NEW YORK, USA — Tesha Allison’s life experience is the stuff of which movie scripts are written.

Forced to drop out of high school after becoming a teenage mother at 15, she would thereafter face a mountainous climb out of excruciating poverty.

Dropping out of school was bad enough for the Clarendon girl, but the situation, she said, was “made worse as people in my community of Mocho, where I was born and raised, were not too kind to me after I became pregnant”.

“I was branded, humiliated, and stripped of my voice by my community,” she recounted for the Jamaica Observer. “I was publicly shamed.”

Prior to that, her world had begun to crumble when her father migrated to the United States. Unable to adequately provide for her and her siblings, her mother Elizabeth Allison took the decision to send her away with the hope that things would be better.

At eight years old she was living with extended family on a farm and remembers “having to wake up before dawn to reap fruits, feed animals, wash my own clothes, and walk three miles to school, often without shoes on my feet. I was treated like a servant”, she recalls.

“There was no electricity, no running water, telephone service, nor was there any proper transportation system in place to serve the community,” says Allison.

She recalled, too, how her mother and herself were practically ostracised as they were forced, along with three other family members, to occupy a run-down building previously used as a bakery.

“It was so hard for us at times, and people taunted us for ‘living like rats’,” Allison tells the Observer, noting that she ended up in a women’s centre in May Pen, the Clarendon capital. Although things at the facility “were not 100 per cent great”, she was able to resume her education.

The hard life had taken such a devastating toll on her to the point where she didn’t know what to do with herself or what she wanted to be. One thing, she knew, however, was that she wanted to live.

“At some point I began to realise that maybe I could be brilliant at whatever I decided to do,” she remembers. That thought turned out to be correct, as she was able to pass nine subjects at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate level while attending May Pen High School.

A decisive turn in her life came at 17 when she migrated to New York, USA, though her battle to succeed was never going to be easy.

But she had turned into a fighter who used the harsh lessons of her previous existence as the foundation upon which to build.

Unlike most other newcomers at her age, Allison did not enrol in the formal education system in New York. Instead, she decided to join the army. The sojourn was short-lived, however, as illness forced her to leave after a few months.

She was eventually able to secure a job at an investment firm on Wall Street, where she spent just over two years, before deciding to move to Florida, as she did not want to raise her young daughter in New York.

She subsequently decided that it was time to arm herself with a higher education, and pursued undergraduate studies even while working in wealth management, and during a time when she gave birth to two more children.

Juggling work, raising kids, and studying became a real challenge. “Along the way there were a lot of tears, frustration, and sleepless nights, but I had made up my mind that I would succeed. I came up with the phrase, ‘Yes, I am doing this’ as my motivation.”

And succeed she did, graduating with a bachelor of science in business administration with a minor in human resources from Barry University in Miami Shores, Miami, Florida. Still, the unusual circumstances of Allison’s life were not yet over.

Despite this success, Allison wanted more and so she decided to go into law, enrolling in Florida International University (FIU) College of Law in Miami. She recalls having to breastfeed one of her children while studying and working, and being forced to take out loans to put herself through university. There would be more.

One day, in an advanced stage of pregnancy, as she was sitting exams in law school, Allison suddenly went into labour. She informed her nervous invigilators, and while they would have allowed her to leave for the hospital, she decided she would “work through the pains and tough it out”.

While in law school, Allison said, she also worked as a mortgage broker, but was forced to declare bankruptcy following the 2008 financial meltdown in the economy. She was, however, able to successfully complete her Doctor of Law degree.

Twenty-seven years later Dr Tesha Allison is now head of her own law firm, The Law Office of Tesha Allison PA, an accomplished author with four published books, and an empowerment coach and speaker, among other stupendous achievements, given how far down she was coming from.

Four-time author Dr Tesha Allison

It took her four years before she began practising as an attorney she tells the Observer, noting that before doing so she had to represent herself before the Board of the Florida Bar of Examination, the body responsible for background screening of new attorneys.

Not one to forget the challenges and obstacles she faced along her journey, Allison has launched several initiatives she hopes will help others to succeed.

One such is Thrive Thru It, which is not just a programme but a sanctuary for people who have had to endure “real hardships, challenges and suffering, but have seen success”.

She has also founded the Inspired Nexus Network, a transformational platform and movement, “where personal evolution meets practical empowerment and helps people remember that they are not too late, not too far gone, and not disqualified”, according to Allison.

Armed with a Certificate of Legal Education from Norman Manley Law School, Allison is also licensed to practise law in her native Jamaica. She has appeared on various news networks including NBC, Fox 5DC and Business Insider, among other outlets.

The now mother of eight has become a gladiator in the arena of life.

Dr Tesha Allison addressing Glenmuir High School students at their graduation dinner last month.