Vision problems began at an early age − along with arthritis and, later, the emotional and mental abuse she says she suffered at various points in her life.
The financial poverty she suffered through seemed, at times, to be secondary to the emotional poverty she endured.
» MORE FROM THE POVERTY PROJECT:
Poverty can be brought on by unforeseen problems
She recounted a story that happened back in first grade when she was ridiculed while making an Easter basket for hospitalized children.
“Me being the compassionate child I was, a Pisces girl, at the bottom of the basket I wrote, ‘Love Steph.’ Sending love to whoever it was. Some little boy sitting next to me looked and said, ‘No one’s ever gonna love you Stephanie.’ That kinda stuck.”
Emotional poverty is real, brought about by financial poverty, and creates stress and despair. In a 2013 column, the Yale News provided this insight:
When the wealthy suffer from emotional poverty they usually have the resources and the community to either pull themselves of the situation or to find help. But to suffer from both intense emotional and material poverty leaves an individual with next to nothing. Endemic poverty perpetuates itself when people grow up without unconditional love, communities that care, schools that are safe to learn in, bedtime stories and much more.
Research also shows that poverty can have a long-standing impact on the emotional health of the people who suffer through it.
Johnson has beaten both types of poverty, has survived, endured and become a star in her own right.
Clients pay to hear her advice on life, love and whatever revolves in each caller’s world.
The siagnosis
Since age 3, arthritis has deformed her hands, slowing her step and mobility. Glaucoma has tested and partially taken her sight, leaving only shades and light in her right eye.
Johnson describes her conditions that have affected her since she was young:
“For the most part, I’ve had rheumatoid arthritis since I was 3-and-a-half. It caused the joints to fuse together, the physical deformity that goes with it. They were putting a T-shirt on me and my elbow got stuck and bent. After that, it just wouldn’t go back straight, that’s when they started taking me to the doctors and had my diagnosis.”
At the age of 10, Johnson had her first eye surgery due to her arthritis at Ohio State Medical Center. The procedure involved scraping off the calcium and phosphorus buildup on the cornea.
Despite the surgery, her vision remained 20/40. Infections lasting for weeks caused her to wear patches on both eyes.
Johnson developed a fear of surgery, caused by the number of doctors she had seen. After deciding against another surgery, her vision began to deteriorate. Her condition affected her ability to gain employment.
To date, Johnson has endured 12 eye surgeries.
“I’d applied for Medicaid when I went out on my own at 21,” she said. “The problem was a lot of people don’t want to hire you because you don’t have the physical aesthetic or template that everybody else has. People are kind of weird about hiring you with any physical issues. At the time I didn’t have any problem or limitations to working, I just couldn’t get hired. No one would give me an opportunity.”
Johnson survived with the help of her monthly disability check, along with medical and food assistance and the occasional trip to the food pantry. After the birth of her son Nick in 1992, she received additional assistance.
She described how her condition caused unique challenges during her pregnancy:
“I was always told to never have children. When you get pregnant, you go through chemical, hormonal changes. When you have children in this condition, it’ll make things worse. I never really had any problems while pregnant. I had a low iron count and was critically anemic because of a family blood disorder. Otherwise no limitations or issues with lifting and bending, I was 25 when I had him.”
Johnson made the decision to raise her son by herself, due to the father living many states away, and not wanting to subject her son to living two different lifestyles.
Another operation on her eye was done in 1993, the same procedure she faced many years prior.
“We did the same procedure scraping the crap out of my cornea again,” she said. “I was still having trouble. They told me I had cataracts in both eyes and glaucoma in my right eye. They went in and did a double procedure on the right eye for the glaucoma to relieve the pressure. They took the cataract out of the eye and it had little feelers that wrapped around it. It was weird, hard as a rock. The doctor said it was the worst cataract he’d ever seen for someone my age. His comment was, ‘you’re gonna be in a medical journal somewhere for that one.’”
Johnson was awake during the procedure as they cut the feelers from the cataract in her right eye to take it out. Several instruments were used to attempt to remove it, including cauterization.
“It took them 20 minutes, it was that stuck in my eye,” she said.
The procedure was done four months later on the left eye.
Moving out on her own
She left her grandmother’s with what little she had, temporarily moving in with her father and his girlfriend. A huge argument sent her father, her and Nick out the door — forcing her to drive around aimlessly.
With nowhere to go in a rental car with toys and the few items she had with her, Johnson called a friend from a payphone at a McDonald's.
Johnson stayed with her friend for three weeks before finding an apartment.
“That was the only time there were concerns,” she said.
With $300 in cash — the last of her money — she described this as rock bottom.
“I moved into my own apartment in ’95,” she said. “I didn’t have anything except garage sale items. I had to go — it was a dire situation. My grandmother was just hellish, very domineering and controlling. I moved to Bellbrook. All I had was a big wicker chair, my stereo, my bed, a bed for Nick, a dresser, a bookshelf, a few things for the kitchen, and a table we found by a dumpster.”
After moving out of the apartment years later, her vision began to get even worse.
“When I moved out of the apartment,” she said, “my vision started looking really hazy and foggy, (so I) went back to Ohio State and three different doctors and a retinal specialist said because of the numerous surgeries my retinas were severely dry and looked like really long, deflating balloons.”
Johnson had to have injections in her eyes for 17 years to maintain her sight.
After an intraocular surgery failed — it involves implanting an artificial lens in the eye — they decided to fill her eye with silicone oil.
“My right eye’s always the worst, still is,” she said. “I can only see shadows and light out of it.”
Kindness during the holidays
When Nick started preschool, his teachers helped Johnson and him get assistance from a local Catholic church for Christmas.
Due to generous donations, Nick received what every kid dreams of: toys, and lots of them. Along with the toys came Kroger gift certificates.
Johnson received a couch, a loveseat and a television from a woman in the church.
Christmas decorations and canned goods were donated by a collection effort from the bus drivers at Nick’s school, and a Girl Scout troops donated food and toys.
Because Johnson was not able to drive, she began receiving a monthly check of $75 for cab fare from the Lions Club.
“A lot of good things came from that time frame,” she said.
A friend even gave them a washer and dryer.
“We were pretty much set,” she said. “We had finally moved into a house. I’d gotten with somebody at the time. We eventually broke apart and I stayed there a long time.”
Finding her career
While in a store in downtown Bellbrook called Mother Nature's Touch that specialized in natural products — an area she was quite knowledgeable about — she was introduced to a job opportunity by someone working at the store.
From 2000-02 she reorganized the store, made flyers and performed psychic readings.
“He was the first person in, like, forever who took a chance on me and gave me a chance to work,” she said. “Everywhere else, I’d get rejected or never called back. I always assumed, you physically looked different with a noticeable disability and not everybody looked that way. Let’s take you aside and throw you in a closet somewhere so nobody notices.”
She was taught Iridology — the reading of the iris, homeopathic and herbal remedies. Her reading allowed her to build a client base.
The closure of the shop prompted her to begin her home business. Johnson received her master teacher certification in Reiki, a form of alternative medicine.
“I had taken psychology at Wright State, never finished,” she said. “Through my healing work I’d be doing people a bigger, better thing than being licensed to prescribe drugs.”
Foreclosure on the house
Johnson’s house was foreclosed on in 2015 due to unsafe living conditions — including black mold and no heating. She was able to obtain emergency government housing, which took three months despite being on priority for being disabled and having a low-income.
Losing the house was emotional for her and Nick.
“We’d been there since he started kindergarten through graduation in 2011,” she said. “He had all of his years there, junior high, high school years, friends and neighbors.”
During the coldest, harshest months, Johnson and Nick survived with two space heaters and electric blankets. They received approval for government housing after the current apartment was inspected. They moved in February 2015, right before the freezing weekend came.
“We had the furnace at 68 (degrees) and were so used to living in iceberg conditions that it was too hot,” she said.
Building her career
Johnson has worked for Psychic Stars for four years and makes enough to survive.
She works on a per-minute tier system. She’s managing roughly $2,500 a month, which could change at any time.
With severely limited opportunities, it’s a job Johnson thrives in. She has good and bad client stories.
“There are a lot of people that call that want psychic guidance but there are also people that don’t have any friends,” she said. “They need somebody to talk to with a little daily advice.”
Johnson wants to return to practicing Reiki as a way to expand both her services and income.
She attributes her vision as her biggest obstacle, due to having to be more careful in unfamiliar places.
“This was caused by the rheumatoid and inflammation of the eye,” she said. “Everything that came with it is par for the course for patients with arthritis.”
Emotional struggles of childhood
From a young age, Johnson’s self-esteem and emotional well-being were affected by family and school.
At 5 years old, she told her grandma that she loved herself and was so happy and proud about who she was.
Her grandmother said, “No don’t say that, you’re just egotistical, when you say things like that.”
This was just yet another instance of the toll her experiences had on her self-esteem.
“I got shut down mentally and emotionally at a young age,” she said. “I had the right idea, but the people around me were putting a leash on me saying you shouldn’t say that or feel that way about yourself, ‘You’re not lovable’.”
Johnson struggled with the relationship with her grandmother, who wanted to both protect her but also made her feel isolated.
“The one thing I was told was, I was like everyone else… but,” she said. “My grandmother had a twisted view, you’re normal but you can’t do this or that.”
For fear of injury she wasn’t allowed to take gym class. At 11 and 12 she wasn’t allowed to cross the street by herself.
“She’s telling me I’m normal and fine, then showing me ways that I’m not,” she said.
Her grandmother didn’t want her going back to school due to her eye surgery.
“She wanted me in her gilded cage,” she said. “I went back in the seventh grade for the social aspect of things. That woman would not talk to me for a week. She was (upset with) me for wanting to go to school. I didn’t want to be around her, in the house, doing nothing but sitting on my little perch.”
Her life now
Johnson’s condition has impacted how she interacts with those around her.
“They don’t really bother to look, see or understand what’s on the other side of the book,” she said. “There’s a story there that could be really good, but they’re gonna pass you over every time because they’re either uncomfortable with the way you look or they just don’t wanna deal with it.”
Johnson’s greyhound dog of many years, Bella, has been her faithful and loyal companion.
“She’s been real good; she’s provided me unconditional love and companionship,” she said. “I had her since she was seven months old. She was being beaten and going to the pound.”
Johnson is now the customer favorite on Psychic Stars and a featured star.
“I’m the only psychic with the title of customer favorite,” she said. “I’m the welcome wagon, the cream of the crop.”
She is her own boss, making her own hours and schedule with her own client base. She currently attends a weeknight workshop at a spiritual center for continues improvement.
“I can do a lot of things and still keep working,” she said.
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