I am Jess, and this is my story

I was born in Phoenix, Arizona to a 21 year old exotic dancer. She had problems with both substance abuse and mental illness. I am told as an adult that she herself had been victimized as a child, but the specifics are unclear as to what form that took in her young life. My biological father had been a cocaine dealer that my mother had met at work, and she ended that relationship before I was born. I was a missed appointment away from an abortion. My younger brother was born when I was four years old and my younger sister was born when I was nine. My sister was born with Cystic Fibrosis. Men would come and go throughout my mother’s life and frequented our apartment, sometimes coming to live with us in our two bedroom for extended periods of time. The first sexual assault I suffered was at the age of nine. I reported the occurrence to my mother but was not believed. Shortly after, I was assaulted by a close friend of my first attacker and declined to report the experience, certain that I would be dismissed again. The youngest child’s disease progressed in a direct parallel to my mother’s substance use, and we were caught in a perfect storm of her being unstable, alone, overwhelmed, addicted, and unable to cope. We had a team of helping professionals unable to differentiate between mental illness and meth psychosis, a suburb full of police officers with no idea what to do, a school with no experience dealing with families in crisis, and me by the age of twelve years old caught somewhere every day between administering medical treatments to my three year old sister, sleeping in the tube slide at the park, or having a live in relationship with a man in his thirties who told me when I met him that he liked that I still slept with a teddy bear. My mother had given him permission to date me if he could find her drugs and he paid more attention to me than anyone else ever had, so it didn’t seem like such a bad deal. I was just being really grown up was all.

I was removed by Child Protective Services on a day that I was in my mother’s home along with my brother and sister when she overdosed on a fatal amount of medication and had to have her stomach pumped. Our sibling unit was immediately split up. My brother was prepared to live with his biological father. My sister was prepared for a foster care facilitated adoption.

I excelled in school and began to thrive with the care that I received in the group home that I stayed behind in. I was afforded new clothes and horseback riding lessons. I formed bonds with other girls that had suffered in the care of their primary caregivers and we tried to live normal adolescent lives like those things had never happened in the first place. It almost worked. At age thirteen I was sexually assaulted by a staff member from the home that I resided in. I left, returning to the man who had traded meth for me in his driveway. At age fourteen I gave birth to my first child on the second floor of a hospital in Arizona, alone except for my new foster mom. I was not allowed to keep my baby.

By age eighteen I had another child that would be adopted out and was now working in the legal domestic sex trade as well as the illegal domestic sex trade, and modeling beneath a large west coast agency.

Substance abuse issues and eating disorders were my life, and they were robbing me of it quickly.

At age 21 I got sober after discovering that on my way to go start over in New York, I had become pregnant with twins. After the twins were born, I was blessed to attend four years of college, get married, have two more children, be reunited with my firstborn son and daughter, start two small businesses, write and publish a novel, rehabilitate terrified animals, live, laugh, love, and heal from wounds I thought would kill me.

Along the way I’ve been humbled by the strength of the survivors that walk the path as I do, and I need to make a space in this world for mothers who want a better life to parent in. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have to leave home. In a better world, it wouldn’t be so hard to leave.

Lucy Fur came into my life in 2021 as an abused 7 week old puppy. Half Mastiff, Lucy was destined to be a very large dog, so her traits of fear reactivity and resource guarding were going to prove to be a death sentence if she couldn’t be rehabilitated. Lucy today is bonded to me, and although the ultimate long term goal of fostering and rehabilitation is to find an animal the perfect home in the world outside after their rehabilitation is complete, it became very clear over time that I am Lucy’s home in the world. She is still young and training, but I feel confident that in time, Lucy will make for a very effective guard dog for the Leah’s Place comfort home.

You can catch up with me on Instagram to get a first hand look of what the life of a survivor looks like and get a behind the scenes view of upcoming projects!

Come take a look at our Permanent Animal Sanctuary residents and our hopes for bright, furry futures for them!

Permanent Sanctuary Residents

Feel free to email me with questions or information related to freedom for women and children Jess@leahsplace.space

I can be reached for urgent matters related to freedom for women and children at 585-698-8030

Thank you for stopping by!

Best regards

Jess Levinson