t really look at it like a burden. Now, if I was out there fighting for this and fighting for that, that would feel more like a burden. But it’s the little things to me day to day that I feel like are very impactful.
On the grand scheme of things.
00;23;11;26 – 00;23;42;19
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
Yeah. And I think this is where there’s a misalignment in terms of impact sometimes, you know, you initially feel like you have to change these policies and you have to, you know, get all the right social workers. But there was this one sentence that Chrissy, who works for she’s a deputy warden in the North Dakota Department of Corrections.
I had asked her, what is it that is most significant to keeping juveniles and women safe? And she said, relationships.
00;23;42;20 – 00;23;43;10
Kristy Johnson
100%.
00;23;43;10 – 00;23;59;20
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
And what you’re describing is if that’s what is the most significant in keeping people safe, and that’s what you’re doing. You’re having the biggest impact. And maybe it is a little less burden. So it’s almost like you get you feel like you’re actually doing something to make a difference.
00;23;59;21 – 00;24;29;29
Guest: Kristy Johnson
100%. And yeah, rapport essentially. So I go to the women’s prison once a month to help out with their peer support stuff. And the girls that I’ve gotten to know there, you know, we email back and forth and I feel like just because they’re able to establish a relationship with a healthy person and that person can keep them connected to resources.
So when they don’t hit the streets, they’re right back at it. That, to me, can change somebody’s the trajectory of somebody’s entire future. So I love that she quoted that relationship thing 100%.
00;24;30;00 – 00;24;53;24
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
Where do you think judgment fits in? You know, someone like you said, stigma, and you describe these people that you remember, that feeling that they gave into your heart when they judged you, knowing you for 30 minutes, maybe, or overnight, how how negative on someone’s life and their future can judgment be?
00;24;53;26 – 00;25;26;03
Guest: Kristy Johnson
I think judgment can change somebody’s entire life 100%. I think judgment can pressure people that might not have the their own personal advocacy skills to make decisions that they’re going to regret for the rest of their lives. Judgment is it’s one of the most powerful things that people don’t realize. A lot of people will say, oh, just ignore it and let it roll right off your back.
Well, what about the people that don’t know how to do that? What about the people that have kind of just been beaten down their whole lives and they’re just like, okay, yep, I’m nothing.
00;25;26;04 – 00;25;27;08
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
And they believe it.
00;25;27;10 – 00;27;49;21
Guest: Kristy Johnson
When I was in the hospital and, that nurse just kind of gave me that look of pure disappointment. I left there. No, it’s not her fault. I wanted to make the decision to align myself when I left. But that judgment when I was already broken down to the world and just felt like a monster and the biggest piece of garbage way it is, triggered something in me to be like, I’m done, I’m done.
I’m doing nothing but hurting people at this point, you know? So yeah, but with that, I the reason I like to mentor girls and I know we haven’t touched on this, but my biggest passion is working with families in the child protection system, moms and the incarceration rehabilitation realm. I love peer support. I love watching people get their kids back in court.
I love just all of that. I just love wrapping my arms around the community and people that have gone through similar things that I have. I think the most powerful part of my story is that I, I would not take no for an answer. And so I, like I always like to share with people when I go into a jail or I’m connected to a mom, or I get a letter from an inmate or something, somebody saw my story during recovery.
Reinvented is I give them a lot of people will meet me right now and not have any idea what my backstory is, and they don’t realize that I’m a felon. They don’t realize that I’ve struggled with drugs for almost ten years. They don’t realize I’ve been locked up. I don’t know how many times, you know, and I always I use it as the caveat to I don’t care what your past looks like.
The State of North Dakota Behavioral Health Division hired me as a felon. Okay, the state of Minnesota. So all those times I was going in and out of prison, I was getting a business card slid across the table to me that says Minnesota Department of Corrections. This is my info report to me, blah, blah, blah. I have one of those business cards with my name on it now, you know what I mean.
And so I don’t share that to gloat. I share that because a lot of people go through the system and incarceration and even start opening the doors of rehabilitation, not ever thinking they’re going to be able to amount to anything because of their past. And I feel like people can literally do anything they want when they have the right people around them.
If we have judgment judging people around them, they’re not. It’s hard to break out of that. You know, I did a lot of what I did alone, very alone. It was the hardest thing that I ever did, you know.
00;27;49;23 – 00;28;37;28
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
So when you shifting a little bit to I’d like to talk more about family because you have such a direct experience when it comes to children and families and like the next generation, but also your own childhood in growing up. Do you think that it was do you think there would have been a way, even within everything, that you had to experience, that you could have been on a different path where you didn’t have to go through the addiction and all the incarceration and all these kind of struggles all. Was it just this, the, I would say, the bad luck of being in these moments that kind of put the drugs in your in your pathway?
00;28;38;01 – 00;33;09;06
Guest: Kristy Johnson
I think it was the perfect storm of things. I for a long time, I resented my mom for years because I was like, why? You know what’s going on? Am I not worthy enough? You know? And but I know in my heart that my mom did everything that she could with what she had, but I think I was just subjected to a lot of different things, foster care and kids in there talking about how great drugs made them feel.
When I’m feeling very sad that I’m in a foster home on Christmas, little things like that, you know, or knowing that my mom and my dad just they couldn’t stand that they had a kid together. And, you know, so there’s all these little ingredients that I feel like rested in my soul where it created this desperation for me to try anything if it helped me escape.
So hearing people say, well, and looking at people like, oh, I got a really bad life, but this makes me feel good. Or even the people that had a totally normal life and they’re like, I do this every day, you know? It was just the perfect storm of, well, I’ll give it a try. You know, there are kids that have quote unquote normal upbringings that still end up so it’s so hard to say.
I mean, statistically, my life unfolded exactly how it was supposed to, the pre genetic disposition to having two parents that have their own struggles, you know, and things like that. You know, it was it was hard. And another little irony that I’m not sure you’re aware of is a couple years ago. So two years ago this April, I decided to send in my ancestry because I wanted to know more about my heritage.
You know, I wanted to make more like, ethnic foods or, you know, just different things for my kids. And I ended up finding out that my dad was not my dad, and I was just blown away, like, what’s next? You know, and my mom, she’s like, Chrissy, you know, we parted so much back then. I’m like, it’s all good.
Like, whatever. But inside I’m like, you know, when my dad and I have already had not, we were never very close. You know, there’s always a tension. You know, my dad was an alcoholic. And it’s sad because I used to joke with, you know, my grandma, like, are you sure I don’t have, like, some dream dad out there, you know, that maybe could love me better or something.
You know, not understanding addiction myself as a child. You know, what he was going through with alcohol. And anyway, so I find out that my father is not my father and I my top matches. I messaged this girl. She ended up being my sister. She’s my sister. And I still was like, oh my God, I can’t wait to meet my dad, you know?
And I gave his she’s like, well, his this is his name, blah blah blah. And I gave that information to my daughter’s father, who works a lot in the rehabilitation realm and a criminal history stuff. And he called me and he was like, so do you want the good news of the bad news? And I’m like, what’s the good news?
And he’s like, well, he’s still alive. And he’s like, but he’s in prison. And I’m like, oh, okay. You know. And so and then so I get even more familiar with the true pre genetic disposition that my biological dad has struggled with severe addiction issues, mental health since he was very young, you know. And so even that even though my other dad was an alcoholic like it just started to fit more, you know, my sisters went through a lot of what I went through.
I have two sisters, which is awesome. What my younger sister has her own struggles. I haven’t met her yet, but my sister that I’ve gotten to know has been amazing. I’ve always wanted sisters and so it was kind of like a silver lining situation, you know? And so when you look back, you know, as to what you say, like, is there anything that could have subjected you to a different upbringing?
I don’t think so. You know, I look at the pieces of how my life unfolded. I look at how it’s unfolded now. I look at the things that my sisters grew up in. Even though we were so close, they literally lived a mile away. They went through the same similar things that I did, you know what I mean?
But they were subjected to completely different things, you know, and it’s so it’s like apples and oranges, you know, it’s like there’s statistically. Yeah, kids that go through what I went through, they end up in prison, in jail and repeating the cycle. But I don’t think it has to be like that. Right. You know.
00;33;09;07 – 00;33;29;19
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
So so if something could have changed it, it might have been more support even for your parents, you know, whether it was before you were born or when you were a child, finding ways to stop those moments that you had to experience from continuing to the degree that.
00;33;29;21 – 00;34;07;07
Guest: Kristy Johnson
Yeah, when I remember being in a social workers office when I was like 11 or 12 and the whole focus was on me, okay. But it should have been on my family. It should have been on us as a unit. It should not have been Opal, this is going on. Christies not behaving. This is going on in this home and blah blah blah.
Willis just shuffle her around instead. It should have been what’s mom struggling with? How do we help? What’s dad struggling with? How do we help? How do we help this family as a unit? Not just take this one piece and just shuffle it over here? That doesn’t that’s never made sense to me. I think services should be family focused, not individually focused.
00;34;07;08 – 00;35;21;10
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
That makes a ton of sense. And it’s when I think about it and I’m sure you as a mother, like you’re constantly in a change of trying to make yourself better while being the mom. And it’s never perfect. I mean, it’s always different, but I really like what you’re saying in terms of I mean, it’s like the original community a little bit, right?
It’s this group of people that have to work together to be better for the next generation. So when it comes to being incarcerated as a mother, I imagine that every mother probably has totally different experiences, but there has to be some pretty tough choices, whether it’s, you know, deciding to plead guilty or not guilty or what that means with who’s going to take care of your kids, you know, when you’re going to see your kids.
Do you feel like there’s any opportunities to make things better for families in terms of how that all plays out today in North Dakota, for instance, you know, in terms of seeing each other or how that interaction works.
00;35;21;13 – 00;41;21;26
Guest: Kristy Johnson
North Dakota has a lot of great things that, for instance, Minnesota doesn’t. But one thing that has really kind of driven me crazy on both sides of the river, I pretty sure North Dakota is the same way as the permanency timeline. So basically what a permanency timeline is, is anytime a kiddo ends up in like foster care, temporary foster care, it triggers a clock and they only have X amount of time to do their time, get their shit together and get their kid back.
And if that alarm clock goes off and it’s not done by that time, you don’t ever get another chance. And I struggle with that because everybody’s journey is so different. And I think a lot of people are given this negative message when they get locked up. Well, just do the right thing and sign your kid, sign off your on your kid, do the right thing and blah, blah, blah.
You know, there’s a lot of different pieces that go to it. When I was in prison, there was a parenting program. You know, some people could bring their kiddos in and things like that to visit, you know, and I think that I think there should be more leniency because connection is huge relationship and rapport. They’re huge. And I think there should be it doesn’t matter where it is.
I think there should be more trust when it comes to in more opportunity to keep families united even during incarceration, bringing them out into the community like a human being and letting them sit at a park with their child, or letting them sit at a park with the kids as foster parents or adopted adoptive parents. You know, I think more people need education on instead of getting that person out of our lives, because that person did some wrong things and they’re addicted to drugs and we just need to keep them away.
There should be more openness into that conversation, because what people don’t realize is while you’re shunning that parent away, you’re hurting that child. That kid is going to want to know when they’re older. And it’s it. By the time I was locked up, I didn’t have any rights. My kids, I couldn’t send letters, none of that. And so.
And I’ll talk about my son, I anytime I get locked up, you know, I’d have my grandma or my mom send me pictures of him because he was my goal. He was always my goal. One day I’m going to get out and I’m going to come for you, you know, and I, I just wish there would have been more support for that because it’s easy for a court system to say, okay, this parents out of the picture now.
Good luck. I think there should be more effort. There should be more education, more effort, more opportunity to keep things united when there’s let’s say the dad side of the family doesn’t understand addiction. There should be some type of clause or something to maintain connection between a parent and a child, not let them get shuffled through the system.
Expect them to show up to court dates and just sign their kid away. Like there needs to be more open doors. Because when we’re sitting, when politicians and social services and whoever are complaining about all these statistics of the cycles repeating, well, then why don’t we get a little creative with how to break those cycles in? If we hate it so much, why aren’t we fixing it?
Why aren’t we trying something different? You know, I tell a lot of moms that are in, incarcerated, in prison, in jail that I said, you know, I can’t guarantee this, but I will bet I would say 99% of all of your guys’s kids. One day, they’re going to want to know. One day they’re going to reach out.
It doesn’t happen for everybody. You know, some kids are like, nope, I don’t want anything to do with it, you know? And I share the a neat little caveat of my story with my firstborn, which Jonathan was actually involved in, which was crazy. And so it it was hard. I, you know, dad, his dad would never answer calls, which I understood.
You know, I didn’t want to pop in in and out of his life. And so fast forward, you know, I turned my life around, I get my license, and I filed a petition to see my son. And so the judge, you know, father’s side of the family was like, nope, nope. We don’t want anything to do with her.
We’re good. The judge was like, well, hold on, let’s let him decide. Let’s let the kiddo decide. So we went to two sessions of reunification. Reunification therapy. This was about five, six years ago. And, you know, then the therapist got an email from dad and he was like, you know, he’s just not ready. So I was like, okay, one day last year, I get this weird friend request and I thought it was spam.
And I’m like, weird. Well, anyways, I get a text from a friend from JLG and he was like, oh, so this person has been like blowing up the Recovery Reinvented page. They’re emailing us over here. They say they’re looking for you. We don’t know if it’s like a bad person from your past or what the heck, you know, because you know, how easy would that be?
And I was like, I got here. And I go look back at that profile. And it was like some it was a weird name. So of course we all thought it was bam! And I scroll down and it’s my son’s birthday, and I messaged it and I said, Caden, question mark. And he said, mom and I just I lost it.
And I messaged my friend Jonathan. I said, Jonathan, it’s my son. And it was just it was just a he wanted to know. He wanted answers, you know. And we’ve talked consistently ever since I’ve been united with him. And I share that with the girl said although you may not feel there’s open doors right now, do not give up.
Do not give up. Like, don’t I always? I encourage the girls to write a letter every month to your kid, save it. And then one day you can show them whether they want to read them or not. That you didn’t forget about them, that you thought about them. I absolutely wish again, there were more open doors and more programs to keep that rapport, not just in the community, but between families and education.
Like, okay, I know you think they’re addicted and they’re a bad parent, but we need you to put in some work over here to not just them.
00;41;21;27 – 00;41;34;01
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
So that’s a very powerful story. And I’m so grateful that you’re reunited with your son. Yeah. That’s so powerful. I.
00;41;34;01 – 00;41;38;07
Guest: Kristy Johnson
Kind of lost my.
00;41;38;09 – 00;42;02;00
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
I just want to maybe close on two things. First off.
The world is not magical. But if it were, and if you could have a superpower, you know, even if it’s not related to this at all, what would that superpower be for yourself?
00;42;02;02 – 00;42;47;02
Guest: Kristy Johnson
So hard? Oh, gosh. There’s so many things in the world that I would want to heal. If I had a superpower.
Oh, gosh.
That’s a tough one, I think. And I could wave a magic wand. I would want there to be more love in the world. I’d want there to be more love, more love and openness and education and just willingness to understand something that you might not understand instead of passing judgment. A lot of people pass judgment because they were they were affected negatively by I just want more love in the world, you know, more love, more openness.
00;42;47;04 – 00;42;58;19
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
So you’ve been a part of this for a large portion of your life. Do you feel like there’s more hope now than there was, you know, when you were first incarcerated?
00;42;58;21 – 00;43;53;13
Guest: Kristy Johnson
1,000%. 1,000%. When I was incarcerated, I never heard of peer support. I never heard of people hiring people like me to help people like me. Neck. No. Never, ever thought I’d get a job as a felon, let alone getting hired by the state of North Dakota and Minnesota. No, never. I think lived experience and recovery. I think it’s huge.
I think it’s powerful. Some people think that there’s too much tied to it. Like, why are people making such a big deal out of it? You’re in recovery. It’s not just about being in recovery. It’s about being determined. Whether it’s recovery, whether it’s in education, whether it’s a job you want, whether it’s a building you want to build.
It’s about determination and not giving up and hope, you know? So I absolutely think the world has changed 100% for the better. And I think even in another ten years, I think it’s going to be even more great.
00;43;52;15 – 00;44;35;15
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
I have a neighbor who went through the military, and I think it’s called basics Basic Training, and he was describing to me how they had to go through this mind shift as they started basic training, because at the very beginning, one person would get picked on and blamed for why everyone had to work harder or wake up earlier, how they all had to suffer because of one person that was just picked out.
And in the beginning they felt maybe judgment or anger towards that one person. But as it evolved, they realized that that person could have been any of them.
00;44;35;17 – 00;44;35;29
Guest: Kristy Johnson
Yeah.
00;44;36;00 – 00;45;55;25
Host: Jennifer Burke Jackson
And I see so many ties to the rest of our life with that. You know, I think it’s so hard for people to realize that anybody can become addicted to meth. Yeah. I was sitting in a hearing when I worked for Senator Conrad decades ago, and they had people testify to help explain what it felt like to be on meth and the way they described it, walking into a room, feeling so confident, feeling like they were worth something.
You know, the description of it is something that all of us would be, would want to experience again. And there’s just so many factors that come into it. So I’m really grateful that things are getting better. And I just hope that you can see how much of a testament you are to humanity in general. You know, I mean, you’re such a brave, well-spoken person that’s making the world better in meaningful ways that are obvious.
So thank you for all that you’re doing, and thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And of course, of course.
Thank you for listening to the Community Matters podcast by JLG architects.
