Amber Bigelow grew up too fast.
Amber’s parents divorced when she was just a baby, and she was raised by her mother, who Amber says struggled with alcohol. “I took care of her more than she took care of me,” Amber recalls. Meanwhile, her dad and brother lived in a different city, suffering with addictions and unhealthy behaviors of their own.
Amber was a poor kid who struggled to make friends and mostly bonded with much older kids. “I never really fit in anywhere,” says Amber, who lived in Minnesota at the time. “I always got good grades in school, [but] I was picked on a lot. I was kind of bullied.”
