I began stealing at a very young age.

The first thing I remember stealing was a $50 bill out of an envelope from my aunty to my Mom. I told my Mom I found $50 blowing in the wind while I was playing at Topaz Park. She brought my sister and me to the Toys R’ Us and bought me a Transformer and my sister a little pony.

I remember being mad my sister got anything.

Over the years I developed a sickness around stealing. I believe it came from being angry at society.

I was smart enough as a child that I knew social injustice and inequality was common, particularly to women and First Nations; so I justified stealing in some way.

But my real sickness was stealing from people I loved. I did this for a couple of reasons.

First, I did it out of anger and hurt. I stole from my family because in my heart and spirit I was angry at them because I believed they stole me from my people. I stole from them because I felt abandoned by my mother and since she was not around I could only steal from the next closest thing, my adoptive mother. I knew this was illogical but by the time I was old enough to recognize that I had already mapped it out as an effective neural pathway for me to relieve anger and hurt.

I still struggle with that and it’s going to take a lot of work to fix it.

I also stole from people I love because I believed I wasn’t worthy of being loved, so I figured if someone loved me I should show them I wasn’t worthy of it. I think in some way I was scared of being abandoned so if I fell in love with a woman, especially deeply in love, I was so scared she’d leave me, I’d begin a cycle that was basically going to ensure she’d have to leave me. A self-fulfilling destiny or something.

Sure, sometimes, I steal shit to get high but there was always something deeper going on. I have always been able to support myself by crime and rarely did I ever need to steal from girlfriends or my parents. I did it to relieve some type of internal pressure. It’s caused a lot of pain for me and those I love.