How it all Began (TRIGGER WARNING)
So, here’s my story. My life has always been a little different, chaotic at times and I’ve often felt lost. I grew up in a poor town on the edge of Boston, Massachusetts. My parents meant well. My father was a good provider and my mother was a stay at home mom. They did the best they could in their roles, but they were both mentally ill, and they struggled with addiction.
By the time I was able to grasp the severity of my father’s drinking problem, I was about 9 years old. This is when I started really leaning on my mother to take me and my siblings away. Where? I didn’t know, but I knew we needed to get away. My father was a two case a day drinker. He’d come home from work and I’d count the beer can tabs opening, knowing that after about ten it was time to get lost in my room.
Unfortunately, my mother didn’t have the option to just go somewhere else. So, when the tabs kept popping, you knew that soon there would be screaming and fists pounding. That was our daily routine.
When I was ten, I finally convinced my mother to take me and my younger brother and sister to go live with her mother. Which was only slightly better than being with my father, but at least it was safer.
The problem was that she decided to give my dad visitation rights on weekends. So, every weekend, my dad would show up drunk and pick us up in his Pontiac and zoom down the Lynnway going about 100 miles an hour to bring us to his house.
This lasted a few months. Then, one night my dad thought it would be funny to lock my younger brother (who was 6 at the time) in the closet, in the dark for an hour. I can still hear him screaming if I stop and think about it (I try not to).
I sat outside the door talking to him, trying to calm him down, trying to think of how to save him. He was screaming like something was in there with him. When I thought about that, I thought maybe there was something in there with him, and I couldn’t take it anymore. So, I opened the door and let him out. That was the night that everything changed.
Looking back now, I can see that my father had identified me as a threat. I had talked my mother into leaving him and taking his kids away. Then, when he came into the bedroom after I let my brother out of the closet, holding his belt, I said “My teacher keeps asking me about the bruises.” To my utter shock, he seemed to think about that for a moment, and he turned and walked out of the room.
Stepping Into My Power
That was when I realized the power of words and the importance of standing up for yourself and those that can’t protect themselves.
The next weekend, when my father came to pick us up, my brother and I were at my best friend’s house. When he found out where we were, he drove to the house and knocked on the door. That’s when my best friend’s uncle and adult cousins confronted him about being a drunk, wife and child abuser. I couldn’t trust my mother to protect us. So, I had asked my best friend’s mom to please hide us from my dad.
I don’t know how that confrontation went, but I never saw my dad again. That was thirty three years ago.
The Downward Spiral
Fast forward to my teen years, my mother decided to pick up and move out of town when I was fifteen. I was a Sophomore in highschool when we moved to a small fishing community on the North Shore.
I felt like I had been abducted by aliens. The culture shock rocked my world, and by the time I was seventeen, I had dropped out of school and started working full time.
Things began to spiral out of control shortly after that. I met a group of older kids that were in the rave scene (it was the late 90’s) and I became a full on drug addict. I didn’t have a drug of choice other than “whatever you’ve got”.
By the time I was in my late twenties, I was living in what I call a “heroin half coma”. I was a high functioning addict. I had a job and an apartment. But my life was a disaster.
I was dating the town dealer, and I had become a pretty grimy person. I sold heroin to people that were trying to quit. People that were supposed to be my friends. I played defense for my boyfriend, because he was constantly ripping people off. I had done a complete 180 from the bright, promising, straight A student that I had been before we moved.
The Turning Point
One night, my boyfriend brought home some Molly. It was a new drug that was supposed to be pure MDMA (it’s still pretty popular now). He told me to swallow it. So, I did. Because I trusted him, and he said it would be fun. That night, I was violently ill for hours. I have never been that sick again in my entire life.
After spending the night like that, I woke up in excruciating pain in my pelvis. Then, the bleeding started. I knew something was terribly wrong, but I didn’t know what. I tried to convince my boyfriend to go with me to the emergency room, but he decided it was more important to go make a deal. So, I went alone. I was completely unprepared for what happened next.
When I arrived at the hospital, I found out that I was having a miscarriage. They estimated that I was about six weeks pregnant at the time.
They sent me home with Dilaudid for the pain. When I got home I told my boyfriend what had happened, and all he said was that with my tolerance I would never feel the Dilaudid. So, he convinced me that I’d have to shoot it in order for it to help with the pain. I spent the weekend with him doing that for me (because I was never able to do it for myself). We never discussed the miscarriage, and I assumed it was because he just didn’t care.
Making a Clean Break
He and I were together for years. After that weekend, I woke up on Monday with a new mission. I was taking my life back! I found a roommate in another town and I left him and that small town behind me. Not to return for almost a decade.
I quit drinking and doing drugs cold turkey. I still remember what that felt like, and how unbearable work had been. I convinced everyone I had the flu, and hid in my room until it was over.
Getting sober isn’t just about quitting drugs. It took me years to get to the point where I didn’t want to get high anymore. After being sober for a while, I did something I hadn’t done in years… I went to see a Dr.
The Aha! Moment
That’s when I found out, at age thirty two, that I was Bipolar. All those years, I had been self medicating. Deep down, I knew that there was something different about me, but I didn’t have a name for it. I was a violent person growing up. After years of suffering physical abuse at the hands of not only my father, but all three of my siblings, I grew into a pretty nasty chick. I had a hair trigger temper and no problem with putting my hands on someone (man or woman) first and asking questions later.
Finding out that I was Bipolar was life changing in the best ways. I started to take medication and see a therapist and my life began to turn around.
My Rebirth
Since then, I have become a completely different person. It’s as though I died and was reborn. In 2017, I got married and changed my last name. The marriage only lasted six months, but he gave me a wonderful gift. I wasn’t Crystal Carabin, the drug addict, violent train wreck anymore.
I became Crystal Amar, the published author. Crystal Amar, the successful car salesman. I became the woman that I was meant to be all along. Medication and therapy saved my life.
The Mental Health Stigma
In 2019, I started a blog called Nevernaire. It was an underground hip hop blog where I interviewed up and coming indie rappers with amazing talent. After a while, I started the podcast, Crystallized Beats. I interviewed over 400 indie artists in four years, and the blog became super popular.
By 2023, I was interviewing high profile Hip hop legends like Jim Jones and Prince Po of Organized Konfusion.
During my time running the blog, something became glaringly obvious to me… I was well aware of the stigma that plagued all of us that were afflicted with mental health issues. But running that blog, and working with so many African-American men, I learned that mental health issues were viewed very differently in communities of color.
Because the blog was so popular, I decided that I needed to use my platform to foster awareness of how the mental health stigma affects African-Americans. I started to research mental health issues and communities of color and found that African-American men made up a very large percentage of annual suicide deaths in the United States.
I started to interview Rappers that were willing to discuss mental health issues and the stigma and publishing those interviews on my blog and podcast. You can listen to one of those podcast interviews here.
Then I began a fundraiser on Instagram and sent it to all of the Hip-hop celebrities that I had worked with in hopes that they would promote it, and it would catch on.
This issue is something that has remained very important to me. And I am very proud to say that I will be speaking at the Healing Together Summit that takes place virtually on November 29 and 30th.
Click here to reserve your free spot.
Shadow Work and Inner Child Healing
When I first started my sobriety journey, I searched for ways to ease the pain and suffering. That’s when I found meditation. I started off slowly, and worked my way up to twenty minutes, two times a day. The Headspace app has been a life saver for me. I highly recommend that everyone check it out. Even if you only have three minutes a day, meditation can still change the way that you think, and more importantly, how you react to the world around you.
Shortly after beginning meditation practice, I stumbled upon the work of Carl Jung, a psychoanalyst known as the founder of Shadow work. I found his work to be fascinating. After soaking up book after book, I began to incorporate shadow work techniques into my own healing journey. Meeting and integrating my shadow self allowed me to find a self acceptance that I had never felt before. I still use those techniques today.
The inner child healing process started about five years ago. It seemed to me that since I had accepted my shadow as part of myself, I could also heal my inner child. I was right in that the techniques are very similar, but healing my inner child proved to be much more difficult than integrating my shadow self.
My inner child was filled with grief and distrust. It took a long time for me to get her to trust me. But once I did, things moved along pretty well from there. I visit her often, and she now knows that I’m her ally and friend.
My New Mission
After a decade of sobriety and deep inner healing work, I have become a new person. A person that loves and protects herself, and has the ability to set healthy boundaries.
I want to share the techniques that I’ve learned with other trauma survivors. I want to guide others through their healing journeys in the same way that I was able to help myself.
That’s why I created Wistful Wounds Awakening. The programs that I have designed are made to teach survivors how to reclaim their authentic selves and become whole. I want to help people become themselves again. A better version of themselves, that is able to take on life without fear, anxiety or self doubt.
If my story and my mission resonate with you, please reach out. You can reach me by using the contact form below, messaging me on Instagram at wistfulwounds.jem, or you can even call me at (978) 306-4336 if that makes you more comfortable.
If cost is something that is potentially stopping you from reaching out, I believe that healing should be accessible to everyone. I offer a sliding scale payment plan, and I’m willing to work with you to create a program that will help you.
Thanks for reading my story. I hope to hear from you soon. Let’s get your feet on the path to healing so that one day you can tell your story with pride.
CHECK OUT THE ENTRY LEVEL 3 WEEK AWAKENING THE AUTHENTIC SELF PROGRAM HERE.
Are you ready to begin your inner healing journey? Let’s chat about how I can help you plant both feet firmly on that path. Click the image to schedule a free clarity session.
