Triggered<\/strong><\/p>\nBack in Utah where she was running a Best Western motel in the mid-to-late-2000s, a police officer walked into her office and asked if she had watched the news on TV that day. She hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
He told Tegen that one of her son\u2019s elementary school teachers had been arrested for molesting multiple students in his class. One of the victim\u2019s was her son.<\/p>\n
For Tegen, it was too much to handle. All of a sudden traumatic memories of her own childhood sexual abuse \u2014 perpetrated by a trusted family member, every summer since she was 8 years old until she was 13 \u2014 came rushing back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I didn\u2019t have problems with it,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought, you know, I\u2019ve heard people say they have flashbacks, they have nightmares. I didn\u2019t have any of that until my son got molested. Then I had flashbacks, I had nightmares.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Tegen learned about her son\u2019s molestation she had been clean for 18 years, her former crack addiction well behind her. She began using the street drug at 16 years old.<\/p>\n
The consequences of childhood abuse can have lasting negative psychological and metal health impacts, which can lead to hard drug use, alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, suicide attempts and eating disorders, all well into adulthood. (Victims of child abuse and neglect are also more likely to commit crimes as juveniles and adults.)<\/p>\n
Tegen just recalls not caring about anything at that time and wanting to party. That\u2019s how she met a guy \u2014 eight years older than she was at 16 \u2014 that introduced her to crack at a party.<\/p>\n
She spent the next six years getting off of it, with help from her parents \u2014 both of whom are drug and alcohol counselors. She\u2019s the sixth of eight children, raised just outside Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n
She was able to get off drugs and was in a stable place by her early 20s. At 21, she met a man in the Air Force who had never used drugs; by 23, they were married. She never touched the stuff again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI married him, and I stayed clean for 18 years, 12 of them I didn\u2019t smoke a cigarette,\u201d she noted. \u201cI didn\u2019t even drink caffeine.\u201d<\/p>\n
But news of her son\u2019s molestation shook Tegen, then 39, to the core. She went to see a counselor, who then referred her to a psychologist who prescribed her with two anti-depressants and sleep medication such as Ambien and Lunesta.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, I\u2019m taking all these drugs, which are OK because it\u2019s a doctor giving it to you,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n
Tegen said she made it through her son\u2019s teacher\u2019s legal proceedings \u2014 the teacher pleaded guilty and is serving a 30-year sentence, according to news reports \u2014 but shortly afterward, things fell apart. Her husband was deployed to Afghanistan, leaving her alone with her children. One night, she went out drinking with friends. One of them offered her methamphetamine and she tried it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I loved it because guess what?\u201d she asked. \u201cI could stay up all night long. I could stay up for days and days and days, and I didn\u2019t have to worry someone would come in our house and hurt me or our children while I was asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
She smoked meth a couple more times that year, but things didn\u2019t get too bad until 2010. Her husband had returned from overseas and they began having issues at home and decided to separate. She moved in with a person she had smoked meth with, a huge mistake she realized too late.<\/p>\n
She began smoking meth regularly, touching off an addiction that would ravage her life for the next five years, landing her in jail multiple times, and in an out of treatment.<\/p>\n
At the time she began using regularly, Tegen lived paycheck to paycheck \u2014 she had moved jobs and was working as the office manager of the Tooele County landfill, where she was in charge of hiring, firing and a $2 million budget. She\u2019d buy drugs in bulk to make sure she never ran out. Sometimes, she\u2019d sell it to her friends for cheap.<\/p>\n
She was able to hold on to the county landfill job for about a year. Then, they announced they would begin drug testing. She resigned, knowing she would fail.<\/p>\n
She continued using, even when her 11-year-old son found a baggie of drugs in her jewelry box, which led to a family confrontation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember the first year, and you would think that it would have stopped me, I remember so many times my kids saying, \u2018We just want our old mom back,\u2019\u201d she said, crying. \u201cThat should have been enough to stop me.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2018We are the unwanted\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\nAt 41 years old, Tegen got her first criminal conviction since she was a teenager. She was driving in an unlicensed, unregistered vehicle and had a $200 warrant out for a few parking tickets she hadn\u2019t paid. The police officer pulled her over, searched her car and found a baggie of drugs with residue in it, enough for a possession charge.<\/p>\n
She spent six weeks in a Utah county jail, but only lasted two weeks in a court-ordered drug treatment program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took me a month to find the way to that (detox) place that was 15 miles away,\u201d she smiled, shaking her head. \u201cI did stupid stuff that made myself end up in prison. They found a syringe in my jail cell, so then the judge just had enough of me. He was done. I was an idiot. And I deserved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge gave her seven months in the slammer. When she was released, she found herself woefully unprepared for sober living.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole time I was in there, all I could think was when I get out, I just want to hug my kids, I want to be home and cook some spaghetti, or you know, you think about everything you want, and life is going to be perfect the minute you get home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Instead, she stayed in bed for days. Her kids worried, and told her they feared they would find her there dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so depressed,\u201d she said. \u201cI kept thinking I wish I was back in prison! I was happier then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing prepares you for the fact that you\u2019re going to get out, and you are now a loser,\u201d she said with a straight face. \u201cYou\u2019re a felon. People used to come to me offering me jobs. Nobody\u2019s going to do that. Even worse, my children have friends whose parents no longer want them hanging out at our house because \u2018she\u2019s been to prison.\u2019 Suddenly, you see yourself through other people\u2019s eyes, and maybe even more critical than they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview at LCCC, she threw out a hypothetical: What if your sister came home, and said something like, \u201cI just met this great guy! He works with me, and he\u2019s been out of prison for eight months, and he\u2019s doing really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you going to say?\u201d Tegen asked. \u201cYou\u2019re going to say, \u2018Hell no, what is wrong with you?\u2019 You\u2019re going to slap her upside the head. We are the unwanted. You go to prison, you go to jail, everyone forgets you but the ones who truly loved you.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Drug binge<\/strong><\/p>\nDepressed after her stint in prison, Tegen began using again. After a while, she came clean to her kids (three of whom were grown, one who was still in high school, and the youngest in junior high) and told them she had relapsed. They rallied behind her, and the family moved to a small town in southern Utah, close to Tegen\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
But things didn\u2019t get better.<\/p>\n
The school system found out that Tegen was a meth addict, and had left her 16-year-old daughter at home for two days alone while she traveled to northern Utah with one of her sons.<\/p>\n
Tegen lost custody of her children. She said she didn\u2019t feel like she had anything to live for anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even know how I survived the next two months after that,\u201d she said. \u201cI was doing massive amounts of drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n
She went on a \u201cdrug binge from one end of the state to the other\u201d during that time in 2013, and eventually realized she was going to end up in prison again or dead. She took one of her brother\u2019s up on an offer to stay at his ranch in Oklahoma. It was there she got clean again.<\/p>\n
But then, she got a call from an old friend \u2014 one who lived in Juneau with his two daughters. He was undergoing knee surgery. Would she mind coming up and helping him recover post-surgery?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Juneau<\/strong><\/p>\nTegen arrived in Juneau with one of her sons. Long story short, her friend was using pills and she began using meth again. They got engaged, which was a bad idea, she said.<\/p>\n
She began to realize she needed to leave Juneau, but she didn\u2019t have any money left. An opportunity presented itself \u2014 someone offered her money to fly to Utah, pick up drugs and bring them back to Alaska.<\/p>\n
It would have gone according to plan. With the drugs stuffed in her purse and in her bra (\u201cI\u2019m chesty, so they didn\u2019t notice,\u201d she said), somehow she made it through security in Utah and Sea-Tac.<\/p>\n
But unbeknownst to her, someone else had been arrested four hours before she was and tipped the authorities off that Tegen would be importing drugs to Juneau that day.<\/p>\n
Law enforcement officers were at the airport waiting for her. Her friend was waiting for her at the airport and watched. He later sold all her stuff and used it for drugs. Her 17-year-old son was stranded here. The family retrieved him shortly afterward.<\/p>\n
At first, Tegen was in denial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kept thinking, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll be out of here in a minute, … and then I realized I wasn\u2019t going to be out of here in a minute.\u201d she said of her time in jail. \u201cIt takes a little bit before you start thinking with a clear brain.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Reflecting, behind bars<\/strong><\/p>\nDuring an interview at Lemon Creek, it\u2019s clear Tegen is smart, educated, charismatic and funny.<\/p>\n
But she struggles with an overload of emotions. She said all addicts have a hard time loving themselves.<\/p>\n
She said she feels guilty about what she put her family through, especially her children, whom she said she \u201cexposed to a world they never should have been exposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 46 years old,\u201d she said. \u201cI mean, come on. You should have it all together by now.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has low self-esteem and is hard on herself. She refers to herself constantly as a \u201cpiece of crap\u201d or a \u201cs\u2014head.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, she\u2019s also optimistic about her future. She writes and receives letters from her parents and children almost every day, talking to them on the phone when she can. Her family never shut her out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m lucky, I\u2019m truly lucky I have family that is still reaching out to me, and is still willing to love me in spite of myself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Tegen said now that she\u2019s had time to reflect, she realizes she has a full-blown addiction, one that she will have to deal with for the rest of her life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you put a dog in this room,\u201d she said, \u201cand you\u2019ve starved them for two weeks and you put some rotten meat up there and you open the cage with that rotten meat sitting right there, what\u2019s he going to do? He\u2019s going to go eat that rotten meat. Even though it doesn\u2019t smell good. That dog has been starving for two weeks. He\u2019s going to tear apart anything in his way and go eat that. That\u2019s what a drug addict is. That\u2019s what it feels like.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she\u2019s confident she can stay clean \u2014 she\u2019s done it before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI chose to use,\u201d she said. \u201cI can honestly say this: I really loved to get high. I really do, but I really love my kids. And so, I will just have to spend every day, for the rest of my life, fighting for my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rayda Tegen had a husband, five children and a $40,000 a year job in Tooele, Utah, for the nearly 20 years she was clean. It\u2019s a stark change from where she sits now, wearing a yellow prisoner outfit and shackled in handcuffs inside a no-contact visiting room at Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau. \u201cIt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":23548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23547"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}