This is my Story

My Name Is Maurice and I Lived

My name is Maurice R. Barnett Jr., and for most of my life, I walked a path that many people don’t survive. I didn’t just face challenges — I lived inside them. Mental health struggles, childhood trauma, substance use, violence, and the criminal justice system shaped me long before I understood what any of those words meant.

I was born in Regensburg, Germany, on Thanksgiving Day in 1963. My father was in the military, so my life started in motion. My earliest memories are from snow filled days in Denver, Colorado. By 1968, we landed in Long Beach, California — the east side, the ghetto, the place that raised me and nearly destroyed me. I grew up surrounded by things no child should see. By the age of seven, I had already witnessed more violence and tragedy than some people see in a lifetime. Those moments didn’t just scare me — they rewired me.

Although learning came easy, school didn’t make sense to me. My behavior didn’t make sense to the adults around me. After psychological testing, I was told I had a “chemical imbalance.” No one explained what that meant for a kid who already felt like the world was too loud, too fast, and too dangerous.

When my parents separated at twelve, I chose to live with my father and stepmother in the Wilmington projects. That year was filled with abuse, neglect, and a deep sense of powerlessness. I learned early that sometimes the people who are supposed to protect you simply don’t.

By thirteen, I was back in Long Beach, and that’s when I met the streets — and the streets met me. Marijuana led to harder drugs, and drugs led to crime. I didn’t fall into that life by accident. I was drawn to it — the adrenaline, the planning, the feeling of beating impossible odds. But underneath all of that was something darker: a fading moral compass and a desperate need to numb the parts of me that still cared.

Every arrest I ever had involved drugs. Every conviction was tied to the lifestyle I used to escape myself. By twenty‑eight, I had five prison terms behind me, back‑to‑back, with barely enough time between them to breathe free air. I’ve been housed in prisons all across California — Chino, Tehachapi, Corcoran, Soledad, Folsom, Lancaster, Donovan, and more fire camps than I can count. I never joined a gang. I kept to myself. I read the Bible. I worked out. I stayed alive.

But the truth is, I wasn’t just running from the law — I was running from a moment in 1981 that changed everything. I was high on PCP, paranoid, and convinced the police were after me. I drove myself to the station to turn myself in. Instead of help, I got choked unconscious by a jailer. I woke up in a hospital bed, revived, handcuffed, and charged.

There was no justice for me in that moment. So, I created my own twisted version of justice: I built a strong bond with my homies, committed crimes and got away with them. The more we got away with, the better I felt. It became my therapy, my rebellion, my way of taking back power. But it also destroyed relationships, distanced my children, and contributed to the collapse of my marriages.

Eventually, the anger faded. The pain softened. And in 2005, after my second marriage failed, I reached for something bigger than myself. I reached for God. I joined a church, became a devout Christian, studied scripture, prayed, served, ministered, and even pastored. For ten years, I walked the tightrope of Christian discipline, trying to understand my purpose.

And then, slowly, I realized something: My purpose wasn’t hidden in the pages of a book. It was written in the pages of my life.

Everything I survived — the trauma, the substance use, the prisons, the injustice, the faith journey — shaped me into someone who could help others climb out of the darkness I once called home.

Today, I work for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health as a Substance Abuse Counselor and Certified Medi‑Cal Peer Support Specialist. I stand here not as a man defined by his past, but as a man who transformed it into a roadmap for others.

My name is Maurice. I lived through hell. I learned from it. And now, I help others find their way out, because I lived.