By Dr. Dretona T. Maddox, DSW, MSW, BSN,RN-PHN, LCSW

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I didn’t just survive my story—I earned it.

I’ve been a homeless teen, a mother before adulthood, and a woman without a mother to call her own. I’ve also become a registered nurse, a licensed clinical social worker, a professor, a nonprofit CEO, a public health advocate, a wife of over 30 years, and a mother of six.

I’ve collected titles and lived experiences.
I’ve been in policy rooms and prayer rooms.
And what I’ve come to understand is this:

Just because someone has made it doesn’t mean they aren’t still carrying what almost broke them.

In my work with teen parents—especially those who “beat the odds”—I’ve learned that many are still grieving silently. The world sees the resilience, but few stop to ask what it took to get there. What it cost. What was buried in the process.

The teenage mother may have grown up. She may have earned degrees, built a career, raised a family, started a business—but the ache of being judged, rejected, or dismissed during one of the most vulnerable seasons of her life often never truly goes away.

It lingers—in quiet moments, in rooms where she's accomplished everything but still feels unseen, in the subtle fear that the world still defines her by what she survived instead of who she’s become.

I know this not just as a social worker or a professor, but as someone who lived it.

For years, I overachieved to out run my own ache. I collected title after title, poured myself into nonprofit leadership, taught the next generation of social workers, and kept moving. But I never fully stopped to ask what the girl inside me still needed. What the teenager in me was still carrying.

Eventually, I realized I wasn’t just leading—I was still searching. Still hoping someone would look at me and say, “I see you.”

What saved me wasn’t another goal. It wasn’t a promotion or another credential. It was purpose. And not the kind that’s about productivity. The kind that’s born in silence. The kind that shows up when you sit with your ache long enough to let it guide you.

I began to see that the question many people are asking—“What’s my purpose?”—is often buried under pain they’ve been taught to ignore.

Purpose lives in the places we’ve tried to forget.
It hides in the questions we’ve been afraid to answer.
It reveals itself when we stop pretending to be okay and start getting honest about the parts of our story we’d rather skip over.

In social work, we are trained to assess, to treat, to intervene. But what if we also saw ourselves as witnesses to identity? What if we didn’t just aim for stability but created space for people to become whole?

That requires slowing down. That requires seeing clients beyond their paperwork. That requires remembering that healing doesn’t always happen within the timeline of services. Sometimes it happens years later, when the world has stopped watching.

I meet former teen parents who are now successful women—CEOs, clinicians, educators, and leaders—but they still carry the sting of being discarded. And the worst part? No one checks in anymore because the assumption is, “You’re doing great.”

But high-functioning does not always mean healed.
Resilience can be loud enough to drown out pain.
And many people have learned to wear their success as armor to protect what was never acknowledged.

This is the part we, as social workers, must confront.

We cannot measure success by silence.
We cannot assume someone is okay simply because their crisis has passed.
We must stop defining healing by outcomes and begin practicing care that honors the whole story—even the chapters that look like triumph.

When someone has made it, we should still ask:
What are you carrying?
What are you still trying to prove?
What would it feel like to just be—without having to perform your worth?

In my work supervising social work students and training nonprofit leaders, I often share this: the most powerful thing you can offer someone is permission. Permission to grieve. Permission to question. Permission to tell the truth without fearing they’ll be dismissed or re-shamed for it.

We’re not just here to fix people. We’re here to free them.

And sometimes freedom sounds like, “You’re allowed to tell your story.”
“You don’t have to apologize for needing more time.”
“You’re not broken—you were burdened. And you’re allowed to lay it down.”

I carry a deep conviction that social work is not just about managing cases—it’s about restoring humanity. And sometimes that means circling back, reaching out, and creating space for the kind of healing that doesn’t fit neatly into a treatment plan.

The truth is, many of us are still carrying something.
We’ve made it, yes. But we’re still carrying it.

And maybe that’s the moment when ourwork becomes most meaningful—not just when we help someone survive, but when wegive them permission to finally breathe.

About the Author:
Dr. Dretona T. Maddox, DSW, BSN, RN, LCSW, is a assistant professor, registered nurse, licensed clinical social worker, nonprofit CEO, teen parent advocate ,and podcast host. As the founder of Akin2Wealth Consulting and Purposely Chosen, Inc., she empowers women to turn pain into purpose, identity, and legacy. She is the creator of the documentary Worth One’s Salt and the podcast Healing Starts with Hello.

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