Resilience in the Face of Adversity: Tracey Downing

Earning a Behavioral Health/Human Services (BHHS) degree will allow Tracey Downing to help individuals as a support specialist, just like others have helped her throughout her life. The first graduate of the College’s I Am More initiative, which assists justice-involved individuals earn an education, Tracey invites others to learn from her story. With assistance and knowledge she received from others, as well as the BHHS program, she also has come to understand the challenges she has been confronted with in her life.

Tracey was in and out of rehab programs, and institutionalized at times. She  accumulated a record with retail theft associated with active addiction, leaving her mom to raise her six children. “People who were trying to help told me ‘We hope you’ll get tired of this. We see so much potential in you. We hope you make it. We see something in you that you can’t.’ In many county jails, prisons, and recovery programs, counselors and psychiatrists embraced me with unconditional love, education, and knowledge. It still took years to get sober.”

Tracey has been in recovery for 12 years, which started during her last incarceration. After transitioning to a recovery house, equipped with goals and a plan for the future, a son tragically passed away, but Tracey was able to remain sober. At PRO-ACT, which offers educational resources for those in recovery, she earned leadership and group support certificates, and noticed a CCP flyer for those who have experience in the justice system. She has been at the College since 2017, continuing her education through a near death experience and more heartbreak.

A diabetic coma and then a stroke left her on life support and unconscious for weeks; a month and a half in a physical rehabilitation facility followed. After the death of a daughter, BHHS faculty helped her through the funeral and the grief. Despite excruciating muscle pain from fibromyalgia, arthritis, myalgia, and neuropathy, Tracey traveled to campus for classes and frequent tutoring, which provided the extra help she needed due to a learning disability. She had COVID-19 and surgery for gall stone removal. With the support of friends, family, her College network, and her Narcotics Anonymous and Alcohol Anonymous sponsors, Tracey pushed through these hardships to continue with her education.

“I am at awe at the team of professors in BHHS. Their support enabled me to have more confidence and believe in my abilities. I’ve learned so, so much from the professors and staff at CCP. It has been an awesome, rewarding, fulfilling, life-changing, transformational gift of self-discovery,” she said.

Tracey now understands the circumstances that affected her, and knows her family did the best they could with what they knew and what they had.

“My mom was a nurse, and an awesome provider. She would give gifts but did not openly express her feelings because of her painful childhood and life experiences. My sisters and I didn’t want for anything, but there was not much nurturing,” she said.

Eventually, Tracey started looking elsewhere for affection; first, with a grandmother who struggled with alcohol abuse, and then to others in her neighborhood.

“I never felt I fit in or belonged, which was part peer pressure, and part verbal and emotional abuse. I started to feel a deep sadness. I became the neighborhood drifter, looking for love and acceptance.” Societal beauty standards that did not include girls who looked like her, and trauma from sexual abuse and rejection, contributed to her self-destructive behavior of drinking and skipping school. After an abusive relationship, Tracey gave birth to a daughter when she was 16. Eventually, Tracey was eventually able to secure an apartment for her and her child after getting a job in a nursing home. Shortly after, Tracey became addicted after freebasing, and continued drinking.

Now, she has tools she needs to guide her journey.

“I have the spiritual gifts of kindness, compassion, self-determination, courage, resilience and helping the community. My everyday skills are yoga, eating healthy, mindfulness meditation, prayer and faith in Jesus Christ,” she said.

Tracey relates her experiences to the agility of a boxer, dodging punches, getting knocked down and getting back up.

“That’s the story of my life: pivot,” she said.