My Promise-A Legacy

No one in this life gets to pick the family they are born into. For most people it is nothing like the portrayals in pictures, books, or television. To be more exact no family is perfect. In fact behind many closed doors the reality is most families are dysfunctional with such problems such as alcoholism, drug addictions, eating disorders, abuse and other selfish behaviors that distract us from what our true purpose is in the world.

My life began for me as somewhat a normal kid who had such great promise and potential. But that soon came to an abrupt halt of reality when I realized we were not the perfect family. My dad was a workaholic and alcoholic. For many of my young years there was fighting and tension most of the time it was always felt like I was walking on egg shells. Before the age of nine I began to feel the shame because I felt responsible for my parents mistakes. The fighting got worse and included my older sister who always fought back and in once instance he ended up breaking my sister’s finger. As I sat back and watched everyone I recognized that I did not want the same to happen to me so I sat in silence never telling anyone.

During this same time frame I was molested by a friend on several occasions. I decided it was wrong so I stopped being friends with her. At this point I tucked it in the back of my mind because not only did I not want to think about it I was already dealing with the brokenness from my parents divorcing. It would later be suppressed for many years before I could deal with it.

When my parents divorced I was nine years old. I will never forget the day my dad was served the divorce papers. He came home like a wild man. It was a surprise to me as I lay crying in my bed. I came out of my bedroom and the words my dad sad were “Say goodbye because this will probably be the last time you will see me. “ Those words hurt deeply and on this day my father emotionally abandoned me.

Through my early teen years I was treated more like a wife instead of a daughter. The things that haunt me are the times he stalked our house by watching our every move and the day my sister refused to let him in our house. That day he threatened to get out his shot gun in his car and shoot us. As he walked towards his car my sister called the police as I hid in the closet. I have never been so scared in my life. As I took a look out the closet window I saw a gun raised up and I fell to the floor feeling helpless. Luckily it was just the police responding to our call.

My relationship with my dad was never normal. Instead of me being the child I became more like an adult or a wife to him. There were so many times I had to listen to all his problems. We took a train ride to New Mexico one year and someone thought we were married. I remember going places with my dad while he would get drunk and would later drive home intoxicated. One time we ran from the police so he would not get a DUI. Everything was about him and he never once asked how I was doing.

In my 7th grade year I began drinking on a regular basis. But when I would get too intoxicated I became unstable. My thoughts and actions showed pain and all the hurt that was deep inside. In high school I had no friends so I ended hanging out with the wrong crowd. Mostly we drank but sometimes who smoke pot. At one point my drinking got out of control and one time I blacked out. That night I was so emotionally in pain and was out of control crying out but no one knew what to do. I told my friends I wanted to kill myself and the only thing they did was put me to bed as they left me alone. Wow these were my friends? Things were the same up until I graduated I had made it through high school maybe now I can finally do something with my life.

Little did I know a month before my eighteenth birthday I would be raped. After this happened when I came home all my mother could do was yell at me for being late. At this point I decided I would forget about it. I ended up dating this guy for at least a year since I felt no other guy would want me. He was emotionally and physically abusive with me. I was pushed, shoved, strangled and force to wear and do things that were disgusting. When I finally walked away he continues to pursue me for at least six more months.

Once again I had dreams of finishing college and moving forward in my life. Thus this would be short lived. At the age of 23 I meet my ex-husband. He treated me well for a short time before we were married. After we were married the control began. He made it so I had no friends and the only people I could be around were his family. My ex would yell at the top of his lungs in front of others when he was mad which was degrading. Throughout almost 2 years of marriage I was told so many degrading things about myself, I was held over a two story balcony threatening to be dropped , I have jumped out of a vehicle because of us reckless driving and have had a knife thrown at me. Those are just a few things that happened. I was divorced at the age of 25.

As I began to start putting m y life back together I renewed my relationship with Christ. There was one more thing I had to do. I needed to understand what caused the abuse so it would not longer to be passed down. One day I found myself looking over my grandfather’s grave. I remembered being angry because he had abused my dad. As I stood there I knew I needed to do something symbolic to show a promise. As I pulled out a chained necklace I made a promise from this day forward the abuse would stop with me. As I broke the chain one half I left lying on his grave the second half I kept as a reminder.

Today I still have that part of the chain that I left with that day and I have not broken my promise. What I leave behind for my kids will be a home full of love and God. They may never know how hard it was getting to this point but I smile each day knowing I had the power to change my legacy for me, my kids, and hopefully for future generations.

Reflections of the Past

I believe in order to see progression in life you must sometimes go back and reflect on the past. When I go back over my entire life I begin to see the whole picture and this is where the pieces began to fall into place.

As I reflect back I begin to understand how the dsyfunction from my family life and the various types of abuse changed my outlook on life. The only way I knew how to deal with things was to isolate myself and not trust anyone but myself, not even God.

Through my earlier childhood until the age of nine I was a somewhat normal kid who grew up in a dysfunctional home with lots of fighting and instability, but I had happy times and believed in God. This would seem easy compared to what would come for the next sixteen years of my life.

During those sixteen years I was bullied, molested, raped, emotionally and physically abused. It left many scars and wounds that I suppressed which caused resentment, anger, isolation, emotional detachment, and spirtual void.

I finally began to understand there was deeper root to my problem. I realized I blamed God for all the things that happened to me. How could a loving God let all those bad things happen. I then began to understand that with good there is evil and no matter how good you are it doesn't mean bad things won't happen to you.

This was my first revelation in understanding where my anger truly existed. I then later on realized that evil is in the world, we can't control everything that happens in life and we can't control other people's bad behavior. I can only control myself in how I treat others and how I react to things in my life.

Then came forgiving all those who had hurt me. Even though I may never see any justice in this world, I know one day they will someday have to go before God and be judged for their actions.

As I forgave all those who had failed me, I had to forgive myself and had to let go of the responsibilty of all the things I could not control. I had to tell the girl inside who was failed so many times by people that I was letting her know she had no responsibility in all the things that had happened to her. For the first time I stood up not only for the younger girl inside but I also stood up for myself for the first time.

I now have healed a lot from those wounds and I also have renewed my relationship with Christ. There were so many times I look back and I thought I was alone but then I realized God was always there picking me up each time and pushing me to never give up.

Now, as I look back I have come so far from where I was thirty, even fifteen years ago. I now have a purpose in my life which is compassion and caring for others who are still going through the darkness from abuse. I will now give back what I felt I had to do on my own. There is no reason for people to go through the pain of abuse alone.

I hope someday, someone will do the same for another. If one person passes encouragement, support and compassion to other survivors then my vision will be complete. Thanks for all those who stand up and make a difference.