Single mom finds confidence, rebounds from addiction, abuse

Sherry Bravenec remembers that cold October night as a turning point in her life.

Addicted to drugs and fleeing an abusive boyfriend, she was living in a borrowed car with her 5-year-old son, Hunter. She awoke to find him curled up on the passenger side, shivering uncontrollably.

The sight brought her to tears.

"I can't keep doing this to him," she vowed, taking off her coat to cover the boy.

The moment sparked a personal transformation that took two years and, she said, wouldn't have happened without agencies such as Hopelink, the largest social-services agency in East King County. Hopelink is one of 12 agencies assisted by The Seattle Times Fund for the Needy.

"Hopelink saved my life, " said Bravenec, 35, who before her world fell apart was a PTA president and owner of an Auburn beauty salon.

Today she is drug-free, employed as a hotel front-desk supervisor and living in an Issaquah apartment. Best of all, her children respect her again.

Bravenec's downward spiral started when she took up with first one and then another wrong kind of man — "bad boys" as she calls them — who seemed to be fun risk-takers at the time. But the men either introduced her to drugs or abused her verbally and physically.

Over a period of five years, Bravenec grew addicted to meth, abandoned her salon business and stopped paying rent because much of the money was going for drugs or other useless items. She and her three children ended up living on welfare and food stamps and were evicted from several apartments and houses. Oldest daughter Ashley assumed the role of mother.

"I just didn't care about myself anymore," Bravenec said. "Inside, I had a lot of pain. I could get high and I wouldn't care."

She did tell her daughters to move in with their respective birth fathers, "to be safe and out of danger's way." But Hunter remained with her.

It was only after a boyfriend brutally beat her — a few minutes before Hunter arrived home from school — that Bravenec finally found the courage to leave. To keep their whereabouts secret, she moved from random campsites to hotels to friends' couches to the car. A subsidized membership at the YMCA allowed them to shower and swim.

All the while, she kept using drugs — "I tried to quit, but I couldn't. I just didn't know how."

Their homelessness lasted six months, until that night when Bravenec suddenly saw how her choices were hurting Hunter.

On a friend's advice, Bravenec called Hopelink.

"Help me. I don't know what to do," she begged.

The agency's case managers nurtured and coached her and the kids back to mental stability and independence. Hopelink's mission is to promote self-sufficiency among its clients and help them make lasting changes.

"We think in the long run, it's much better to help people really learn to manage better for themselves in our society than just continuing to provide assistance," said Marilyn Mason-Plunkett, Hopelink's president and chief executive.

As a first step, Bravenec and her son were placed in Hopelink shelters, where they were given new clothes and food. Then the family was referred to a shelter run by the Eastside Domestic Violence Program. They lived there for five months while Bravenec participated in drug treatment and counseling for victims of domestic violence.

She learned that the abuse she endured was not her fault and that she didn't need to relieve the pain with drugs.

"I learned how to love and like myself and my kids and to realize that I'm OK," said Bravenec, who moved into permanent low-income housing once she was stable.

But her transformation was far from over. For the next two years, Bravenec participated in Hopelink's two-year family-development program, in which she relearned how to be a parent and how to set goals, manage money and cook on a budget.

Last year, Ashley was able to take an $800 school trip to Disneyland because Bravenec scrimped and saved all year to come up with the money.

Hopelink continued to be involved, finding Bravenec an internship with the city of Issaquah, then helping her write résumés and even giving her gas money to get back and forth to job interviews. That led to her first paid position in five years as an office assistant with a deli in Redmond.

As she progressed, Bravenec often felt overwhelmed and intimidated: "I didn't have the confidence anymore."

But her case managers kept pushing her to not settle for minimum-wage positions and to be all she could be.

"To be honest, I think the real kick in the gut for Sherry was that she'd lost so much of herself," said Susan Sisko, one of her case managers. "We had to talk a lot about how to trust herself to step out."

Bravenec said she's telling her story to let other abused women know that "they can get out" and there are agencies that will help them.

Last month, the time had finally come for Bravenec to bid Hopelink goodbye. Two of her children — Hunter, 7, and Ashley, now 14 — live with her in the tiny apartment. Bravenec's other daughter, Morgan, 10, remains with her father but sees her mom and siblings often.

Her accomplishments feel liberating, but they've also opened a whole new and scary chapter in life.

Bravenec's dream is to one day manage the hotel where she works. But as her salary increases, the net of social services that supported her family through terrible times — such as subsidized child care and lower rent — will eventually disappear.

Can she make it on her own?

There really is no choice but to try because she's come so far, changed so much.

"I don't want to go backwards. And I'm not going to go backwards," she insists.

When she worries out loud about having money for this or that, her young son sometimes will ask: "Mommy we're not going to live in a car anymore — are we?"

Bravenec cringes at the memory, but can answer now with true confidence: "Never again."

Marsha King: 206-464-2232 or mking@seattletimes.com