About Me

So, he left when I was nine years old & I was crushed. I didn’t completely understand what was going on then, but I knew he wasn’t coming back. As a little girl, no matter what my dad did, I would always love him. I guess I just always wanted to be a daddy’s girl. I just wished he could of been the father that I had pictured in my head. Me and my brother were both messed up over it all. I turned to “eating my feelings” so to say. So not only was I broke emotionally but I was also known as the “fat kid”.  My mom had me in little league softball since I could walk, along with dance and piano. I was really dang good at all of them but my passion was ball. I played every year, all year long! I did select softball, school ball, batting lessons, indoor practices in the winter, etc. My uncle and mom was there with me every step of the way. (He was the dad I wished I always had) Ball helped me lose some of the weight but I still was “bigger” than most girls my age.

In middle school and high school I was trying to “find myself”. Threw it all, I always had softball, but who was I? I struggled with this a lot! I went threw an “emo stage” where I wore nothing but black and baggy clothes (trying to hide my rolls). Then I went threw a “preppy stage” trying to fit in with the popular girls in my school. I even tried out for the cheer leading squad!! To say the least….it was a complete disaster! and I was humiliated. And all of this just confused me more. I know every kid goes threw this stage of trying to decide where they fit in at, but for me, it was more than that. I guess I just wanted that acceptance from others because I never got it from my own father. So to say the least, these issues went deeper than normal for me. I started to get bad body image issues, I started to get depressed, and I started hanging out with the wrong people because I felt “accepted” by them. I started to go down a road that was going to change me for the rest of my life.

Threw out the years, I tried to find my dad. I had a family friend who had the “in” with certain people. I would get an address or phone number but by the time I found the information, he was gone again. I still to this day don’t understand why I kept looking for someone who didn’t even try to have a relationship with me. When I was sixteen my father called our house phone (I know right?! who even has a house phone anymore?) and asked to talk to me. He told me he was dying of lung cancer and that if I wanted to see him to come to the address he gave me. So I went, I mean wouldn’t you? I got to spend one day with him and went back home, broken, even more than I was before. I got a phone call not that long after stating that if I wanted to see him one last time to get up there because he was going soon. I rushed up there in my little black ford escort and watched him take his last breath at sixteen years old. I went back home and just when I didn’t think I could get any more broken, I felt something in me change.

When I had the time I did with him, I wanted to ask him every question that ever ran threw my mind. Why didn’t he come back to see me? Why didn’t he keep in touch? Was I not a good enough daughter? Was it something I did? Did he leave because of me and my brother? Why didn’t he love us the way I thought he should of? But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. Because no matter what kind of answer he gave me, it still wouldn’t of been good enough, it still wouldn’t of changed what already happened, & it still wouldn’t of made me hurt any less. So, I sat there with him, holding his hand wishing he could of been there for me like I was here for him right now.

In the next 2 years of high school my uncle and grandfather both passed away. The only two men who ever showed me what a father should of been like, had left me also. I was messed up and broken. I dated any guy that would give me attention and basically treated me just like my father did. I turned to alcohol, parting, and drugs. Somehow, I still went to school everyday & graduated high school with nothing less than a B. I don’t know how I managed to keep it all together to graduate school, get into a collage, & get to play softball there while I was parting so much but I did. It didn’t take me long to mess it all completely up though, I was on the road to self destruction, I just didn’t know it yet. I ended up getting arrested on campus, got put on probation with the college, and softball. Everything was slipping out of my hands and I was the sole reason of it all. But back then, I didn’t even know how to take responsibility for my own actions. I blamed everyone and everything for the things that were happening to me.

I ended up dropping out of college and went to go live with a boyfriend. I had lost everything, what else did I have to lose? Ha! I had a lot more to lose and didn’t even realize it. Like my self worth, my life, and my family. I got addicted to drugs and that became my life, for years! And in between I would get arrested, my mom would bail me out & help me get into a rehab, I would get clean for a while, and then go right back to the bullshit. Why? because I was weak. Because I would rather bury my feelings than deal with them. Because I had give’n up. Because I didn’t think I deserved happiness after everything that I had done and what had been done to me. Because I wasn’t pretty enough. Because of every negative thought that went threw my mind. I was stuck in this horrible mind frame and I didn’t know how to change it. I didn’t think I deserved to live.

When I had my first daughter Kylie something changed. I had a reason to live. I had someone who was depended on me. I had a purpose. And I promised myself I wasn’t going to be like my father to her. I was going to be better! I was going to be the woman I know I could be, because I came from the strongest woman I know, my mother! And I did! I was sober for a year and a half while I started to become a mother. After eight months, She was born premature. I stayed in the hospital with her for weeks as she grew strong enough to come home. Except, what was home? My boyfriends mom’s house? “Whatever, just make it work Rio!” That’s what I kept telling myself. I had no other choice but to be strong. But how is someone suppose to stay strong around another who is still doing bullshit? So I finally called my mom. “Mom? I need to get out of here! Please let me come home” Only I couldn’t go home. I don’t blame her, I had done some messed up stuff to her. But she still helped because I was still her daughter. So Kylie and I went to go live with my aunt. Which maybe wasn’t a good idea after all. I had someone who helped me with Kylie, finally! But it also gave me an excuse to mess up again. My thought process was that “Kylie has someone who can look after her a lot better than I can, I’m just a screw up dead beat anyways” So I went out and the process of me being addicted to drugs started all over again.

I knew what I was doing was wrong but I couldn’t stop it. The thought in my head to go out again was growing stronger and stronger each day and as much as I wanted to believe I was “cured”, that just wasn’t the case. I didn’t work on myself, I didn’t learn anything, I was just sober & taking care of a baby. I wanted to lock myself in jail so I couldn’t mess up but that wasn’t going to happen. At least not yet.

I missed so much with Kylie! I missed her first steps, I missed the late night cuddles when she couldn’t sleep, reading her books, and these are things I will never get back because I chose not to be there. I thought she was better off without me in her life. I was still there but I wasn’t really there, if that makes sense. My mom & my aunt basically raised Kylie together so I still got to see her when I was home but I wasn’t a lot of the time. My drug arrests finally caught up with me and I was sentenced to seven years. Your mom can only bail you out so many times before it’s in the states hand’s what they want to do with you. In Missouri you only do a percentage of your crimes, so I did a year in prison. I needed it. I needed to clear my head. I needed more than a 30 day rehab visit or a ninety day treatment program. And in that year, I learned a lot! Like how to respect people, how to deal with all my messed up emotions, how to love myself (flaws and all), and most importantly how to let go of things I couldn’t control. I took the time to work on myself because I wanted to, not because I had to do a treatment. I met so many type of people in prison that I made me really take a hard look at my past, my life, & it gave me time to process it all. At the time it happened, of course I didn’t like it, I balled my eyes out. Your whole life is taken from you. Your freedom you once knew, is completely gone. But it was the best thing that could of ever happened to me! I know that seems crazy but it’s true!

When I got out I knew things had to be different. I had to take the proper steps to make sure I was never going to go down that road again. It was hard out here, in the real world…It was easier in prison. See, out here, I HAD the freedom to do whatever I wanted, in there I didn’t. So I humbled myself to ask for help. I started going to a therapist. I went to a doctor that helped me identify how my brain works and what I needed to help me. I started to really dig deep at my problems and how to deal with them. How to stop thinking negative of myself. How to forgive myself for the harm I had caused others. How to forgive my father. This wasn’t no cake walk either! Were talking about a lifetime of emotions and trauma I never dealt with! But failing this time wasn’t an option. So I was open to just about anything, no matter how hard it was going to be.

God brought Kyle into my life at the exact time I needed him and I wasn’t even looking for someone! For once in my life I was working on me and I didn’t want to focus on someone else. But there was something different about him. He wasn’t like all the other scum bags I have been with. So to say the least, I was completely open to him about what I was going threw and what demons I was facing. That I would NOT sacrifice finding myself & my recovery for anyone! I was shocked that he just so willingly accepted me for who I was, what I was going threw, & respected that he was going to be on the back burner until I worked threw everything! And believe it or not, he actually helped me! He let me cry to him about things I was going threw and never judged me, he just loved me! He didn’t care what had happened in the past as long as he was there in the future. I have never had someone that was so there for me and Kylie! Who showed me what a relationship really is, how a woman should be treated, how to show Kylie what stability looks like, how she should be treated, to be a father figure in her life, & how to be just down right amazing!

I won’t sit here and tell you that having Kyle in my life wasn’t helpful because it was! But if he would of been anyone else, it would of destroyed me. If he would of been the same ol’ type of guy that I always went for, I would of relapsed. Going threw such things like this, your suppose to not be in a relationship for a reason! So you can focus on yourself and have no distractions. And the only reason he did help is because he let me focus on myself. He let me work threw things and was there when I needed him. He was patient with me. He didn’t demand attention. He was what I needed & will always need in my life. I won’t paint this as a beautiful picture for you because it wasn’t. There were a lot of tears. There was a lot of me being an emotional roller coaster and him not knowing what to expect out of me, but he never left.

It was hardest thing I have ever done in my life but I never gave up! Kyle never gave up. My family never gave up. And five years later, I stand here before you as a completely different person! As a stay at home mom of two beautiful girls, as a confident woman, someone who has been threw hell and back and came out on top, a woman comfortable in my own skin, a girl who loves fashion, who loves a good deal, who takes time for herself because I’m no good to anyone unless I take care of myself first, and most importantly a child of god, because without him I wouldn’t of had the strength to put one foot in front of the other to over come my fears.

I took back control of my life and that’s not an easy task to accomplish. When I look back on everything that happened, I thought that the world was out to get me, when really it was just trying to make me stronger. We can’t control everything that happens to us but we CAN control how we react to it. I just needed the right tools to do so. I had to COMPLETELY change my thought process. I always thought I was being judged by others, when really it was just ME judging myself. So one thing I did that helped this was putting post-its all over my house that had positive affirmations on them like “You can do anything”, “You are strong”, “You don’t have to be a size two to be beautiful”, etc. I didn’t believe them at first but as I started to repeat them day after day & the help of a therapist, I started to! And I still have post-its up around the house until this day! Working on yourself isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. It’s never ending and I’m okay with that because I like the fact that I can always be better than I was yesterday and that I can never stop learning!

If there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that life is short, too damn short. So be scared but go after your dreams anyways, don’t ever let fear hold you back, wear what you want, make a mess with your kids, dirty laundry will always be there (it doesn’t have to be folded the same day, just put it on another “fluff” cycle), don’t give a damn what other people think of you, a bad moment doesn’t have to turn into a bad day, always look at the positives never the negatives, always straighten your crown and hold your head high because you are a queen my dear, it’s time for you to start believing it also!

XOXO,

Rio Clemens

I was hesitant to write my life story because I was scared of how I would be judged, but at the end of the day only god can judge me. And I think he would want me to use this platform I have built to shed light on addiction, depression, life trauma, and the inspiration of how to come back from all of it. I hope you NEVER have to go threw any of these things yourself but if you find yourself in a position as such please get help, ask for help, message me, someone, anyone! As long as you reach out for help! If a close relative or friend needs help, all you can do is BE THERE for them but also don’t let them sink you while your trying to bring them up. The ultimate decision to get better, is on them. You can’t make them want to get better. In my experience, just don’t put forth more effort than their willing to put in. But there is always HELP! If you can’t help your friend or retaliative or even yourself, their is always resources that CAN help & have a lifetime of experience!  If you need help, below is the National Hotline for substance abuse and mental health website. They are open 24-7, seven days a week and will find you help! It’s never too late to become a better you! I’m not saying it’s going to be easy but it’ll be worth it! I promise you a thousand times over it’s worth it!

https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline